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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Day 6 (part 5) – 12/31/08 – Ozio Restaurant, Dakar, Senegal

Flava Flav!

After the excitement from the fracas died down, everyone settled into full-blown party mode, with the Lebanese ordering a couple of bottles of Belvedere and a bunch of Red Bull and clearly settling in for a long evening in which everyone got to be their own mixologist.  There were so many characters that it is impossible to do them justice, but I will do my best, and apologize for the lack of pictures.    You will also be the beneficiary of a short discourse on comparative man-hugging, a little studied phenomenon that would provide great insight to cultural anthropologists.

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Day 6 (part 4) – 12/31/08 – Ozio Restaurant, Dakar, Senegal

Soccer Players Right, Lebanese Left

Now for a study in the reactions of the crowd, beginning with the Soccer players.  These guys were righteously indignant about having gotten their multi-thousand dollar suits drenched in champagne for no reason and with no warning by some random dude.  I can’t help be think that if you go out for NYE you should expect something like this, but I could certainly see myself reacting the way they did in the circumstances – especially if I were out with my crew and we were feeling a little rowdy ourselves (actually we wouldn’t have messed around with the preliminaries but gone straight in with fists flying).  What was really interesting, htough, is that I don’t think that they ever considered the possibility that anyone would either (a) rebuff their initial demand for weregeld or whatever they asked for, or (b) stand up to them or challenge them in any way.  They were clearly used to being the Big Dogs wherever they went, and based on their treatment by the non-Lebanese locals before the fracas, they were probably justified in doing so.  I think that the fact that things escalated to a scuffle, much less one in which, ultimately, they were the ones being called out, was one hell of a surprised. 

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Day 6 (part 3) – 12/31/08 – Ozio Restaurant, Dakar, Senegal

Ozio - New Year's Eve

The 2 hours leading up to New Year’s were pretty uneventful, with The Lady and the Blogger looking back on 2008 and congratulating ourselves on how awesome we are.  In between techno, dance, lounge and trance music, I am glad to report that I got to hear the original (and not the Gypsy King’s version as I would have expected) of Hotel California, bringing my “Countries In Which I’ve Heard Hotel California” tally up to 10.  I’m beginning to think that it may not be my presence that causes people in random countries to play Hotel California, and that maybe I hear it everywhere I go because it’s still an amazingly popular song, but that line of thought leads no where and I’ve chosen to ignore it. 

After lots of miscellaneous music, the waiters passed out gift bags with party hats, noisemakers, sunglasses and the like, and we all rang in 2009 Dakar style – which varied only from U.S. style in that we didn’t hear Auld Lange Syne.  Shortly thereafter, all hell broke loose.

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Day 6 (part 2) – 12/31/08 – Ozio Restaurant, Dakar, Senegal

We Might Have Had A Bit To Drink

Our New Year’s Eve experience was so outrageous that it set a new standard for both random 3rd world travel and for NYE parties.  I only wish that I were writer enough to do this evening justice.  I will try, but the Bard himself would have trouble with this one.  Also note that we have very few pictures of this event, so you will get more Goree / Dakar pictures throughout.

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Day 6 (part 1) – 12/31/08 – Dakar, Senegal

Still Going Strong In Dakar

New Year’s Eve dawned bright and early at the crack of 10:00 am (which is absurdly late for us) and we meandered up to a pattiserie in the main part of town for coffee and croisants, which were good.  I had another, which was even better.  First stop was an ATM that actually worked for us, then we headed to Senegal Travel to arrange a guide and car for a day trip on 1/1 to a wildlife preserve, Lac Rose (a pink lake…) and a couple of fishing towns.  After getting set up, we walked around the city stopping in every museaum and art gallery we saw.  In Dakar, these are almost indistinguishable as unless it’s run by an institution, every artefact or work has a price tag on it. 

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Day 5 (part 3) – 12/30/08 – Dakar, Senegal

Nice Dakar Scene

Although our airport experience was smooth, our trek to the hotel reached almost epic proportions as our cabbie was new to the job and had no idea how to get to Hotel Savana – which is like asking a cabbie at LaGuardia to take you to the Waldorf and the cabbie getting lost.  This completely pissed off both the Blogger and The Lady, and by the time we got to the hotel we were convinced that we were miles away from anything that we wanted to do in Dakar – namely wonder around the city on foot, get the feel of it, window shop, go to lots of museums, and generally meander about. 

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