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Published: July 28th 2008
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Travel is so easy in South East Asia. Generally, you arrive at the bus station, buy a ticket and have a cushy, air conditioned drive to where ever. Not in Africa. There is little to no public transport in many African countries, so most travel is done using 4WD vehicles or "sept-place" taxis, French for "7 seats". That's 7 people crowd into a little wagon that seats 7 (5.5) people. On first glance the whole ordeal just appears very haphazard and confusing, but once you get the hang of it, there's quite a rhythm to the madness.
I've met my fair share of people trying to rip me off, I haven't had too many problems in the past, but this one takes the cake:
We got a taxis outside our hotel in Dakar. We were told to tell the taxis to drop us off at the local "Garage" to Saint Louis. Garages are hives, all over the country, where all the transport/sept-taxis in the country congregate, kinda like a bus station, but not really. Unfortunately I never took a picture of any Garages from a far, just up close. So as we're travelling around Dakar, assuming that we're on
our way to the Garage, our taxis driver informs us that there are no longer any sept-taxis from Dakar to Saint Louis! Peter and I look at each other in disbelief and question him, "Je n'sais pas" he says "the taxis, no more from Dakar". So he says that he'll take us to Theis...which he pronounced as Keivs to get our taxis to Saint Louis. Peter and I confirm that we can't see Keivs on our map and think, well ok, Keivs shouldn't be too far then, must be a Dakar "suburb". Oh, I should also mention that we negotiated 3000CFA's for this ride (about $6.00) should've been max 15 minutes. After about a half an hour we're still driving, further and further out of the city. At this point I'm like "ahh Peter, think this'll be more than 3000CFA". Peter asks the driver "where are we going?" he responds "keivs, keivs". At this point we're way out of the city, 40 minutes rolls by and then I see a sign on the road that says "Thies 60 km". I'm like "Peter, I think we're going to Thies". Peter yells out "ok stop the car!" Then all hell breaks loose.
It must have been 100 degrees in the car, we're all soaked from sweating even the driver has streams dripping down his face and the shouting begins. He's shouting at us and us at him, I'm flipping through our English/French dictionary looking for the word trust (how naive Lesleigh, like he cares) and Peter's ready to get out and starting walking. Finally Peter calms down and asks what the price is and ...oh I still chuckle... he says "50Euros"! That'd be, lets see times 1.5, $75! The whole trip to Saint Louis was only $24! So just to antagonize the situation I start laughing and say "well that's never going to happen". Peter, after collecting himself says 20 000CFA ~ $50. We were gutted, but what to do, it was either that or hide under a tree and wait till the sun went down to walk.
All this wouldn't have been so bad, but then we met our sept-taxis, a 1970's Peugot, filled with flies, dust, dirt and mangos. There wasn't an inch of the car that didn't have a huge dent or scrape (or fly), as a matter of fact, I've seen cars in scrap yards that were
significantly less pulverized. Peter has concluded that they never actually fix the vehicles because they can't afford the parts, but instead, they make their own parts. After the 12th break-down, he was able to back up his conclusions. It normally takes 3 hours to get to Saint Louis, it took us 6. The first time the car just died on the highway. The driver opened the hood and poured water into the radiator, out it all bubbled! There was no cap and the car was seriously overheating. One of the women who was sleeping on me for most of the ride found out Peta (love the way they say his name) was a mechanic "Peta" she says "go on there an fixa the car" But, there wasn't anything that even Peter could do, "dead" he said. So, for the rest of the journey Peter and co. would get out every few km's, fill up the radiator with water, only to watch it all bubble out and then push the car, breathing in big clouds of black smoke from the tale-pipe and drive another few kilometres at about 40 km/hr until it stalled again. It made it all the way to
the Garage in Saint Louis...kind of, it finally really did die about 2km form our destination. We were on the road for a few minutes when a local taxis picked us up and brought us to our hotel. We washed our clothes the next day and the water was pure black..eikkks!
Saint Louis however made up for all our troubles, it was fantastic. We stayed 2 days longer than planned because we loved it there so much. We met some great people and the town itself was amazing. Mom said that the internet called it the New Orleans of Africa, which is interesting because Peter and I both agreed days earlier that parts of the town looked like New Orleans. The live jazz at night, patisseries and lazy, casual feeling was perfect. It had been the first French settlement in West Africa and there was still evidence in the architecture. Though the French no longer occupy West Africa, there is still a strong French influence, for example, they don't learn their own native language (oualoof) in school, even though this is what they speak to one another. Instead they learn French. So they can't write or read oualoof, only
French... That said, the pastries and coffee are delicious here!
We stayed at Cap Saint Louis a hotel on a beach that went on forever. Minus the garbage and plastic bags (as these are an issue all on their own) it was beautiful. To get here we had to drive through a fishing village N'gor and WOW! We had never seen anything like this...ever! Goats, fish, fish guts, massive pelicans, children, garbage, chickens, more goats, flies (x infinity), women, men, more children, boats, fishing nets, smoke, gas, garbage and more garbage. All of this on a stretch of land as long as Emerson Street. It was lively and colorful and stank! I didn't dare take out my camera in there because the people would either charge money for taking pictures or the kids would swarm. There was an orphanage down one of the side streets, so there were children in the midst of all of this. The water where the boats came onto shore to empty their nets was incredibly black. They'd haul their catch onto shore and from there they'd gut it, pack it in ice or smoke it and ship it somewhere else. There was hardly room
to move let alone work or play as some kids were doing.
The whole seen was mesmerizing. They bring in the fish, they create garbage, the goats eat the garbage, they eat the goats. Some wash themselves and their goats in the water that all the tailings of the village diverge into. It was difficult to digest, but once we became familiar with some locals, their warmth, hospitality and witty sense of humour seemed to all blend with surroundings.
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