Grand Africa Cruise - Dakar, Senegal

Cruise Day 60

Thursday, December 8, 2022

"Blessed are the curious for they shall have adventures.”  -- Lovelle Drachman

Today we are in Dakar, Senegal which has been an on again and off again port for us.  It was on the original itinerary, but then dropped and replaced by Praia in Cape Verde.  A few weeks ago, Gambia’s Covid restrictions made it difficult to dock there so Senegal, who had lessened their Covid restrictions, was back on the itinerary again.

Senegal is the western most country of mainland Africa and is known as the "Gateway to Africa".  Here is a quote from Google about Senegal: "Senegal is a cultural hub for the continent of Africa. Senegal is a mecca with robust arts, rich traditions, historic landmarks, and remarkable natural landscapes. Home to seven UNESCO World Heritage Sites and six national parks, Senegal is a country full of one-of-a-kind experiences.".

From Abidgan, Cote d'Ivoire (lower right blue maker), we sailed from the south facing coast to the Dakar Senegal (the red marker at the top left) to the western most country in mainland Africa.

The flag of Senegal.

Dakar, where we are docked today, is the capital and largest city of Senegal.  Here is what Google has to say about Dakar: "Dakar is the political, economic and cultural capital of Senegal since April 4, 1960. It includes the historic district of the Medina and the famous Theodore Monod museum, which exhibits African works of art. It is also famous for its nightlife centered on Mbalax music.".

This is the area of Dakar where we are docked as shown by the starred red marker at the center right of the map.

We had a ship excursion booked for the day, but the ship didn’t dock until 9:00 AM and our tour wasn’t scheduled to start until 10:00, so we didn’t have to get up extra early this morning.  After our usual morning routine, we made our way to the ship’s theater to wait for our tour to be called.

Our tour today is the “Highlights of Dakar” which will mainly be a bus tour so not as strenuous as some of the tours we have had lately.  We were the last tour called and made our way down to the bus that was better than expected and even had working air conditioning, not great, but at least there was cool air coming out of the vents albeit, weakly.

When we were seated, everyone began to notice that the windows were filthy, and you could barely see through them.  Since this is mainly a bus tour, this is unacceptable, but there was nothing much we could do about it.  The guide said the driver would try to clean the windows, but he never did.  I can’t even describe how dirty these windows were, they were like looking through oil smeared glass with a bunch of dirt thrown on it.

These are the dirty bus windows.  Looking through them from the inside was like looking at the outside world through a very heavy fog, it really detracted from our enjoyment of this tour.

We started our tour with a drive through the city by the Presidential Palace (Dakar is the capital city), Place de l'Independence, the railroad station, and numerous government buildings.  We made a brief stop where we got out of the bus at a viewpoint where we could see Goree Island.  Goree Island is a small island that is known for its 15th to 19th century role in the slave trade, but now it is a historical site.  There are no cars on the island.

The very small Goree Island on the horizon.

The view looking toward Dakar ...

and a look down on the beach.

 We then visited a Roman Catholic Church that really wasn’t too interesting.

The area outside the church.

Traffic in Dakar is horrendous, and we barely crept along at times.  My first impression of Dakar was a modern, busy town with high rise buildings and a bustling atmosphere, but as we drove out of the central area we drove through street after street of small stalls people just selling their goods laid out on the sidewalk.  There were people and vehicles throughout this area adding to the chaos we are used to seeing in areas like this.  I will say, this didn’t look as impoverished as many of the areas we have seen, but we don’t know how things are outside the city.

Public transportation in these areas is small buses that are crammed with people hanging out the doors and even the back.  Unfortunately, due to the dirty windows we were unable to photograph any of this.  Our next stop was a sand painting demonstration that was very interesting and afterwards they were selling some of their work, so we bought one to take home with us.

One of the sand painting artist at work.

Some of the colored sands used in the paintings.

There were a lot of paintings available at a very reasonable price.

Val found one that we both liked and she bought it and had her picture taken with the artist.

They also had carvings and other local crafts for sale.

The artist is finishing up his painting.

Next, we drove out of town and visited the African Renaissance Monument.  This is the tallest free-standing statue in Africa at 171 feet.  It was built as a symbol of African liberation and is a major tourist destination in Africa.  It is not without some controversy, though, as it was built by North Korea.

The African Renaissance Monument was so large it was hard to get a picture of.  To visit it, you climb up a stairway to a viewing area where you are pretty much looking straight up at it.  It was very impressive.

Views of Dakar from the monument.

As we drove back into town, we saw the Mamelles Lighthouse that was built in 1864 and strategically placed at the western most point of the continent of Africa.  Once again, we could barely see it through the dirty bus windows so there are no pictures.   We suffered the same fate as we drove by the impressive Mosque of the Divinity.

Our last stop of the day was the Artisan’s Craft Market where we had an hour to wander around the warren of shops and look at the various crafts.  There were leather goods, carvings, colorful clothing, paintings and many other things.  Val and I really enjoyed ourselves here and found quite a few treasures to take home.  As the end of our hour of shopping came to an end, we were a little worried about finding our way out of this maze, but we eventually made it out and found the bus without trouble.

Val found a painting she liked and bought it from this lady.

 

The market was a maze of alleys and walkways, and we were a little concerned about finding our way out, but eventually we did and found ourselves on this side street, but it was a short walk to the main street where our bus was parked.

We drove back to the port and there was one more stop scheduled at a Mosque, but everyone voted no as our four-hour tour had turned into six and we were all tired and hungry.

This tour had some highlights and was quite interesting, but I think it will go down as our worst tour of the trip because of the dirty windows.  We spent over four hours sitting on the bus going through some interesting areas, but because of the filthy windows, we really didn’t get to see it as we should have.  Some people just gave up and napped as we drove around, very disappointing.  Dakar seemed like an interesting place and we wouldn't mind spending more time here if the opportunity ever came up again.

As usual, the air conditioning felt very good getting back on the ship.  It wasn’t quite as hot and humid as it has been, but still more humid than we are used to.  The first thing we did when we got back to our room was to go to the Neptune Lounge and get some snacks to tide us over until dinner.  We got back after four and we hadn’t eaten since around nine this morning.

We relaxed for a while and then I decided to go up on deck for the sail away.  There were some late arriving excursions coming back (no doubt because of the traffic) so the sail away was delayed.  There was a cool breeze blowing and it was quite pleasant to be out on deck.  I noticed that the sun was going to set behind some of the tall buildings in the city, so I waited for that to get some pictures and then went back to our room and joined Val out on the balcony where we watched the sail away.

As usual we are docked in a very industrial area.

We went to dinner, but I wasn’t very hungry because of our late snack so I had a small dinner.  As seems to be usual lately, we lost our money in the casino and then went back to our room.  The clocks were being set back once again tonight so we again get an extra hour of sleep.  Tomorrow is a sea day.