Okay, here we go again. Been a bit longer but that’s just because I’ve been switching places, experiencing whole lotta cool shit and generally enjoying some serious traveling once again. This time around, I’m in this apartment in Dakar and after many many days, I’ve managed to get some time for myself. So I’m gonna give you some updates on what the fuck I’ve been on these past two weeks.
Our flights to Mauritania went pretty smooth. Royal Air Maroc is an okay airline. They do not have an individual entertaining system (which I don’t really care about that much) and their online system is most likely the worst one I’ve ever dealt with (meaning, nothing works and you end up calling their impossible help line for every stupid thing including special meal or confirmation of a fucking change of times they suggested – something that other airlines deal with by two clicks in the booking management) but the journey itself was smooth. At the airport we got a pick up arranged and then we dived deep into Nouakchott.
I hadn’t been to an African country in a while and there’s always some degree of weirdness connected to it. Especially if you end up in countries that are not doing that well. It’s fucked seeing child beggars everywhere, it’s fucked seeing infrastructure lacking, it’s fucked seeing plastic waste suffocating cities and even desserts and countryside (boy, we went so wrong with all this plastic shit; just to think there was none of it around couple of decades ago), it’s really awkward being in a position of (on local standards) extremely wealthy white dude just enjoying your little ride in the middle of all of this. It’s centuries of oppression, it’s historical, it’s cultural, it’s been happening forever. And it’s super complex. And there are no simple answers to any of this. It’s just a bit overwhelming sometimes. Still super grateful to be fortunate enough to be around for all that. It’s humbling, it’s stimulating, it gives you different perspectives… But there has always been and there will always be some sense of being out of pocket.
First couple of days in Nouakchott, I was pretty much on my regular working schedule. I still have an opportunity to discover the area a little bit. Our host was kind enough to leave her car with us which allowed me to drive in the local traffic. Which was a movie. There are virtually no rules, half of the roads are not paved, cars are coming left and right and the only thing people kinda respect are traffic lights. Sometimes. And these cars. Sometimes you see models with no lights, no windows, completely fucked up, but somehow magically still going and carrying 7 people or some shit. You almost gotta pinch yourself to make sure you’re awake. We also went to a really cool beach not far from the city twice, we roamed around the place, we visited some dunes in the outskirts… I feel we saw quite a lot. Nouakchott is a bit different from the other African capitals I’ve seen so far. Even in the poorer countries, there’s usually something like a city center with couple of high rise buildings, there are some parks or other clear orientation points. This city seems very chaotic. All buildings are very similar, there are many barely standing, everything is 1, maximum 2 floors and there’s sand everywhere. But yeah, we did visit some nice restaurants and cafés. Alcohol is fully illegal in the country so there are no bars. And there’s very little tourism. Pretty unique thing.
The clear highlight of the Mauritania leg of our travels was the dessert trip which marked my first time seeing Sahara. 4 days of something unbelievable. We had a local guide in a 4-wheel Toyota Hilux, we traveled most of it on it’s back in the open air, we were disconnected from the internet, we barely saw any people, we slept under the dunes with no light pollution, we saw different oasis, we climbed some dunes, we had fire in the evening, we drove through valleys that looked like some Mad Max sceneries… Shit was absolutely wild. It was all so stunning and unreal. I took my old GoPro with me and if I feel like it, I might make a short video edit out of this little adventure but man… Super happy I got to see that. It’s amazing to me that a country like Mauritania with so many inequalities and issues manages to be safe like this. Safe enough to do trips like that without a worry. It’s party non-violent nature of locals, partly religion (I guess), partly surveillance (there are road checks every couple of kilometers on the backbone road across the country)… But yeah, it was all very smooth and our guide was amazing. I assume locals don’t really travel outside of the capital a lot. The road was mostly really empty. And judging from how good it was, it has to be relatively new. We did spent most of the time off-road tho. Anyways… Shout out to everyone who was a part of this!
That was Friday to Monday. Tuesday morning, we got picked up by a car and for 70 EUR per person got transported to the city of Saint Louis, north of Senegal. It went smooth, we took the dirt road through the Diawling National Park, we saw flamingos and all kinds of other birds, it was all picturesque. I also crossed an African border by land for the first time. It was fast as there were not that many cars and motorcycles. But it was a hot mess. Typical crowds of child beggars, people selling sim cards, people constantly knocking on your window. Intense. We made it to Saint Louis for lunch and we spent 2 nights over there. It was pretty cool but it sometimes really makes you question what are you doing in a place like that. You can barely walk 5 meters without someone trying to sell something to you or a kid crying that they’re hungry. And you understand all of it, you understand that this is what it is and you do give some money away because it’s all so sad. But it never ends. And you really feel like shit. It’s just too much. We did have a chance to do cool things, too. We walked around the historical center, we visited the Hydrobase beach, we shopped veggies at the local market. And we managed to get on an early morning bus on Thursday (yesterday) that got us to Dakar around noon.
And that where we’ve been since. The place has much more of a city vibe than Nouakchott. There are hipster cafés, things are often quite expensive, you see quite a lot of white people around (same as in Saint Louis). In the evening, we went to this old factory spot which is now a gallery. They had a little party going on over there. And that felt like Europe. Majority of people were white, prices were pretty much Dutch… Quite a jump. We didn’t stay long, afterwards we briefly explored the surroundings and headed home at a reasonable hour.
Today, I worked a lot but that’s it for me for the next week. I’m taking couple of days off to make the most out of the last week over here. There’s more shit to see, more situations to get into, more memories to make. Sending love to everybody reading. Straight from warm Dakar. One!
Highlights:
- Sahara.
- Saint Louis.
- Dakar.
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