Saly - not quite Scarborough Beach

The local 'Picaso' taking my purchase (bargained from 60,000
down to 20,000 CFA) off the frame.

Saly is one of the resort towns of Senegal (the other one being Cap Skirring). It is a around 80km South of Dakar (which means anywhere from 50 minutes to 2.5 hours driving) and serves weekend holiday makers as well as Europeans on package holidays. It has sun, beaches, and clubs. My reason for going: the beaches. I wanted to get away from Dakar for a weekend, relax on the beach which would hopefully be nicer than the ones in Dakar, and just enjoy a quite weekend. Well, on Senegalese standards, it lived up to these expectations. Therefore, if you're in Senegal, it makes for a nice getaway - though I certainly couldn't recommend making an effort to specifically come here from another country - that, is something I don't get...

Oh, and don't watch the video below if you're planning on having fish for dinner...

On a global scale, I would say that the beaches of Saly are nothing short of pretty horrible. But for Senegal, they aren't too bad. Although there is still a lot of obvious pollution and rubbish around, in contract to some of the beaches in Dakar, it is quite clean. The water is not even close to being comparable with the clean, azure waters one might expect in a tropical environment, but, you can certainly go for a paddle and only occasionally bump into some seaweed or a dead fish. On the beach, instead of constant hassling by locals, you can go for at least 3 or 4 minutes before some one comes and asks you how you’re going and whether it is “tranquil”. For a country of people who speak French, no one seems to know what the word ‘tranquil’ really means – it certainly doesn’t mean you walking with me for 15 minutes as I’m trying to ensure a walk along the beach and asking me every minute “tranquil?”. Sadly, I haven’t learnt how to say “get stuffed, mate!” in French yet…

I did manage to find a nice little hotel in the small village just south of Saly run by 2 women. Apart from no fewer than 15,000 bugs in my room, it was a nice little oasis where there were no other guests, I was 100m from the beach, had a nice pool in my peaceful oasis, and European friendliness to work with. Just what I needed!

Mbour

A few of the local beach salesmen had told us that due the approaching festival of Tabaski the following weekend, the return of the fishing boats at Mbour would be particularly spectacular that Saturday. After hearing this from a few different people, we decided to go with one ‘tour guide’ who assured us that we would have a good experience with him, he was knowledgeable, been doing it for many years, wouldn’t just take us there and back but would actually guide us, etc. Also, at a cost of 3,000 CFA per person, it was a good deal because this was a quarter of what the Europeans who came from the hotels were paying him – he even showed us some bookings.

Anyone for shark?

As with many of the locals, this guy was an outright liar (which, was expected, just perhaps not the to extent he was). He showed up on his horse and flatbed cart to take us to Mbour as promised – but of course, no other 'rich guests’ that he said he had. And apart from answering a few questions with simple answers, his idea of being a tour guide was hurrying us along as we walked around, and then making sure we went into various tourist shops where he was quite obviously going to get a commission from his ‘brother’ (everyone is everyone’s brother here).

Mbour is an important fishing village, similar to St Louis. In the evenings, hundreds of fishing boats (though it didn’t quite seem like the 400 – 850 promised by the various beach sellers) arrive back from their week on the the ocean to sell their catch. The undercover market was packed with disgustingly smelling fish of all varieties, and the overflow onto the makeshift ‘shops’ on the beach was quite spectacular. I definitely found this an interesting part of the weekend, and it was a good way to ensure I wasn't going to eat fish for another couple of days at least.