258km in 6 hours - The Road to Saint Louis

One restored building, and its mirror image across the street, 'about' to be restored

No, I haven't made it over to Missouri, USA. I have just headed up to a town which provides a strong reminder of the French presence in the area. Both because the town was named after the French king at the time (but seriously, to add 'Saint' in front, does seem a little obnoxious), and also because of the fact that Saint Louis served as the capital of French West Africa for over 2 centuries. The town, another one of Senegal's UNESCO World Heritage Listed sites is part crumbling to bits, and part remnants of its colonial past.

Above: Silting from the artificial break in the sand banks is very evident.
Below: the locals enjoying some colonial shade.

The heart of the city is located on an island in the middle of the fascinating Senegal River. Fascinating (to me at least) because although it provides the natural border between Mauritania and Senegal, just before it reaches the Atlantic Ocean, it turns south, and runs parallel to the ocean for another 30 or so kilometers, separated from the Atlantic by the sandy Langue de Barbarie (Barbaric Tongue). This is a sandy strip of land, only a few dozen metres wide at points. Of course, around 10 years ago, man interfered with nature by cutting a canal through the sandy strip - only a few metres wide. This has eroded into a huge gap now and massive amounts of erosion and silting which is clearly evident from both satellite imagery, and up close inspection.

The banks of the Senegal River at St Louis

I was fortunate enough to have multilingual company on this trip. English speaking for me, and French speaking to gain a wealth of knowledge from a friendly fisherman and then have it translated for me. Of plan for the Saturday was to wander around the town, but after engaging in a friendly chat with a local fisherman (which amazingly did not involve him pushing any sales on us), we ended up walking around the fishing village with him for over 3 hours on a personalised guided tour. I spent much of my time taking pictures, trying to see which words of French I understood, and even attempting to talk back. In the scorching heat and unbearable humidity (how on earth this fisherman survived, given it's Ramadan, I'm not sure) we walked and talked, and talked and walked. We learnt a lot of things about the people, the culture and the town. Unfortunately, but typical of me, I quickly forgot most of it...

A ~4 million CFA grand pirogue under construction the old fashioned way

Oh, the stench!

Fishing is a major industry and this is clearly evident by the endless colourful pirogues lining the beach. Each one owned by one of the 'elite' and utilised by the fisherman. The small, open-air, wooden pirogues go on 4-5 day fishing trips. Their destination is known roughly by the license number written on the side of each vessel which indicates the country in which waters the vessel is allowed to fish. The 5 or so fishermen on the boat, live together for those days, catching their fish either using lines or nets and then storing the fish in their makeshift polystyrene 'freezers'. After the 4-5 hazardous days at sea, they return, hopefully with a full catch, which the owner takes straight to the market to hopefully earn himself around 750,000 CFA. 250,000 CFA of which goes towards financing the voyage (ice, fuel, etc), he takes a cut for himself, puts some aside for amortisation of the pirogue, and the rest gets split up amongst the fisherman. A good trip can earn them each a paltry 30,000 CFA - roughly what we paid for a hotel room for one night.

The colourfully decorated vessels tell a story. Each colour represents something - the sky, the land, and most interestingly, yellow - the colour of the human race (if you mix all the different skin colours together, apparently). Most pirogues also have a national flag on them. Importantly, this flag is linked to the football team that the owner likes most. Spain, France and Germany feature very highly! On the inside of the pirogue are various 'pockets' covered with canvas. It was explained to us that under each one is a Koranic verse, the significance of which is known only to those who put it there. The locals are quite a devout bunch of people, whilst many in Saint Louis do not get a traditional school education, the Koranic schools are popular and many people know Arabic better than they know French.

Makeshit freezers

Unlike most of his family, our guide went through to the end of high school. His grandfather, whom he was named after, wouldn't have allow one of his descendants with his name to not do so. This, we were told, lead to numerous problems in his childhood. Basic things, that we take for granted, became major issues. His insistence of washing his hands before eating brought him constant ridicule from his family for example. He tells us, that with the current generation, not much has changed.

The mixing of Islam with traditional beliefs has brought about some differences between the Islam practiced here and that in other parts of the world. Superstitions are rooted deep in the culture. When we started asking about the vast number of goats on the beach, we were told that there were two types. Those further ashore that were typically tied up and well fed, were essentially farm animals who would end up being food. Whereas the scrawny ones closer to the water that were roaming around, eating anything from fish bones to cardboard, were the sacrificial ones. Most of these goats had been forced to swallow a glass vial with a Koranic verse in it that was meant to bring good luck to the fisherman. When disaster would strike, a goat would be sacrificed as a result. All in all, a very unpleasant thought, especially when within minutes of hearing this story we see parts of a sacrificed goat laying on the beach.

The beautifully restored 'swinging bridge'  linking Saint Louis Island to the mainland

Mosque  with a view

We didn't get a lot of smiles from the locals when walking around the fishing village. We were told this was because people don't like toubabs (that's local parlance for "white folk") because they remember the history. His view is much more pragmatic and he was happy to show us around places that we probably wouldn't have ventured to without a guide. The young kids of course, innocent as ever, couldn't care less. They would quite happily call out "toubab" and ask us for something. Sometimes even just to have their picture taken and see the result on the LCD!

The predominantly Northerly wind is obvious from looking at any tree in the area!

We stayed at a nice little hotel on the island. It was of a style very typical in Saint Louis. A quiet inner courtyard to relax in during the day, 3 stories high, and a rooftop terrace which was remarkably pleasant to relax on in the evenings (remarkable because the mosquitoes weren't so bad!) Unfortunately, our hotel was also across the road from a Koranic school, which meant I woke up startled at some ungodly hour to what sounded like someone with a megaphone in my ear crying out "allahuakbar" and various other chants in Arabic!

The remnants of a bridge across the Senegal River

Since I joined this trip at the last minute, I barely had any organising to do. My new travel buddy wanted to go to one of the nearby wildlife reserves on the Sunday, which I happily agreed to. I couldn't have made a better decision. We went to an area famous for bird life further South along Langue de Barabarie, and in all honesty, if you are looking to go somewhere to be amazed by birds, this is certainly not the place to go. However, it was the day I so badly needed... It was a day full of relaxing, with very few people around. Lots of peace and quiet, lots of water, and no hustle and bustle. Unfortunately though, the culture of destroying the environment through pollution and throwing rubbish everywhere, was all too evident from everything washing up on the shores here. But apart from the remnants of upstream Saint Louis that had washed up on the shores, the place was actually quite serene and pretty.

Sure, we did get to see lots of cormorants, pelicans, some other birds I am not familiar with, and lots and lots of crabs. The prize for the coolest creature though goes to the dozen of jumping fish that would constantly swim and hop around alongside our boat.

Being out of tourist season, we pretty much had the place to ourselves. The 'hotel' we went for lunch and a relax had us and the staff. No one else. Of course, we were still not far away from people trying to rip us off at any opportunity. After ditching our first transport/tour guide (at a rate of 15,000 CFA) because he didn't show up when he promised he would, and someone else offering us the same deal for 10,000 CFA), we ended up in a position of slight embarrassment where we quickly learnt that the whole system is essentially monopolised and the owner of the initial transport turned up as the sub-contractor to the cheaper guy, demanding that 15,000 CFA is the price. As per usual, nothing is written down and no agreements are valid until the fat lady has sung. We paid our 15,000 CFA and off we went - nearly 2 hours later than initially planned. Not bad for Senegal time.

A typical inner courtyard of an old French building

One of the worst parts of this trip at the time, yet one of the best parts in my memory, was the transport there and back. Saint Louis is 258km from Dakar. We were heading up Friday night to ensure we would have a full day on Saturday, and we also decided to not leave Dakar before sunset, to ensure that any Muslim driver did not have an empty stomach. What we didn't take into account is that Friday night is one of the worst times for getting out of Dakar, even at the best of times. The narrow peninsula leading out to Dakar is served by an auto-route. Locally, this is a tollroad highway. It's roughly equivalent to a poorly built suburban road in Australia. Some of it is dual carriage, but this means nothing. 6 hours, including 6 police road-side checks (including one which the driver spent around 15 minutes having a very long argument with the police officer about) and an endless number of stops at the roadside stalls so the sellers could press themselves up against the car to sell us food, we finally made it. And by made it, I mean just. This car struggled to get about 60km/h - not that that the rough roads really provided much of an opportunity to even get to that speed....

The Peugeot 504 graveyard - AKA Dakar sept-place station

Roadside seller: Anyone for a fish?

We had planned to take a sept-place. These are old (and by old, I mean, older than me) Peugeot 504 station waggons with an extra row of seats placed in the boot. So they take 7 passengers plus a driver. Each seat to Saint Louis costs 5,000 CFA. Once all seats have been sold, the car leaves. When we arrived, there were none even close to being full (or so we were told), but a mini bus would be ready to go if we bought tickets. So, we stupidly did. 18 people (plus driver) shoved into a car only slightly bigger than a Tarago. For 6 hours I was practically squashed on a hard bench, barely able to move my legs due to the luggage under them. My companion magically managed to sleep most of the way, while I tried to savour the experience! On the way back, we 'treated' ourselves to 3 seats between 2 of us in a sept-place. The return journey took just under 4 hours and the comfort level was roughly the same as sitting in the backseat of an old school VW Beetle.