Dakar, Senegal

February 16^th, 2025

So here we are arriving in Dakar, Senegal, the final new country for our cruise, every country will be a repeat visit from now on since the canceled our stop in Algeria. However, we still have some great ports to visit.

What I am I thinking when I hear the word Dakar?

I am remembering the long drive home from work listening to the radio, and the reports from an African news correspondent. She always ended her reports with “Ofeibea Quist-Arcton in Dakarrrrrrrrr”. I loved it. I wanted to meet her as she did wonderful reporting, but most of all to hear her say Dakarrrrrr in person. I never thought that I would actually get to see Dakar, but here we are in Senegal, arriving at another busy cargo port.

The souvenir stands were getting ready

Yes the coaches are all lined up to whisk us away on our adventure for the day.

We yet again decided to take a ship’s tour as we just weren’t sure what the facilities would be like here. We probably could have arranged our own tour, but it turned out that the ship’s tour was fine.

It was an hour’s drive from the ship to Bandia Reserve, our destination for the day. We passed a lot of baobab trees,

And were interested to see baobab trees and Palm trees growing side by side. Not something we had seen before.

I was wondering how things would work out for all of us on the game drive in the reserve, but it worked out quite well for us. We were ushered to a 9-seater safari vehicle, and although we are used to having only 4 of us in a vehicle, it turned out to be OK. Well, it was almost OK. Our guide was unable to sit in the front row of the vehicle, and then had to climb into the middle row of seats, and situated himself next to Brian. That meant Brian was no longer on the end of the row, and that made photography more of a challenge, but it worked out OK in the end.

We drove around the park for about an hour. The road was dusty, and the park very seemed dry. We loved seeing the red acacia and baobab trees. It was like a real safari.

There are no predators or elephants in the park, but there were loads of giraffes.

We saw some warthogs

Impalas

Savannah buffalos, who look quite different to the Cape buffalos we are used to seeing. Although they still have oxpeckers pecking away on them.

We also saw some beautiful Derby eland

And an ostrich.

The rhinos have had their horns trimmed to dissuade poachers.

We also saw some zebras, but didn’t manage to get any good photos. It really was a great game drive.

There was no stop for morning drinks on the drive, but we did stop at the Tombeau de Griots. In Senegalese tradition, the tripe’s griots, story tellers who are the guardians of their living history, are buried in baobab trees. They were buried in the baobab trees because these trees considered sacred and a symbol of knowledge. Griots were considered wise men, and burying them in the ground was thought to cause their knowledge to be lost.

Then we headed back to the park entrance. When we alighted from the vehicle there were steps to help us get back down to ground level. I’m not sure why they didn’t have steps when we climbed into the vehicle. It certainly would have made things easier.

After getting back on the ground again we went to see the giant tortoises.

We were quite hot and thirsty by then so we had a Coke. The facilities there are great. A very nice café and eating area.

The shop is also excellent with some really nice local goods, and the rest rooms were apparently clean.

However, the main attraction of this area is the crocodiles.

At first I thought they were just stuffed

But then finally one moved. It was very much a real live animal.

The crocodiles in the water did seem to be a bit more animated.

There was a lot to see

There were vervet monkeys too, one stole an ice cream!

We spent about another hour there, and then found our coach and returned to the ship.

We wanted to see a bit of Dakar itself so we took the shuttle bus to the Place de l’Independance.

We had less than an hour before the last shuttle back to the ship so there wasn’t much time to explore. Our first stop was at the market, but although the market building looked like a wonderful traditional building the neighborhood was rather sketchy and the building was very uninviting. I felt uncomfortable taking out my phone to take a photo so we don’t have a photo of the market.

We then walked to the train station, passing by a statue to a war hero who fought and died in Rwanda

And a memorial to the soldiers in World War ll.

We stopped at the train station which is a magnificent building.

We walked back to the square

There was a very random assortment of tea pots under one of the benches.

It was interesting that some buildings around the square were in great shape

While others didn’t look so good.

There was a heavy police presence, and we weren’t sure what that was all about, but it turned out that the president’s motorcade had just driven by, so that’s why they were all out in force. I must say that despite the police presence I did not feel entirely safe wandering around, and probably justifiably so. Apparently one of our fellow passengers had her bag snatched and watch stolen, and ended up with facial bruises.

We didn’t have any adverse encounters and enjoyed our walk, the square was interesting.

And I loved the fish sculpture, although it was falling apart.

We ended our walk at the place where the shuttle bus had dropped us off. We waited for the last shuttle back to the ship. We waited and waited. Brian thought he could see the shuttle on the other side of the square, and just as he was leaving to check it out the shuttle arrived.

Although the shuttle had dropped us off there, this was not the correct place to catch the shuttle again. Luckily a couple of our fellow passengers had seen us standing around, and had asked the driver to come and pick us up.

Had they not done that we would have missed the last shuttle and would have had to walk back to the ship. I am so glad we didn’t have to do that.

Soon after we got back on board the ship blew her whistle and off we set for the Canary Islands. We passed by another electricity generating ship. It is so interesting how they do that.

Soon the skyline of Dakar faded into the distance, and we were out in the Atlantic Ocean again.

This time it was a rough Atlantic Ocean, and the sea sickness bags started appearing around the ship.

Yay, finally a bit of pitching and rolling. We headed up to the Observation Bar after dinner so we could really feel the movement. No hope of waves crashing up on the deck in front of the windows. However it was still good to enjoy our chocolate martinis and listen to Robert playing the guitar. I really enjoyed our little game drive today. I am sorry that we didn’t see more of Dakar, we will just have to find another cruise coming here!