THE END.........and the beginning

Dakar, our last stop, is perfectly situated on a beautiful, rocky stretch of the Atlantic coast, and in fact, contains the westernmost point of Africa – that part of the continent closest to the U.S.  It’s a typically noisy, hectic, crowded, dirty African city, but it’s a city that is obviously on the move.   New construction, gorgeous high-rises, 5-star hotels and waterfront condos and villas were everywhere to be seen.  While police were expertly conducting traffic along the narrow streets, Muslim crowds kneeled en masse, by the hundreds,  outside the Grand Mosque, taking over the streets and walkways of the central city to chant their Friday afternoon prayers.  Pickpockets too, were out in force, trying to pick the pockets of no less than 8 of the members of our group.   (They were not successful.)  

We took a clean, efficient, leak-free ferry to Ile de Goree, an island 20 minutes offshore, where captured Africans were held before being shipped off to slavery in the Americas - a fitting way to end the trip in much the same way we had begun it nearly 7  weeks ago in Ghana.   The guide at the prison explained that perhaps one reason that there are so many talented black athletes in America is because only the tallest, strongest, fastest, healthiest slaves were purchased at the slave auctions of Africa and survived the journey across the sea.   The Island was gorgeous, peaceful, and a relaxing, smog-free escape from the commotion of the city.

Dakar is also the capital of Afro beat music and those of us who have not yet left the city for home or further journeys spent the night at one of the well-known open-air clubs.  The music was fantastic, but I was way too tired to dance.   I left at midnight to pack and get a few hours sleep.   I was leaving at 4 am for my flight to Cape Town, the restorative interlude between Legs 1 & 2 of this African voyage.

BEAUTIFUL ST. LOUIS

St. Louis – the next to last stop on the trip – was the first French settlement in all of Africa and sits on Senegal’s Barbary Coast.   Like its counterpart in Paris, the city is an island situated in the middle of the Senegal River just before it empties into the Atlantic.  A bridge that connects the island to the mainland was designed by none other than Eiffel and, rather than open like a US draw bridge to permit boat passage, the center portion swivels out.  A second bridge, on the far side of the island, connects to a long peninsula, more like a sandbar really, that extends to the Mauritania border, only a few miles north.   Life on this stretch of barren land looks like a scene from The Pirates of Penzance.  The face of every man – and woman – in Africa, from Saharan Tuaregs and Muslim nomads to Nigerian traders, roam the streets while brightly colored ships, crowd  the shoreline.  Given its location at the edge of the Sahel, the streets are nothing but sand.

We took a 20-minute boat ride to the Island from our campsite.   Little did we know that 5 minutes into the ride we would need to use the three previously prepared and neatly hidden buckets (plastic containers with their tops cut-off) to bale out the water that was already soaking our shoes.  Of course, this being Africa, one of the makeshift pails also had a hole, so we needed to stick a finger in the bottom as we worked to keep the boat afloat.

Although run down and shabby, St. Louis is a beautiful colonial town, with lots of colorful, but fading, grand buildings.  We walked from the northern to southern ends of the Island in less than 15 minutes and from east to west in under 5. 

We had our last formal dinner as a group back at the campsite, at the edge of a deserted stretch of the Atlantic, under darkness of night and a sky full of stars.   The heat has broken and its much cooler now – both day and night. 

The trip is winding down – only one more day to go.  

I’m not quite sure how I will remember it.  Physically demanding and exhausting or blissfully simple and free from the shackles of modern life?  Maddeningly slow and bureaucratic, or a quaint throw-back to uncomplicated times?  An enjoyable overland journey or a tedious road trip?  Whatever patina time will paint, the shades of excess and deprivation, human resiliency, and the fragility of life sandwiched between  the Sahara and the equator will surely be part of the palette.

THE GROUP

While I’ve written fairly extensively about  life on the road – the lack of water, working toilets, food, shade from the sun -  I’ve said nothing about the group of which I am a part, a group that self selected to randomly coalesce for 35 days, while living and breathing as one, 24/7, in a land of little else but comraderie.

Without exception, my travel companions are hard-core explorers, not tourists, having stacked up an impressive list of countries visited and adventures survived.     I know this because one way we pass the time on days of many miles is to compete with our personal travel list. 

 According to the United Nations, there are 194 countries in the world.  Phil, from Australia, downloaded the list of recognized nations before he left home months and months ago, and each person has gone through the list checking off those countries visited (honor system strictly enforced!).  Airport layovers don’t count – both feet and all ten toes must have touched ground outside a terminal, and customs cleared.   Derek, a dairy farmer from New Zealand, is in the lead with 120 countries visited, but he is 62 years old.   Dave, a Scot, at only 29, has 35 countries on his list   I argued fiercely and successfully that Syria and Lebanon be included in my list since the Golan Heights, which straddles both countries, is merely occupied by Israel, not annexed, bringing my total to 69.  As the truck crosses each border there is always someone celebrating his entry into Country #50, or #75, and a big “WhooHoo!”  rings out from the truck. 

In addition to the 2 English group leaders, there are 16 others - an even number of UK and Australians, a pair of Scots, a Dutch girl, the New Zealand farmer, an American from Chicago and his male lover, a Brazilian, both now living in Sao Paulo.  .  There are two 70-year-olds, a few 50+ ‘s, with the rest between 35 and 40.  Sarah (age: 32, UK) is a UN employee who has been working in both the Sudan and Sri Lanka.   Paul (about 40; Australia) is a travel insurance exec.  Sebastian, about the same age (UK), is an HSBC banker.   There are a couple of   IT experts, and an international playboy (the gay guy from Brazil), nicknamed “Rambo” by his city’s newspapers.  About half the group started in January in Douala, Cameroon, traveling to Togo, Benin, and  Nigeria before meeting up with the rest of us in Accra.   Some are flying from Dakar, at the end of our trip, to Istanbul to travel across the former Soviet Union and Asia.   Some are staying in Senegal to do volunteer work.  Another will be traveling from Nairobi to Zambia.   I, of course, will be flying to Cape Town and continuing north to Zimbabwe.

Dave, the Scot, cut his hand in Ouagadougou, (Burkina Faso) and was taken to the hospital for 3 stitches, which were later removed in Bamako (Mali). His hand got even more scratched when, after a night of drinking, he couldn’t find his way back to the hotel at 4 am, and climbed fences and bushes, only to discover the hotel was only two blocks from whence he had started the evening.   Margaret from the UK,  (but living in Canada) had her camera stolen in Douala.   The Dutch girl was almost arrested in Bobo for photographing a mosque without a permit (cost:  $2), and Stephanie (Australia) found a centipede in her tent.   Steve and Sebastian (both from the UK) were very  sick for 2-3 days, and the lens on my camera shattered on some stairs I was climbing back in Burkina.  There’s the very proper, quintessential Englishman (Ian; 73 countries visited), who is, I am convinced, ADD, and makes me laugh with his silly comments in the Queen’s most high-brow, proper English.   His father was known throughout the UK as THE most famous cricket announcer in radio history .  Derek, the New Zealand farmer, has been on 37 overland trips with this company.   Lucy (UK, age 32) lost her boyfriend just last year when he died beside her in bed, from “Sudden Adult Death Syndrome.”  Simone (40) is an Australian phys ed teacher who started a twice annual volunteer program for her students building, maintaining and teaching at a school in Guatemala she visited 5 years ago while on vacation. Debbie, an Aussie, teaches English in Hong Kong and Phil, after cashing in his options at his investment company, is determined to visit as many countries as he can before he rests – he only has about 100 to go. 

Margaret, the only other vegetarian, (age 70;  63 countries), was removed from her food group for excessive nagging, and was made “Hygiene Queen,” a job she enforces with zeal.  She won’t let anyone on the truck without first spraying his hands with disinfectant, regularly inspects the frig for leakage, and harasses us about cleanliness and decontamination, a necessary evil.

As I write this, the two gay guys from Brazil, and my personal favorites, have just announced that tomorrow, with about 10 days of the trip left to go, they will be leaving the group to return home.   They can’t take it anymore.   Too much self denial and hardship.   They’ve had it.   They will be taking a private car to Dakar and then flying back to Sao Paulo, together with all the masks, carvings and other African knick-knacks that they bought. 

HOT WATER!

I have not had a proper shower since Feb. 3 when I left New York.   I was dying to get to our next destination, where there would be (we were told) unlimited supplies of hot water, clean beds and a fast internet connection; a scheduled and much-needed 3 full days of  rest & recuperation.   I was breathless with anticipation at the thought of such luxuries!

We pulled in to Bamako, Mali’s capital, during rush hour, just as the sun was beginning to set.   It was yet again, an other-worldly experience.

The entire city which sits on the banks of the Niger River, was shrouded in a haze of smog and sand dust, a filter that failed to blur or mute the frenzy.  A two-lane road leading in to the city was being used as a 6 lane highway.   All manner of transport;  carts and donkeys, bikes, vespas, antique, broken cars and sleek black 4 x 4’s, competed for the limited lanes and chose their own direction – some north and south, others east and others still, west.  Pedestrians walked atop the cement-block -covered sewers, hopping over the loose slabs.  Vendors sat in the burning sun with their wares laid out on the ground, with only a black garbage bag, sliced open, to delineate their territory and protect the merchandise from the garbage, scattered about.  There was a massive number of one-storey, cement block structures that littered the road, all incomplete, all vacant, just facades, really.   The Malian government gives the land away provided the owner begins building within a certain time frame.   Apparently there is no similar time requirement for completion and work continues as the owner is financially able – sometimes taking decades, or even a generation, to move in.  Later, when we walked through the city's market area, in use since the 1600’s, I thought I would not make it out alive.   A single lane carried vast amounts of pedestrians, animals and traffic.   The sleeves of my tee-shirt and legs of my pants were filthy from actually touching and rubbing up against donkey hair, motorcycle grease, and loose car paint.  We walked single file, every man for himself, as we made our way through the throngs of chaos.  I bumped into three or four blind people (and it is I who bumped in to them, not vice versa) as they made their way through the bedlam seemingly undisturbed by their hit and miss approach to moving forward.    There were limbless beggars and obvious (government?) fat cats, all of us vying for an inch of space to maneuver. 

But there's no denying that this was definitely a city with panache!  Traffic signals existed (albeit ignored).  Modern buildings with fresh paint popped into sight when least expected.  There were clean supermarkets, French patisseries, night clubs and fancy (Libyan, or rather, Qaddafi-owned), hi-rise hotels and a view from the hills above the city.  

Once again, it is the Market that is most intriguing.  At once repulsive and captivating, the sights are truly revolting but the shock and novelty make looking away impossible.

Divided into trade sections (i.e., ironworks, carpentry, mechanics, wood carvings, etc.), the most bizarre was the “fetish” section.

A fetish is an object worshipped by animists (those who believe that non-human beings are spiritual entities) because it is believed to have magical powers.  As we walked past the fetish stalls I had to hold my nose because I thought I would throw up from the stench.  Neatly aligned in piles of homogenous objects, were scores of once  alive parakeets, monkey heads, a fetal camel, serpent bodies, baby owls, and a small spotted cat, a baby cheetah, we thought, all dried from the searing sun.  Most Malians are  Christian or Muslim, but still practice some form of animism and consult with the Fetish Man regarding various ailments and issues.  Those who want to become pregnant, or not, those with rheumatism, headaches, or bad knees, those with depression, mania,or rage, use their meager savings to self-medicate or pray the illness away.   The Fetish Man has a thriving business in Mali.

All our pent-up energy exploded as we danced and sang the night away in a karaoke bar, where  ex-pats and locals sang in practically as many languages as there were people. Russian and Arabic, French and German, and on and on, and on.   I had dinner in a Thai restaurant only because, according to the guidebook, it is known as the "Best Restaurant in All of West Africa".  

My much longed for hot shower was a decadent abuse of the limited water source.  I now sparkle and squeak and am ready for the 4-day overland journey tomorrow to Senegal.    Another country, another adventure.  

I have no idea when I will be back here and able to post.