..::Senegal Photos::..

Some pictures from my recent trip to Dakar and the Sine-Saloum delta in Senegal. It was a great trip due in part to some very nice expats, but mostly because of the tremendously warm and welcoming Senegalese. And Lilia.

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A veiw from Lilia's roof

The beach in Yoff. At dawn, this place is packed with people working out. I've never seen anything like it before. It was later in the morning when I took this picture, but there were still some guys running, jumping rope, doing pushups...

At the Plage du Virage, Yoff

The kid with the board was actually pretty good

An apropos banner to use as part of a wall

.: Ile de Goree :.
The view back toward Dakar

I always imagined it as having a nicer door

As a former slave trade depot before the voyage to North America, the island serves as a symbol for the African Diaspora. There were a few murals similar to this one - calling for equality and solidarity - on different buildings around the island.One positive result of its history is the colonial architecture
.: Iles de la Madeleine :.
These islands serve as a bird sanctuary. We had the area virtually to ourselves, including our own private lagoon.

Our lagoon:

.: Marche Artisanale :.
I was as bad at this as it looks

'Come into our shop and see some leather.' Great, I thought. Then they pull this out and insist I take a picture. At least now I know where to buy pelts of threatened species.

At the silversmith's

.: La Petit Cote :.
Our taximan, Pap, stopped by his friends' village to introduce us. The woman in the picture had just had a baby girl the week before. More on that later.


Just your everyday taxi ride in Africa. But then...

...we arrived at Les Collines de Niassam. Absolutely beautiful.

Our bungalow for the first night

We decided to end the day with a trip through the mangroves in a pirogue

Lots of birds - mainly herons, egrets and ibis

The guides took a root from the mangroves, covered in wild oysters

We then stopped at a deserted beach where they prepared the oysters for us. Notice the pile of oyster shells behind them - they had done this before.
They were cooked over an open fire and served with a little lime and washed down with muscadet in a plastic cup. The best oysters I've ever had. Perfect.


mmmmm

My favorite picture:That was a good day
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The resort's local dogs liked to accompany us on our hikes and chase birds... and goats... and local children.... This one had a name in wolof that started with 'b', so we just called him Bruno.

Tree with donkey

Tree with bull
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We came back and moved into our next room, built around a baobab tree.
One of the local islands around the resort:
Gray pelicans, just in from their trip from Europe


An absolutely beautiful sunset

I was trying to get even half of the stars from the night sky in there. If you look close enough, you can see the baobab limbs.


Another great day
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The next day, we reluctantly left Les Collines and headed back north with Pap. He took us back to the village that we had visited on the way down, where we were warmly welcomed back, fed, entertained, and given tea, the latter being much more elaborate than you could imagine. In our absence, the baby had been given the name Awa Fall, which is admittedly a common name in Senegal, but it's also Lilia's 'local' name.
Lilia carefully weighing whether she should be impolite or drink the milk with ice that was offered to us. Both of us felt a little weird that night, but no harm, no foul.

Our driver, Pap, mixing the tea for us.

The girls having fun

The family
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Popenguine

.: Reserve de Bandia :.The (apparently) famed elephant baobab


We were really close to the giraffes'This is the most dangerous and aggressive animal in the park,' the guide says. So I step out of the car and tried to get a better shot. Notice how his head is lowered like he's ready to charge.

There's a crocodile in there somewhere.
This turtle is as old as I am. [Insert comment about upcoming birthday here]

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