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Published: March 27th 2006
hi! I'm back from spring break, and it was amazing!
I went with four other MSID students, (Shanta, Emily, Matt and Courtney) and on Saturday we arrived in Ziguinchor, where the manager of the hotel had a miserable little monkey chained up in a little concrete cell out back. We named it Vanessa and made plans for her emancipation but didn't follow through. Next we took a pirogue ride to Ile des Oiseaux which was really neat, and spent the day bird watching and bumming around on the Casamance River. On Sunday we took a car rapide (a converted van is which they manage to fit over 20 people - a favorite mode of transportation here in Senegal) from Ziguinchor to Cap Skirring, which has what are probably the best beaches in the country. It was pretty resorty - several expensive hotels and old French people and Italians. We stayed at a campement (senegalese version of a hostel) called Paradise which was right along the beach. Fun things we did inclued a reggae party on the shore (complete with bonfire, grilled fish, and super soft sand), hours in a hammock under a palm tree, and I swam in the ocean for the first time in my life! AND I went horseback riding with Shanta! Although they weren't very well behaved horses. In fact, I didn't really have control over my horse at all. And my stirrups were a little too long to be of much use, but there I was, galloping along in the surf, and it was incredible!! We were really close to the Guinea-Bissau border. (but don't worry mom, if you're following the news here, we weren't near where the fighting is. And we had helmets on)
After Cap Skirring we headed to Ile de Carabane, a pretty remote island in the mouth of the Casamance River. It seemed pretty deserted, although I hear it gets crowded during high tourist season. I saw a couple wild dolphins in the river during dinner one night!!! We didn't have any water our last few days, and our shampoo had run out earlier in the week, so my hair was starting to dreadlock itself. We took a pirogue to leave Carabane, which required wading out until knee-deep in grey-green sludge and thigh-deep in water), then being hoisted up rather gracelessly into the boat as all the Africans in the boat looked on. After debarking, we had just finished rinsing the river sludge off our legs when the car rapide headed to Ziguinchor appeared (being pushed down the road by a group of men to get it started again - ha!) so we jumped in and were off. It was overbooked (more crowded than usual), and a lot of the roads aren't very good at all, so half the time was spent bouncing around off-roading, hitting a few branches to avoid the gigantic potholes. It was such an adventure and so fun!
A couple days ago I didn't wear sunscreen, because I thought we weren't going to be out on the beach very long. Well, it turns out we spent the whole day on the beach frying under the equatorial sun, so I've got one of those bad sunburns (you know the type). So seven-eighths of my body has turned the color of overripe watermelon, and the sensitive parts have blistered up like the top of creme brulee. Then my back started to peel, so I leave little pieces of skin resembling brown recluse carcasses in my wake wherever I go. What was REALLY bizarre was at the station in Ziguinchor when we were arranging a sept-place (station wagon) to take us back to Dakar (we decided to make the return trip by road instead of the boat, for a change of scenery) some crazy guy started picking skin off my back! I was so struck by how weird that was that I couldn't even tell him to stop, and just continued on negotiationg how much extra we had to pay to transport our baggage. Then he asked for some money to buy cake. It was SO weird!
The return trip was fun, we did some more off roading and passed through The Gambia (the country in the middle of Senegal), but we didn't have Gambia visas, so we had to pay 1000 Fcfas coming and going. But I got some cool new stamps in my passport! We arrived in Dakar around one in the morning yesterday.
I leave for my internship at 7 Wednesday morning!
Hope this finds you well. bye!
love Nina
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Ben
non-member comment
burn
That's too bad about the sunburn, those are the worst. I cut my hair and my beard, it caused quite a stir, I look like i did freshman year. Wearing helmets was a nice touch at the border, you could also tell mom that you have developed a pillow suit for the crammed car rides. Let me know if you need me to fly over and take care of snoop a loop, or his friend with the green hat.