More hassle on way to Dakar

Thursday 17 Jan (mileage 10 piste, 122 road, total 3002)
In the morning after saying goodbye to Steve and Bill I go looking for a cyber café but none are open as it’s too early, so I decide to look in on Zebrabar to the south and head out of the city over the seven-span bride. I’ve gone less than 500m from the hotel when I see Steve and Bill by the side of the road. They’ve been pulled by the same policeman who stopped me and he is refusing to let them ride further. I act as translator and volunteer to take Bill to buy insurance. We head back into the city with Bill riding pillion. I’m not used to having someone on the back and the metal ‘planks’ of the bridge set the bike weaving.

Part way across the 500m-long bridge

On the way back I see the French Transalp and Suzuki bikes parked outside a hotel. So they made it. Wow. On our return the cop tries to finger Steve for CFA 10,000 but he refuses. I take a photo of the cop with the flash ‘accidently’ set on so he knows I’m documenting this. He then waves us all on and shakes our hands with a very sour look on his face.

Smile, you’re on candid camera

A few miles further on we come across a national police roadblock. The guy waves us to the side of the road. I stop in the road and he waves me over to the hard standing, so I do as he asks. He then announces that I have incurred an infraction by not signalling as I moved over. It’s the start of the most blatent extortion attempt and I’m seriously annoyed. He takes our driving licences and we discuss calling the British Embassy–I have the numbers in my mobile for the British Embassy Dakar, the British Honorary Consul for Mauritania and the British Embassy in Rabat, Morocco. I get my phone out and say the magic words ‘Embassy Britanique’ and he goes beserk, but at least it shows we are not about to be cowed. He storms off into the hut with our licences. After a minute Steve follows him, the guy asks for €30 per bike. Steve grabs the papers and exits stage left. The guy runs out and is now livid and raving at us but we ignore him. Ear plugs in, helmets on, gloves on, ignition and start. What’s he going to do—shoot us for not paying a bung? As we pull out he says, “You can go.” Well thanks shitface, we were going anyway.

For me this experience will really put a damper on the rest of my time in Senegal. I part company for the second time with Bill and Steve; they are heading for The Gambia and I call in to the Zebrabar, a place with a legendary reputation amongst travellers. It seems a good place to chill out, especially for solo travellers who could do with some company, or those who want to camp.

I meet Martin who has a LandRover 101 (I think). It’s a military-spec vehicle which has been adapted with a camper section on the rear. Martin is carrying 200kg of spares but not the ones he needs to mend the gearbox, so is waiting for a DHL delivery.

Vultures clean up the roadkill

I can’t say I find the Senegal countryside particularly interesting. It’s very flat and repetitive and I can’t help comparing it to the wonderful sweeping bends and mountain roads of Morocco.

My first Baobab tree

Dakar is perched on the Cap Vert (green cape) peninsula and all possible expansion space has been used up decades ago. In fact Cap Fumé might be a better description given the vehicular polution. To make things worse, all traffic headed in and out of Dakar has to go through a narrow bottleneck joining the peninsula to the rest of the country. Dakar’s location is far from ideal and there has been talk of creating a new Senegalese capital elsewhere.

I’ve hit the bottleneck around Rufisque at rush hour and the traffic level is indescribable. It’s absolute anarchy, with thousands of ‘ndiaga ndiayas’ (white Mercedes buses), ‘car rapides’ (blue and yellow minibuses), trucks and taxis belching huge plumes of diesel fumes into my path. I wet my buff and pull it over my nose, though that’s little protection. I notice some moped riders are wearing medical-style face masks. Whenever there’s a junction the traffic is gridlocked. Some vehicles bypass this by driving on the shoulder of the road, but it’s deep sand and not an option for me. Hundreds of roadside sellers of sim cards, fruit, sunglasses, nuts and myriad other items walk between the halted vehicles making filtering even more difficult.

It takes almost two hours to cover the eight miles to Yoff, a suburb of Dakar that the guide books describe as being relatively tranquil and after checking out one hotel I start hunting down a travellers’ haunt called Via Via. A guy offers to hop on the back and guide me. It’s a mile or so and when he gets off he asks for €20. I don’t mind giving him something for his trouble and bung him CFA 2000, enough for a couple of beers.

The staff at Via Via are great and they really know how to enjoy themselves with much singing, clapping, drumming and wild dancing. They code switch like mad using Woloof, French and Arabic in the same sentence, with sometimes an English word thrown in for good measure. It’s the birthday of one of the girls and I’m invited to share the ‘cake’ a weird concoction that tastes of porridge with sweetened vanilla yoghurt over the top.

Tim