A day in Dakar, Senegal (pt 1)

On Saturday I spent the day in Dakar, the capital and largest city in Senegal. The city of Dakar proper has a population of 1,030,394, whereas the population of the Dakar metropolitan area is estimated to have 3.94 million as of 2021. After being driven through the streets of Dakar, I felt like I had seen almost all of them!

Like Cape Verde, Dakar was colonized by the Portuguese in the early 15^th century and was also used as a base for the Atlantic slave trade. France took it over in 1677. Fast forward to today and it is now a major regional port and the capital of the Republic of Senegal.

I will say upfront that the most interesting part of the day to me was just driving through the city roads (some paved, some not) to the traditional village of Keur Massar, where we walked through an area of trees that are supposedly used in their traditional medicine and where research is done (I cannot possibly overstate how unimpressive it was). 

From there we drove on to the “Pink Lake” which wasn’t pink (it supposedly has a pink cast at certain times of the year due to a certain type of algae growth). There we boarded some 4x4 trucks to ride across some sand dunes where we were to “meet the local people and share daily activities of salt harvesting and have refreshments.” We did none of the above. But there were at least a dozen men and women waiting to hawk their wares to the point of being obnoxious, even sticking their trinkets inside the vehicles after we had re-boarded them to leave. A handful of people bought little souvenirs. 

After our last “no, thank yous” we were taken to Keur Salim Lodge where we were served rice, chicken, bread and vegetables for lunch and given more opportunities to buy local crafts before heading back to the village of Noflaye to attend a traditional dance ceremony. 

Our guide told us that 95% of the population is Muslim, the other 5% Christian. He was also proud of the fact that supposedly 60% of the children attend school. I read online that 4 in 10 children do not complete primary education and only 37 per cent complete a full cycle of basic education.

 

4x4 ride along the beach

for the 20th time, "no, thank you"

local crafts for sale outside our lunch stop - not as aggressive

Just driving down the crowded streets was far and away the most interesting part of the day for me. There were pedestrians (lots!) shopping and crossing the narrow street, cars, lorries (that's "trucks" to us), horses and mules pulling wagons loaded with goods, tour buses, public vans overflowing with locals, motor scooters and even an occasional cow or goat all vying for the same space along the crowded streets. Observing the locals going about their daily life was the most interesting part of the day for me.

 

All of the street photos above were taken through the front window of our tour bus so I apologize for the lack of quality on some. I was shooting through a dirty window with a long crack down the middle, along with various stickers on the glass - thus some of the unusual shaped photos. 

I realize I'm probably over posting, but I wanted you to get the feel for what the streets are like. I also enjoyed watching the traditional dancers who performed for us, but since I'm posting so many of the streets in Senegal, I will post the dancers separately.