Okay, here we go. This time from the Casablanca airport. Having a bit of a layover over here so let’s take this opportunity to add another piece to this legendary series called Shanghai Czech-in. Which has nothing to with Shanghai at the moment. But I’m still Czech. And I’m checking in. Anyways, let’s cover the rest of the adventures.
The last three weeks have been for the books. So much shit, it’s kinda difficult to wrap one’s head around it. Let me try tho. Last weekend I got back under the water. We went to one of two scuba diving centers in Dakar (actually also in Senegal and most likely in the whole Western Africa) and I conducted a try dive as an instructor. Because they let me. It was a boat dive not too far away from the beach right by the dive shop and it went beautiful. I had been out of water for a year and a half but everything immediately clicked and I felt like home. That made me super happy. Guess I have done enough dives for this shit not to go away. It was two instructors and two students, the other instructor being the dive center owner. A bit older French dude who was so unorganized, uncoordinated and annoying, it was fucking up my vibe a little. But I found my little pocket and eventually just enjoyed being down there. And I hope I’m gonna get to do more of that this year. Visibility wasn’t great as it was pretty sandy, but it wasn’t terrible neither and we did see quite some turtles. I really hope diving will make its way back to my life at some point. It’s love and ain’t going anywhere.
That was Saturday. On Sunday, we went to one of the bus station in the city and hopped on a minibus to Fimela. See, in Senegal you basically face four options when you wanna travel between cities. It’s either private taxi (the fastest but also most expensive and quite frankly most boring), buses (we took one from Saint Louis, they are pretty comfy but don’t go very often and don’t really cover small towns and villages), minibuses or “sept places” (they cover most of smaller towns) and shared taxis (they go pretty much anywhere as long as there’s enough people with the same destination to fill the car). Now, with private taxis and big buses you are somewhat in control of your scheduling. With minibuses and shared taxis not so much. You just show up, find a motherfucker that goes where you want and wait until the vehicle is full which can take between 2 minutes and 2 hours. We were kinda lucky tho; the ride was fast and cheap (around 6000cfa including baggage on the rooftop). And let me tell you, people throw anything and everything at those rooftops. I have seen stoves, I have seen buckets of fish, I have seen live (!) goats. I’m not sure what the manual says but I would not be surprised if it was something like “don’t place heavy objects on the roof of the vehicle”. Well, fuck that obviously. And it’s not just minibuses, it’s also the shared taxis, many of which are down to the skeleton and engine. Doors not working, windows cracked, wouldn’t go beyond gear 4, but still somehow magically going. With like half a ton of shit on the roof. It’s all a fucking experience, I tell you. Anyways, in Fimela, we ran into this local dude Omar (what’s up Omar!) who took us to the village of Palmarin for additional 6000cfa. The car was beaten as fuck but it was a reasonably short ride and the Omar seemed like a really cool dude.
Around the coast, there are about 4 villages called Palmarin which caused slight confusion but we figured it out. It’s an area from which they source salt, mostly for domestic market. You see many salt fields, you get to walk through some of them, it’s all very picturesque. We ended up staying in a remote bungalow for two nights. The accommodation was very basic and for the money we paid not that great but it provided some welcomed peace after the bubbly Dakar. Plus the beach was pretty much empty. The thing that always comes back is plastic tho. It’s really everywhere. Apparently, they try to deal with it, they try to educate people but it’s fucked. Infrastructure sucks, people got used to just throwing it around, and the amount of it (even in pretty remote locations) is alarming. You do get used to it but it’s really like a whole new element in the landscape. Sand, water, trees and plastic.
On Monday, we went to the office of their national park, got a guide and went for an easy guided tour. Now, the guy was this middle-aged dude who really wasn’t in the best shape but he was super nice. Told us everything, we needed to know, took us around baobabs, cattle and salt ponds all the way to this cute spot by some mangroves and then swam with us. It was a really cool lazy afternoon and man… Some of these visuals. Did way more video than pics but I’ll try to throw some around.
Tuesday, we called up my man Omar once more to take us to the village of Dangane (that was 10000cfa – still a pretty good deal). See our destination for the following two days was Mar Lodj. And in order to get there you need to take a boat from Dangane. And yet again, you got options. Either you get a private boat for about 3500cfa each (boring) or you do the public one (300cfa) with all the locals. Again, you really have no idea when exactly you gonna go but you always end up going and it’s much more fun. Both Palmarin and Mar Lodj were amazing in terms of lack of tourism. You see some whites here and there but it’s really super chilled. No resorts, no western restaurants, very basic infrastructure, very calm. Mar Lodj doesn’t even have cars so people use horses and carriages. Which reminded me of Gilli Islands in Indonesia. This time, we had a pretty awesome accommodation. Hammocks, nice room, beautiful surroundings. One day, we took a guided tour around villages nearby, we spent some time on some beaches and also paid a visit to this reggae place by the water couple of times. See, reggae is apparently a pretty big thing down there. I can easily imagine spending a month or two in a place like that. It felt therapeutic. Oh, and the night sky with no light pollution. Universe is gorgeous, all you gotta do is pay attention and give a fuck.
Thursday, around 11, we took a public boat back to Dangane and the we went on a streak of public taxis. We took the first one to Joal, then we took the second one to the Joal station, then there was the third one which took us to Diamniadio and the final one to Toubab Dialao. Shit took us like 5 hours, we had a chance to see some of the craziest cars but we made it and checked into the last hotel on our journey. And I’m gonna shout this one out because they are fucking incredible. Casa Yoss, what’s up! See, I usually don't have issues traveling as a vegan. It has never caused me any headache, if I mingle with locals and say I don’t eat this and that, I get no weird looks, I always find a way to keep my stomach full (usually with local ingredients, too) and if anything, it sometimes becomes a topic of discussion. And with an exception of like two situations where I was a part of a group (which I could have handled better had I relied a bit more on myself), it caused me no headache. And in Senegal, you get local veggies, they grow peanuts, you definitely got options. And Happycow recognizes couple of spots, too. Anyways, I’m also totally okay with sometimes being a bit of an ass and double checking what’s in my shit cause you know… Saving the world, being all nice to animals and shit. And for the record, I do acknowledge the difference between chunk of fish or beef in a Tesco refrigerator in Prague and fish that’s caught by a local dude in a village in Senegal. Still not my thing, but if everything was that, we wouldn’t face the horrors we do. Not of this volume. Casa Yoss, tho. I asked them if they could accommodate a vegan motherfucker and they wasted no time. As a welcome dish, I got a plate of sweet pastry, they prepared and awesome breakfast, the staff was absolutely stunning, room was great, there was a pool and they let us to a super late check-out for free. Our flight was Saturday 2:30am and they let us keep the room till 11pm on Friday. Everywhere else they would just charge you a whole extra day. So yeah, if you’re in the area, this is where you wanna end up. They have a terrace with some spectacular view at the sea, they provide lunch and dinner, they rock.
The last two days ended up being a major win. We chose Toubab Dialao over another night in Dakar without having much of an idea what to expect. The place was cute, beaches were surprisingly clean, there were many cute bars playing reggae, there was a Happycow recommended restaurant with delicious food. And that extra day with late check-out was just a beautiful bonus. I was toes deep in the sand on a beach about 5 hours before my flight. Fucking hell.
So yeah, that’s it. Super happy I got my ass down to Africa once more, super happy I got to see Mauritania and Senegal for the first time, super happy about all the memories I made with all the people along the way. Huge thank you to everyone involved. Sending love to everybody out there and some extra love to all my vegans. We got this. One!
Highlights:
- Mar Lodj.
- Casa Yoss.
- All The Love.
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