We only stay at Chez Salim for a couple of nights. You can hire quads but the cost is CFA 25,000 for an hour’s escorted ride which seems a bit steep. The food is rather repetitive (six variants of chicken and chips) and I come face-to-face (literally) with an enormous cockroach when I reach for a glass of water on the bedside table. I study it for a moment and concur with those who think Mercedes used it as a styling cue for their latest designs, when consign it to the toilet before Irene notices.
Chez Salim accommodation is in separate huts
Whilst still at Lac Rose we visit the Turtle Village which is interesting. Turtles have an active sex life until 150 years old and copulation takes two hours. On the downside the shell limits their top speed to 1 mile per hour.
We hit the road for Saint-Louis which is 150 miles away. Irene has brought the conversion kit with her for my BMW System V helmet that turns it into a jet helmet. The flip-up chin protector is removed and replaced with jet side sections, and the visor is replaced with a deeper version. Now I can ride with the visor down and still get air flow around the face.
We spend a couple of nights at Hotel de la Poste (http://www.hotel-poste.com/accueil.html), then move down the peninsula a couple of miles to Hotel Mermoz (http://www.hotelmermoz.com/). To get there we pass the fish tables at Guet N’Dar where the women gut and prepare the fish for shipment. The fish are packed in ice and then loaded into the line of refrigerated lorries that are waiting to take the loads to Dakar and other towns within Senegal. The smell of rotting fish is everywhere, not from today’s catch but from the detrius of previous days, weeks, months and years of gutting. These people must live with the smell forever in their nostrils.
Pirogues on the beach at Guet N’Dar
The Hotel Mermoz has more guests arriving and if we want to stay we should have to change rooms, so we decide mid morning to move on further south. Irene has been reading about the Mbodiene area on the Petit Cote south of Mbour so that’s our target. We have to get cash from the bank to pay the bill and on the way back to the hotel we get pulled by a cop who tries to make out I made an illegal turn. I refuse to speak French and say what a nice day it is. He checks my insurance and gives up on the attempt to extract money.
Heading south out of Saint-Louis the next pull is the now infamous corrupt checkpoint at N15 59.141 W16 29.263. I make a play of carefully checking my mirrors and indicating when stopping, the policeman asks for my licence and waves us on–possibly put off by the fact that Irene is riding pillion.
The road from Saint-Louis to Thies is really boring and repetitive. Although it’s quite straight, goats, donkeys and cows crossing the road prevent speeds of more than 70 mph. There are occasional settlements and one of them, Mékhé seems to be a transport hub with several small cafés and restaurants—looks like a good place to sample the local cuisine. You can also get basic supplies at petrol stations. To all intents the area is completely flat, though looking at the GPS track log it seems the road gradually rose over the next 100 kilometres to 100m asl, a gradient of 1:1000. We take a smaller road from Thies towards Poponguine which has a hill and a valley. Gobsmacked at the sight we stop to take a photo.
Wow, a hill!
The hotels in Mbodiene area are full so we ride a bit further on and find the Hotel de la Plage in Joal. This is an unassuming place but very friendly with great ambiance and we stop for what turns out to be three nights.
Fadioth is twinned with Joal, via a long pedestrian bridge. It is said to be a 100-year old man-made island of clam and seashells, however it has baobab trees that look older than this. It has a sizeable christian community and a dual christian/muslim cemetry is on a separate island connected by yet another bridge.
Cemetry island in the background
Fadioth is extremely neat and tidy and well worth a visit—there are some extremely high-quality souvenirs and no pressure to buy. Lots of well dressed older folk around, the men wearing trilby hats which seems somewhat incongruous.
Masks and figures are popular
From Joal we ride north through Mbour to Saly NiakNiakhal and stop at Hotel Paradou (htp://www.paradou-senegal.com).
Le Paradou
We are in the middle of the high season for tourism and Saly is popular, but because the Paradou is fairly new it’s not in any guidebooks and we are able to get a room. It’s well laid out with lots of arty touches and we end up staying for four nights.
Sunday 2 Feb
Irene’s flight back to London via Tripoli is this evening. We make the best of the day by sunbathing until 3pm, then set off to do the 50 miles back to Via Via.
Leaving Le Paradou
Irene is amazed at the gridlocked traffic at Rufisque but in fact it is comparatively light as it’s the weekend. Back at Yoff we pick up Irene’s case and transfer back into my luggage all the things I had left at the hotel. Irene senses the change in me as my mood turns from being a tourist back into being a traveller. We get a taxi to the airport for CFA2000 and say our goodbyes. It’s been a really great couple of weeks having Irene share the experience of bike touring.
Tim
There and Back Again 