The joy of Pelicans, Emotions boil over & we travel again

At the start of our 2nd week in Senegal. we find ourselves in the north of the country, in the historical town of Saint-Louis, still depicting signs of the French colonial settlers that shaped this place. Saint-Louis is now an island town. It was originally established on the mainland at the Senegal river delta, but spread to Ndar, a small island in the middle of the river. It has also spread onto the narrow sand bar on the far side of the river; a sandbar that connects to the mainland and borders with Mauritania just a short walk north of the town.

The riverbanks are full of colourful Pirogues, the wooden canoe style fishing boats that the local Artisanal fishermen use to fish the river and the sea.

The island of Ndar is now the centre of town, and showcases some lovely examples of the colonial architecture. The island of Ndar is connected to the mainland suburb by Le Pont du Faidherbe, a 500m long steel bridge designed by Gustav Eiffel. The British colonised Saint-Louis for a short while after the Portugese, and evidence of this remains (so we were told by a local guide) in some of the surnames that exist locally; Barker, Richardson and Taylor.

During our first couple of days in the town we explored the central grid of the town, wandering the sandy streets and passing restaurants, cafes and a variety of shops - some aimed specifically at tourism and others more fundamental to town life. Most of the streets are paved but also covered in sand. Most of the buildings were either half built or half knocked down, and the others all looked in some level of disrepair. Children play in the street with a football or in some cases a stick and round plastic lid that they wheel along the road. piles of buiding materials appear on every street, but seem to have been there for a long time unused. And as appears to be normal for West Africa, there is a lot of litter about, particularly in the more run down streets and along the banks of the river. I couldn't help but feel disappointed. I had a picture in my mind of what Saint-Louis would be and it fell somewhat short.

One thing that was a pleasant surprise was the food and the general hospitality shown to us. We stopped in a small cafe called Farmers Coffee (4 seats), and had a lovely good quality coffee and I asked for tea with milk. The guy seemed to know what he was doing, but when I saw him using the microwave, I had flashbacks to a time in the US where I asked for the same in a gas station - an incident that still exasperates me when I think about it (a story for another time). Sure enough, a teacup with hot milk and a twinings teabag floating in it was served to me. I couldn't send it back. The chap was trying so hard and seemed so pleased to have served us. I stewed my teabag in the milk for as long as I could, and then drank it down and winced. A lovely place. Lovely coffee. Don't ask for tea with milk!

On day 2 we met Lilly and Manuel, a couple from Belgium and Portugal respectively that were staying in our hotel. They talked to us about a visit to Djoudj National Park and Bird Sanctuary that they were thinking of doing but the cost was prohibitive for them unless they could increase the numbers. To be honest Im not that fond of birds particularly and Gaz is the same, but it was an opportunity to do something we wouldn't have done unless asked, and the whole point of travelling is to grab new opportunities and experience new things so we agreed to go.

The day was awesome. We had such a good time. Not only was the bird sanctuary genuinely interesting, but the giant pelicans put on an amazing show for us, swooping and diving and gliding alongside us in our boat. There were thousands of them at the breeding colony along with Flamigos and Cormorants and Cranes and lots and lots of other birds. Oh and despite a moment of wobblyness getting into the boat and needing an assist to get out at the end, I avoided falling in the water, though at one point I think Gaz would have put money on it! :-)

Our time in the park also allowed us to see a family of warthogs roaming wild, some Patas Monkeys scooting across the brush, a crocodile basking in the sun and a giant snake. All good value for 10 hours with a guide at the equivalent of £37 per person.

The park is a MUST SEE for anyone visiting the area. It was such a great experience.

Day 4 saw Gaz go exploring on his own. He crossed the bridge to the Langue de Barbarie, the sand bar that sits to the west of the Senegal river and forms a neighbourhood suburb of Saint-Louis. The sand bar is only 300m in width but is several kms long. Gaz walked north, out of the town where the buildings end and the sand stretches from side to side. There is a small copse of trees that marks no-mans land, beyond which is Mauritania. Gaz made the sensible decision not to explore beyond and made his way back. Sometimes it's better to be more cautious than sorry.

We had visited a small grocery store in the centre of town and picked up some pasta, a tomato based sauce and a tin of tuna. I decided that having booked accommodation with a shared kitchen, that we could have the occasional meal to save money.

That evening I attempted to cook - I found a pan that i could use to boil the water for the pasta and put it on to boil. 45 minutes later, the water had still not boiled and the sun had gone down so i couldn't see what I was doing. I did however realise that i could see the orange flame of the gas hob through the bottom of the pan!! It had a small hole in it. Not big enough to see in daylight, but water was slowly dripping drop by drop out of the bottom, cooling the flame and preventing the water from boiling. brilliant. This was the ONLY pan in the entire craphole of a kitchen. So I considered microwaving the pasta. I couldn't find a microwave safe bowl, but decided to cook the pasta portion by portion in a smaller bowl. I shook out the pasta and poured boiling water from the kettle on it and saw all these black things in the water. I quickly identified that they were bugs. i tried sifting them out with a spoon and cursed myself for not checking the bowl was properly clean. I soon realised that there were A LOT of bugs in the bowl hiding amongst the pasta and as this dawned on me, I could hear the crinkling of the pasta packet that was on the side with the rest of the pasta in it. I looked inside and freaked out. THere were hundreds of small black bugs in there. Each about 5mm long. I threw out the pasta, threw out the dinner and told Gaz that dinner was off. Whilst we could have walked into town to get some dinner, by this stage I was done. I was really peed off with the hotel for not providing a proper kitchen set up, even though they advertised an equipped kitchen, and I was cross that we'd bought a packet of pasta that was infested with bugs. I was just done. So that evening we went to bed with empty tummies.

The next day I had a meltdown. I don't know what caused me to crack, but when Gaz tried to cue me up to go for a walk and explore another area of the town, I just didn't want to deal with all the hawkers and traders that I knew would immediately be in my face. I also didn't want to be stared at as the fat white lady, which had been happening a lot. I cracked and had a 30 minute breakdown. I'm someone that most people see as confident and capable and not particulalrly emotional, but I do have a gentle and soft side and for some reason I was feeling very vulnerable and had just had enough of every day being a challenge. I wanted things to be easy, or just more familiar and straight forward for just a day or so. Gaz sat with me and listened while I ranted irrationally about people staring, and equipping kitchens properly, and false advertising, and how hard is it to make a f*cking cup of tea, etc... and sobbed. He knew this was a broken Anna.

Once I'd had a couple of hours of calm and sorted myself out, I was better. And by the next day I had bounced back to my normal self.

We ate out a lot in Saint-Louis, but the prices were about half that of those in Dakar, so it was pretty affordable and the food was consistently good. We particulalry enjoyed a meal at Chez Dasso, a tiny restaurant with one lady who is the owner and cook. She welcomed us even though she was closed, and encouraged me to have Lotte (Monkfish) which was fresh. Gaz had Chicken Yasso - A spicy tangy rubbed chicken, grilled with rice and citrussy tangy caramelised onions. Both dishes were incredible and soo sooo cheap. Highly recommended.

We also popped into another local place called La Linguire. This was full of local people (always a good sign) and the food was straight forward, not fancy, but good portions and very tastey. Gaz had Beef skewers with fries and I had a vegetarian dish with flavoured rice and cooked vegetables with a kick of chilli. The prices again were low and the food was great, so another highly recommended place.

It was this night that we finally found a route to walk into the town without having to walk through all the traders and hawkers. If only we had found this route a few days earlier, it could have definitely made a difference.

The people of Saint-Louis are lovely and friendly and they are understandably desperate to make money, but the effect of all the pushing is that it puts people off. I would love to buy lots of souvenirs, but I'm travelling with a backpack and have nowhere to put it all.

By the end of our week in Saint-Louis, I had finally got the measure of the place. The people are great and so friendly. After dark, walking through the streets we met people on their way back from Mosque who simply stopped us to say hello and ask where we were from and whether we liked their town. They are a humble people and genuinely keen to engage with you. The persistent sales tactics are a necessity now that the fish stocks are reducing and they turn to tourism more to support the local economy, so come with a high tolerance and an acceptance that you will be approached. The town has many interesting and historic areas to explore in spite of the litter and run down streets and it's a great jumping off point to see national parks and the desert.

We had a 5:40am wake up to get a cab to take us to the Dem Dikk bus at the far end of town, headed for Dakar. It was dark when we boarded the bus and at 7.30am when the sun started to come up, we had left Saint-Louis far behind. It was a pleasant and straight forward journey, arriving in Dakar at 12noon. We pulled into the sandy lot that is home to the central bus station and alighted to the covered seating area, where we basically stayed for several hours until we were able to get on the bus to Mbour that departed at 4pm. We had a minor challenge from the guy checking tickets and allocating seats that meant we had to go into the ticket office and get assistance with printing out a ticket for us to show at the bus itself, before he would let us on. Every other time, we've been welcomed on to the bus with just a photo of the online booking (our Dakar hotel reception booked the tickets on our behalf). Finally we got on and sat down. We were in a different seating formation than had been originally booked, which ultimately meant that we were sat in a 3 seat formation rather than 2 and I ended up on the end with half my bum on the seat and the other half unsupported - for 2.5hours. Not ideal, but at times like this and in places like these, you suck it up.

We arrived in Mbour at about 6.30pm and found ourselves on the side of the main road. Our accomodation was 12 km away, but before we could get a taxi, we needed to buy provisions. The next place was self-catering in a small village, and even though there were restaurants available, we needed to save a bit of a cash because it's been flowing through our fingers like water since we arrived in Senegal. It's just not as cheap as you would think here.

So we got our packs on our backs and as the sun started to go down we began to hike a mile down the road to the big supermarket. Tough going in 30+* heat, but good exercise!! :-) We bought everything we needed for a week plus a few nice things like a box of wine etc.. (total grocery spend was about £100) and then grabbed a cab outside that took us the last 10km to our home for the next 10 days, Auberge Keur Ely in the small village of Warang, south of Mbour. We checked in just after 8pm, it had been a long day.