St Louis, one time capital of west Africa

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We are now in the very north of Senegal in Saint Louis, an island town in the middle of the broad Senegal river. There is just one bridge in from the mainland and we immediately realised how small the island is, just over a mile long and quarter of a mile wide. From this little place, France ruled Senegal, Mali, Mauritania and the Ivory Coast – more than five-times the size of France.

Today, it is a sleepy and dusty town of old colonial buildings in various states of disrepair. Although sand now covers the streets, it is easy to picture this as a thriving city, controlling the river from the grand buildings. Old warehouses face the main street with impressive façades and balconies. At their rear are the quays where huge cranes wait ready to lift cargoes of timber, ivory and gum.

Our lovely little hotel Sunu Keur is a restored colonial house, all the rooms set around a central courtyard. It is now all bright blues and dark ochres, old polished timber floors and cool tiles. Our colourful room has a balcony looking west over the river (the panorama photo at the top). To the north we can just see the border with Mauritania a couple of miles up stream.

A thin strip of land, really just a sand bar, lies between the river and the sea. On this is a fishing village which can hardly have changed in the last 150 years. The housing is basic and dense. Every bit of spare space is occupied by boats, nets, fish, huge planks of wood, people and goats ... and rubbish. There is rubbish everywhere and this, together with the fish, makes the smell challenging.

At the end of the village, in the 1930s, Air France built a seaplane port, which must have been a bit of a culture shock. Flying boats flew from here non-stop to Paris (23 hours) and Brazil (16 hours) – the first trans-Atlantic airmail service! When a seaplane crashed in mid-Atlantic in 1936, the service was stopped.

On the Atlantic side of the sand bar is perhaps the widest beach imaginable. Maybe 100 yards from front to back of empty, untouched golden sand. Where are the holiday makers? Clearly, Thomsons have yet to discover St Louis, thank goodness.

We spent most of our time wandering the island and sand bar on foot but we did rent a horse and cart, the preferred local means of transport, for a couple of hours. The horseman did his best to tell us about his town but he spoke no English and our French is only slowly improving. Luckily, he was happy to laugh with us whenever our efforts to communicate failed.

We also took a pirogue, wooden boat, around the Barbarie national park where we saw another osprey hunting – our third sighting but still fascinating. On one island, the terns were protecting their month old chicks – very cute – from pelicans who try to eat them! Some terns dive bombed an invading pelican which defended itself by snapping its huge bill at them, looking most comical.

Tomorrow it is time to head back south to Dakar for a few days.

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