Thursday – Alice and I had every intention of leaving early on Thursday morning to get to the ferry, but the Gambian family Ioana introduced us to told us they would drive us to the ferry because the mom works at the ferry. Seemed convenient and we knew it’d be a little later than we wanted but it was cheaper than paying a taxi. So first of all, the mom said she’d be there between 7:30 and 8am which really meant 8:15. Then we had to stop at her office. Then we’d go to the ferry. So, we awkwardly waited in the office IT department and used the internet to check our email with some dudes and a few ladies. The advantage to having the Gambian mom bring us was she bought us our tickets and she let us sit in the VIP room to wait for the ferry. Yep, VIP room. It was kind of awkward because we weren’t important at all…and there was like a sign in book that some seemingly important people had used but who were we to complain when there was only one ferry running. We had to wait forever of course for the ferry then risk our lives as large vehicles came off the ferry and we stood on either side of the dock. Yea never had large 18-wheel trucks so close to my toes and I don’t care to do it again. Of course we were like cool now we’ll get good seats. Well me being the reject that I am, I see that there are two benches on the first floor. Means no stairs right? Well I would have rather had the stairs. First off we had two big ladies sitting across from us with just as much crap as me. Then some lady claimed she’s sick and needs to share our bench. Dude it can fit two people…but she shoved herself in. Lucky me I’m shoved into the metal wall and my knee is pinned by my luggage to said metal. Feels fantastic to sit for an hour like that. Yay. I still don’t believe that lady that she was sick. Stupid…
We finally get off the ferry so of course a taxi man starts following us and being mildly irritating. Alice had to go pee and I was hungry but all I wanted was to get to the border. So we walk out into the pool of taxis, cars, and car rapides into insanity. Men start touching me and trying to talk to me and of course I’m pissed. Don’t f***ing touch me! I don’t understand why they don’t get that this is not acceptable. One dude was like “whoa whoa relax relax” in his stupid Gambian accent. F**K off because when someone steals my sh*t you won’t want to see me mad. This is me relaxed when I’m getting swarmed thanks dude. Finally one of the men lead us to a sept-place taxi going to the border. We hop in to the back back seat of course because we cook better that way. They were going for well done white meat. It was way too hot in this car and we were all shoved in. Finally we made it to the border. Alice made her way to the sketchy bathrooms as I scanned for food. We found a lady making egg sandwiches. She was super awkward because she tried to use like 3 english words over and over again. Then some Wolof or Seerer or something.
Eventually we found a taxi. Not really a taxi though I suppose. It was just some dude using his car to make money. I don’t care what color the car is I’ll call it a taxi. So we found a sept-place again to make our way to Kaolack. I think at this point we were pushing like 2pm. We were way later than we thought we would have been. Now, I wish I had inspected this car some before I got in it because then I would have realized that the back bumper was falling off which allowed the hatch to hang open a solid 2 inches. So as we are flying over sand dunes at about 40mph on the side of the road what happens to the hatch? Oh yea it opens up and my piece of luggage goes flying out the back. Totally normal. So the handle was broken and the zipper got messed up. Cool. This puts me in a fantastic mood. This was the most terrifying sept-place ride yet because this was that bad stretch of road where the sand was preferable to pavement but this guy was going far too fast for sand or pavement. Of course the giant sausage fest in the car didn’t help our case. It was all men besides me and Alice so I feel like men just think live fast die young with lots of wives in this country. Stupid idiots.
We made it to Kaolack in an hour and a half. Should have taken us two. My point proven. But it was nice to make up a little lost time as long as I didn’t die in the process. We take a taxi from the gare routiere to our little Auberge (hostel essentially). It’s a nice little room. The lock was a really bizarre one with like a 4 sided key but we got an air conditioned room (we had to pay more for that one oops). It had a nice functioning shower and a big bed with a bug net and we got breakfast. Which Alice and I didn’t know about! It was a great little place. Kaolack was nice too. It’s a small but bustling village/city. Since Alice and I got there at like 4pm we had to be strategic in what we wanted to do. So we looked at the map and walked a loop around the city. There was a rather large market which was really nice because no one tried to follow you to “show” you where to shop and when I tried to buy a pair of flip-flops I had a hard time keeping the vendor’s attention rather than him pressuring me. We found a bank because we had nearly run out of money in Gamibia. Oops.
After we finished our walk we had seen a nice bar and grill that said pizzeria on the top. Alice had been craving pizza for a while at this point so we figured it be the perfect place. We stopped back at the hostel to shower and clean up. Then went to the gas station to buy some juice and water. We found the bar and grill. Dinner was great there even though it was a bit pricey. Alice’s pizza looked amazing and my hamburger complete (with egg and cheese) hit the spot. We had ice cream to top it all off because we deserved it after that long day of traveling. We were exhausted and had to be up early the next morning to go to Touba so we went right to bed when we got back.
Friday – Ohhh the bus ride from hell. So Alice and I ventured out early that morning to find some breakfast because we didn’t know at the time that the hostel had breakfast. So we found some bread and when we got back we ate that and had some café milk stuff and water at the hostel. We paid and off we went again. Off to the gare routiere. When we arrived it was so easy to find a vehicle going where we were going because the whole garage cover was labeled with each slot. So we asked how much a sept-place was but then some guy steered us towards a big white van that looks like some of our car rapides. He said this was only 1500CFA which is three dollars US and like a third of the price of a sept-place. Little did Alice and I know at the time but we got what we paid for! Lucky us. So first off all we waited three hours for this bus to fill up. Most of which was waiting on like 3 seats to fill. Cheap jerks. Then we finally took off at noon and of course even though this is supposed to be a two hour ride we ended up stopping all over the place for people to get on and off on the way. Cooooollllll. We finally hit Touba around 4pm. We got off in the middle of nowhere desert land at a gas station. They had food and I needed something for lunch so I inhaled a steak sandwich and we asked how to get to the hotel. Oh this is Mbacke by the way not Touba yet even. So they tell us there are some busses across the way that’ll take us. There’s some dude sleeping on the bus so we ask him how we get there. He points out a bus and with only two of us we wait 15 minutes then they take us on their way. We found the campement/hotel.
Let me just say in advance of my description that this may be tainted by lack of patience and two full days of traveling and the stress of running out of money but to be fair this was the worst place I’ve ever stayed in my life. We get there and there’s some young dude with huge headphones around his neck watching TV with some chick. So the chick shows us to our room with a mangled lock/handle. That alone was concerning because I had my laptop with me.
The room was spacious enough with two beds and a dinky little TV set on a little table. The bathroom had a good sized shower and was nice enough. However, no toilet paper, no soap, the bathroom I later found was still dirty when we arrived with hair from someone not Caucasian. There was also gum stuck to the wall in our bedroom for some bizarre reason and later that night we had a wicked mosquito infestation and they didn’t have mosquito nets. So we go back to tell them we want to go to Touba because we gotta get moving! At this point it’s already like 4:30/5pm ish and we’ve got 2.5 to 3 hours of daylight left. We go back and they tell us we need to wear our pan (traditional skirts) and cove our hair. Good thing Alice and I had both brought our Senegalese skirts and had scarves. I knew we would have to cover up but I wasn’t sure how much.
During this changing time, Alice and I know we don’t have much cash so I ask if I can pay for the hotel with my card. I ask the chick because she was walking in front of me and she mumbled something about “later” so I saw her in the hall a few minutes later and asked again. She freaked out on me telling me how she doesn’t know and I finally realize she doesn’t actually work there?! WTF?! Oh we also didn’t have towels to start off with. Anyways…so back to the trip to the Grand Mosque. So the chick offers to call us a cab. He rolls up demanding like 3000CFA which is ridiculous but we don’t really have time to argue and this chick wasn’t helping our case. They all stick together around here to charge the toubabs too much anyways. We roll into Touba…not what I expected. There is one huge road running through it with nice sidewalks and a cement center divide. There are banks and businesses and stuff. Then at the end is the Grand Mosque in all its glory. There was supposedly a huge market somewhere but we never saw that. It’s also entirely black market because the Marabouts run the whole city. I kinda wanted to go to it just because of that fact.
So Alice and I got a tour of the Mosque from some dude. We arrived at an hour of prayer so we had to wait a bit first. The Grand Mosque was really beautiful and we got to see the library where Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba’s, their big prophet dude who saved Senegal or something, writings are kept. Anywho, you have to look at the pictures on facebook to understand the glory of the mosque. Then Alice and I bought water and found a cheaper taxi back to the hotel. Of course the taxi didn’t have change nor did the reject who ran the hotel we were at. So the hotel guy said he’d have change later. We ended up just taking it out of the price. Speaking of price this was the most expensive hotel we had stayed in. Bullshit.
It was dinner time. So we asked the idiot what he had for dinner because they have this huge set up of tables and such and a bar. It looks like it could be a restaurant. What’s this kids answer? Chicken. Yep one word answer according to Alice. Chicken. You have to be kidding me. So, Alice and I were forced to walk a kilometer to the gas station where they had a creepy restaurant with enclosed rooms. Yea like false walls enclosing tables so that it was like a private dining experience. Creepy and awkward. Not as awkward as the house in Gambia though. Then we had to walk back in the dark. A little scary.
Now before we had left, I complained to the mother of the idiot we met when we came in because she seemed to be in charge. She saw me standing to wait to talk to her as she talked to another man and walked out of her office anyways. I was pissed because not only is her son an asshole but so is she. Cool. They took 1000CFA off the price and said they’d give us breakfast. When we got back from our gas station dinner (which was disgusting pizza not made with real sauce) we asked what time breakfast was supposed to be. Our mentally challenged host said 7:30am. I told Alice I wanted to leave 10000CFA and ditch in the morning. She wasn’t thrilled with this idea. But, morning rolled around and, in light of all our travel woes, we wanted to leave early but no breakfast at 7:30. We started to leave with 10000CFA on the table of our room because no one was around when at 8am that idiot turned up in the kitchen. So after I yelled at him and he looked panicked, we got breakfast. We were late once again. We took a taxi to Touba to a bank because we had run out of money. Of course. We went to the bank and walked with all my lovely luggage (because I’m an idiot and packed too much) to the Gare Routiere. We took another taxi for like 3 minutes because it was too far for me to walk with the luggage. And here we go again with shitty transportation.
We got to the Gare Routiere in Touba and found a sept-place. This sept-place however was going to cost us 3,500CFA each. We tried to bargain lower but when Alice said “wanni ko” which means lower it in Wolof they just all laughed at us. Seeing as we were tight on money and I was sick of the circle of men ripping us off we walked off. The guy who was trying to find us transportation pointed to a bus. Now to be fair, this bus was like a tour bus with cushy seats and everything unlike the white car rapide bus we took between Kaolack and Touba with metal seats and barely any cushioning. It was also the right price at 1500CFA. Sweet on we go!
First problem, poor Alice got stuck next to a fidgeting baby. That was a bummer. I got stuck next to a woman who felt it was her job to violate my personal space. Overall though it wasn’t bad. BUT! 30 minutes…yep count em folks…30 minutes into the drive our bus breaks down. Awesome…I was already in a supremely grumpy mood because of how that morning had went and now it was worse. Alice was trying to be optimistic about it and said well they have to send another bus. No actually they don’t. There’s no AAA in this country and no standards for travel as we had clearly experienced. So do they have to get us another bus? No they don’t.
About an hour later, a bus with people already on it shoved us all in except for a few and we took off…at the pace of a turtle. And this bus was only taking us to Pikine (outside of the city). The men on the bus were also dropping the word TOUBAB left and right. We understand some Wolof asshole. Aren’t you awesome judging people at face value. It took us from 12pm to 4 pm to reach Dakar. Should have been 2 hours to Dakar but we hit a shit ton of traffic in Rufisque and stopped at every little stand on the road between the two cities. There are women who stand on the side of their road in their desolate home villages and sell food and water. We got the grand tour and stopped at literally each one. Shoot me in the face. Luckily Alice and I were by the open back door so it aired out.
So we got to Pikine, took a taxi to MyShop and had a pizza. It had been a rough day and I really didn’t want Alice to think I was such an awful person (I know I’m a grump when things go wrong). I figured pizza was a good way to end our trip. And it was. We went our separate ways to home for a calm Saturday night. I slept a lot on Sunday needless to say! So there it is. My spring break adventures from the sand dunes of Senegal.
Stay tuned for updates about some other fun weekend’s I’ve had since then!
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