Wednesday 16 Jan (14 miles, 2870 in total)
I can thoroughly recommend the Hotel du Poste. The oldest hotel in Saint-Louis, it’s another of the points of call for the pilots of the French colonial airmail service in the ’20s and ’30s. It was from here during the era of the “Aérospostale” company that Jean Mermoz set off, on 12 May 1930, at the controls of his seaplane “Comte de Vaulx”, for his first flight across the South Atlantic.
The dining room has a wonderful mural covering the entire ceiling showing the route and stopping places in Europe, Africa and South America. The staff are friendly and there’s a swimming pool and restaurant overlooking the river and the Pont Faidherbe.
Bill, Steve and I start the day with a walking tour of St Louis. The island used to the the European quarter and has a similar architectural style to New Orleans, through much dilapidated. We cross the bridge to Guet N’Dar, the fishing community on the peninsula where all but one of the streets are sand.
Local taxi
Young kids call us ‘toubab’ (white foreigner) and run. Good-humouredly we pretend to give chase. Immaculately-dressed leggy supermodels emerge incongruously from hovels and glide smoothly down the street as if mounted on rails. The reason for the smooth gait soon becomes apparent as we see many young girls balancing loads on their heads.
We then take a turn on the sea shore watching the pirogues navigate through the surf, spend some time admiring the roller blade skills of the local lads, then watch in amazement as a fisherman brings in catch after catch of large fish with nothing more than a hand-thrown net.
In the afternoon I head off on the bike to check out Hotel Mermoz on the peninsula for when Irene arrives. On the way back I’m stopped by a policeman that I noticed earlier stopping other European-registered vehicles. He asks to see my insurance papers which is a problem because I haven’t bought it yet. I tell him all my papers are at the hotel and he says I must leave the bike where it is and go and get them. At this stage a guy introduces himself in good English saying he’s from The Gambia. He says I’m in deep trouble, I should be carrying my documents, so will have to go to the police station and face a big fine, but if I give him £20 he’ll try and sort it out with the police.
I suspect he’s in cohoots with the cop, so I decline his munificent offer and set off for the hotel. The receptionist tells me there’s an insurance office just round the corner and I pay CFA 10250 (£10) for a month’s insurance which I ask to be backdated to the previous day as that’s when I arrived in the country. I crumple the certificate and hide it deep inside the other papers I’m carrying. When I get back to the policeman I dig out the certificate and also insist he also looks at my passport, passavant, innoculation certificate and everything else I have. He definitely smells a rat but can’t put his finger on it and we part company with a handshake and smile.
Back at the hotel four dutch riders turn up on WR450s with a support truck and trailer in tow. I exchange ‘war’ stories with Wim and he tells me they paid around €100 each to pass through the various controls on the Diama piste. I’m amazed at this, maybe in their little convoy with matching bikes and gear they looked easy pickings.
Tim
There and Back Again 