Day 7 (part 3) – 1/1/09 – Joal-Fadiout, Senegal; Dakar Airport; Atlanta, Georgia

Fadiout, Senegal

After Lac Rose, both The Blogger and The Lady were getting pretty touristed-out, and we both were sort of ready to get back to the hotel and crash before catching a 2:30 am flight from Dakar to Hotlanta.  By this point, it was around 3:00 and we were still slated to go to the twin fishing towns of Joal and Fadiout, with Fadiout also known as “shell island” because, well, there are lots of shells on it – like crazy lots of shells.  I had a vague recollection that these towns were actually south of Reserve de Bandia, but thought that not even in Senegal would a trip be arranged so stupidly as to drive south 65 km, then north 90 km, then back south 135 more km, before heading north another 110 km to end the day.  Silly me.

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Day 7 (part 2) – 1/1/09 – Lac Rose (Near Dakar, Senegal)

Lac Rose

As The Blogger noted previously, Reserve de Bandia is about 65 km south of Dakar.  Because The Blogger knew immediately upon seeing it in Lonely Planet that Bandia would be a destination, he recalled this clearly from his map of Senegal.  He also recalled reading about the next stop on the itinerary – Lac Rose – and vaguely remembered that it is somewhere northwest of Dakar.  Turns out it is about 25 km northwest, to be exactish, which on Senegalese roads meant 1.5-2 hours from Bandia.  Since it was already around noon, The Blogger and The Lady were not pleased about this since Mr. Ngora declared that we would eat at Lac Rose.  It did not, however, seem worth arguing about, so we kept our mouths shut and went with the flow.  See, eventually even hardened type-A Yanqui yuppies can relax – especially when not relaxing would accomplish absolutely nothing.

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Day 7 (part 1) – 1/1/09 – Reserve de Bandia (Near Dakar, Senegal)

 

Big Baobab

New Year’s Day dawned bright and, as it does everywhere in the world, entirely too early.  After going to sleep at 3:30, we had to be up at 8:00 to meet our tour guides for today’s adventure in front of the hotel at 8:30.  Although draggy, we were remarkably functional, and managed to get out just as our van pulled up.  This being the last day of our trip, we had decided to see as many of the “must see” sights around Dakar as possible, and arranged a tour to Reserve de Bandia – a really neat wildlife preserve about 65 km south of Dakar, Lac Rose, a heavily salinated lake maybe 25 km north west of Dakar, and Joul-Fadiout, two villages about 110 km south of Dakar, one of which is on an island known as “Shell Island” for its heavy concentration of sea shell-based construction.  Remember these distances and locations.

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Day 6 (part 6) – 12/31/08 – Ozio Restaurant, Dakar, Senegal

Goree Island Fort

I have already spent far too much time on the NYE party, and could go on forever, but I will close with a few thoughts on the wildly gesticular culture of the Lebanese and a short comparitive anthropological deconstruction of Lebanese v. American man-hugs.  I have long believe that much can be learned about a culture simply from their national gestures – the French have their Gallic shrug that suggest a sort of willful ignorance of the motivations for some act that is obviously assining; upper-crust British have their disdainful glance that conveys a degree of in-born superiority guaranteed to result in either feelings of inadequacy in, or a punch in the nose from, its recipient; the Slavs have their expression of disdainful, world-weary fatalism that mocks the foolish optimism of the rest of the world; we Americans have our firm handshake and cheeful glad handing that comes with a national youthful exuberance and believe that hard work, a good attitude and a bit of luck are all it takes to succes in the world or screw over your opponent.  The Lebanese have an arms-akimbo shrug that is the very sout of “it wasn’t me, I don’t know nothin’ about nothin’ and some other dude did it.”  In other words, it is the essence of “I’ve got something to hide so I will deny everything.”

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