A reallllllly long post about my trip to Saint Louis!

Weekend trip to Saint Louis

What a fun and exhausting weekend. We started our trip out (I went with my friends Hannah, Gwen, Cyrus and Alec) by stuffing into a cab, all together and working our way over to the Gare Routiere (kind of like a bus station, only with taxis and cars). The second that we stepped foot out of our cab we were swarmed by people trying to get us to go in their sept-place taxis, which are essentially station wagons that hold 7 passengers. Typically they try to fill them up but you can pay the difference to have your sept-place to yourself, which is what we wanted to do. We had to do a lot of waxale (bargaining) in order to get the price in the area of what we thought was good, which was 30,000 CFA for the five of us (translates to about $60). All settled into our sept-place we headed out on our ride, which took around 4 hours. I slept part of the way, and the scenery isn’t all that remarkable, just a lot of trees and open space.

Getting to Saint Louis is pretty straightforward, especially since there isn’t much by way of highways here and the highways that there are take you straight to Saint Louis. The city itself is on the water and is some mainland plus two islands; on the Northern-most part of Senegal (you can see Mauritania from parts of it). To get over to the first island you cross a bridge that was designed by Gustave Eiffel, and originally meant for the Danube River, and got send to Saint Louis instead. Back in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, Saint Louis was the capital of West Africa, and therefore merited such a bridge. When the capital got moved to Dakar, Saint Louis just sort of stopped developing. Some of the restored buildings have a very old feel to them, and some compare it to New Orleans (which I’ve never been to, so I can’t really say).The islands are very small though, but hold a great deal of people. There are particularly a lot of Laobe people there because of its positioning on the ocean, and the Laobe are fishermen by heritage.

We got to our hotel by around 5pm and checked ourselves into the Auberge de Jeunesse, which turned out to be a great choice! We split into two rooms, girls in one and boys in the other. The beds were wonderfully comfortable and even came with mosquito nets (big deal here in Africa). In no time we were ready to set off on our exploring. Just because it’s getting ‘late’ in Africa never means that anything is closing, especially when you consider that people typically eat dinner around 9pm. We wandered around the island that we were on for a little while, getting a feel for the area and seeing what there was to do. In all truth there isn’t a whole lot to do in Saint Louis- although a lot of the locals will try to give you tours in their horse-drawn carriages. Forgoing that option we checked the town out by foot- crazy to imagine that it was once the capital of West Africa, considering its small size!

All weekend long we got plenty of “ah, toubab!” shouted at us. Toubab means, essentially, white person. There isn’t much of a response to it, since, yes, we are white, so we would just yell back ‘waaw, toubab!’ (waaw in wolof means yes) and just went with it. Mostly it was little kids saying it to us, and considering toubabs are in the vast minority, they like to point us out when they see us. Along our first walk we ran into a family who was very intrigued by us, and our friendly buddy Cyrus got us invited into their house in no time. We made our way into the mini shanty-town and went into their house, which was really just a room. The people in Senegal really believe in the idea of Teranga, which means hospitality, and despite their very evident poverty, they still wanted us to come and visit with them. After hanging out for a while and listening to some music (and then being cajoled into dancing ) we went on our way, ready to see what more hospitality we would come across.

During the whole weekend we put our faith in what we call ‘The Good Book” aka the Lonely Planet guide to Senegal. From that we picked out restaurants, and for the first night we went to the authors choice spot for great cheap Yassa Poulet. It’s a Senegalese dish that is a ton of rice and a big piece of chicken served with a sweet/spiced onion topping. Very good and definitely something that tastes like Senegal but isn’t too far from what we would have in the states. For that meal I opted to have some calamari shish-kabobs, which were a great choice! Following dinner we weren’t sure what we wanted to do, so we set out wandering for a mellow place to get a drink. Along the way Cyrus made more friends, who were a bunch of very rasta musicians who started an impromptu concert in the street and invited us to go to the beach with them for some music and dancing. After about 15 minutes of conferring (decisions and goodbyes are never quick in Senegal) we opted out of it after such fatigue from our long trip. We said leggi leggi (goodbye) and told them we’d try to meet up with them the next day.

In the end we went to a random bar that played Jazz music (there’s a huge jazz festival there once a year) and had a glass of wine. Tuckered out we went back to our Auberge and chose to call it a night, and opted out of setting an alarm. Alas, in Senegal that doesn’t mean much when you’re positioned close to a mosque, which starts blaring prayers over the loudspeaker starting at 5am. Since I live near to a mosque in Dakar I’m relatively used to it, but something about this mosque was particularly loud (it sounded like a debate of some sort, but since I don’t speak Arabic I can’t really weigh in on the matter). We all got up and had our complimentary breakfast at the Auberge, which was bread and butter (or jam) and tea (or coffee), which is what I have every day at home anyways. The only downside to breakfast was the flies. I don’t know if it is the general presence of fish in Saint Louis or what, but the flies were out of control there!!! They are inescapable in Africa regardless, but they were swarming everywhere this weekend.

Following breakfast we decided to venture over to the other island, which faces out to the ocean. We crossed the bridge, and it was like entering a whole new town. Crowded and crazy, it really felt like Senegal without the tourism. People were going about the business, with horse drawn buggies everywhere, cars honking and goats galore. The goats roam like nobody’s business, but they do their best to avoid cars. Yet there presence is everywhere in Saint Louis. I don’t know how people keep track of their goats, or if the goats even belong to anyone, but sometimes it feels like they’re running things. We checked out the fish market for a second but it got a little too crowded so we decided to head towards the ocean.

Once there it is very evident how polluted it is in this country. Even along the river between the two islands the river has a shore of trash, just mucking everything up. Along the coastline to the ocean there is still a great deal of trash. What struck me is that they don’t treat beaches here the way that we do in the US. In the US beaches are meant for luxury- here they are a source of income, a path to get the boats out to the ocean to fish. While standing on the beach we saw a few boats get heaved out onto the shore, loaded up with a motor and then sent out to sea. It’s really a community effort, with everyone joining in to push it out. Cyrus and Alec really wanted to, so they helped with pushing one boat out (resulting, of course, in Cyrus making more friends). After being accosted by some local kids who were a) interested in toubabs and b) wanted cadeuax (gifts) or money, yet very friendly and nice, we moved along. At this point we walked through the part of town that was next to the river, and walked by more fish and flies than I was interested in being near. To keep it brief I wasn’t enjoying it and felt very awkward being a spectator to these people’s everyday life, which obviously is not easy. Still, an important part of Senegal to see.

We headed back to our island and went to another Lonely Plant recommended restaurant, which was located on the Northern-most point of the island, where we had yet to venture. It was at this point that we were able to see Mauritania. At this meal I indulged in some Yassa Poulet, and as expected, it was awesome (and a HUGE portion!). Before heading back to our hotel so I could buy a Senegalese mask for my collection. I don’t know if I got a great price, but I didn’t mind giving the guy whose place was off the beaten path a nice sale.

Then we stopped by our hotel to put on our swimsuits and gather things to go to the ‘beach’. This required a cab ride, one in which we got ripped off, but it was a lesson learned- always remember to establish the price before getting into the cab! (we thought that is was a set price, which it is for on the island, but not for a distance like the beach). It was worth it though, once we got to the huge beach. It was tons of sand and lotsa ocean! It was too windy to go out, but we did run into our musician friends. They were very pleased to see us. We hung out and chatted and in no time started to give us African Dance lessons.

They really embodied the sense of Teranga, and were so friendly with us. Once it started to get colder they invited us back to the musicians area, which was some rented space on the beach, which had some tents set up, and a dog named argent (money). They invited us to stay for dinner, but we wanted to get back to our island before it got to be too dark. They took zero offense to this and were just happy to have run into us again. One of our friends helped us get a cab for the return, and for a great price too! Making random friends can be so nice, especially ones who play cool music and teach you how to dance on the beach.

We stopped into a café once back on the island where we snacked on pastries and I had as close as I’ve come to coffee this whole time (despite being on a continent where great coffee is produced, they’re all about instant Nescafe here). We wandered around some more, chilled out at the hotel and then decided on a place for dinner. Looking for something other than Yassa Poulet, we went to a pizza place. Despite the best efforts it’s never the same as at home. However, it does the trick, and breaks up the Senegalese food nicely. That night we chose to stay in at our hotel and play some cards in the nice outside space. A very nice chill night.

With an alarm set we got up for the next day and had breakfast and packed ourselves up. One last jaunt took us into the town and to a grocery store to get some food for lunch. Being college students we stocked up on snacks, and I decided to splurge on a box of Smacks cereal. So worth it! We checked out of our hotel and began our process of finding a cab to take us to the Gare to get a sept-place. A bunch of Toubabs with suitcases is like a flag being waved and soon we were entrenched in deal-making. We were determined to a) get a good price and b) have our own sept-place. After trying to get something set up on the island we decided it was better to go to the Gare itself and see what kind of deal we could work out over there. As soon as we got there (after finding a cab) we were leapt upon and the waxale began. It’s always very confusing because there are so many people talking at one time, trying to get you to take their cab, figuring out the price, so many different things.

Long story short, we managed a sept-place for a good price, and went on our way. And then stopped, and then went again, and then stopped for gas. Finally being really on our way felt very good. Too bad it was ridiculously hot without escape and our water was literally hot in no time. We toughed it out, though, stopped for some awesome Orange Fanta, and snacked our way home. Instead of going to the Gare in Dakar we offered our driver a bit of cash, and got him to drop us off in our neighborhood, which was worth the extra money just to not have to waxale all over again. Exhausted, but home, it was nice to get back to my place in Mermoz.

Time to head off to the Marines house to go watch the Super Bowl! Hopefully it goes as plans (and the Bears win!). It will be a verrrrry late night (the game starts at 11pm) but it should be fun to have some Americanism.

I can’t wait for more weekend trips!!!!!