We are not in Kansas anymore Toto!!!

Dakar... It's polluted, it's dirty and it stinks. However, we don't have a choice but to stop so we can do the entry paperwork. Strangely, it's worth the experience. Imagine a big European city with it's big buildings and it's round abouts. Business people can be found with nice close and nice cars here and there. Tall billboards with nice pictures of only black people and slogans like "The African elegance" arehung a bit everywere. To this picture add structures that are falling appart and garbage on the ground. On every available space of sidewalk there are huts made of wood pilers and sheet-iron roofs. Now imagine the Montreal squigys (not sure how it's spelled. They are kidswho live on the street and clean your windshield at red lights for change) and multiply them by 10 000 so that you see very many on each block. Then give them to sell some tupperwares, car parts, Rolex watches, paintings, towels, flip flops, ... They are everywere and they are looking for an opportunity.
A native Wolof is always well dress even if everything around is chaos. The house, the car, ... who cares but the clothes have to be nice. They are also very likeable and not at all agressive. Besides keeping an eye on your wallet and camera because of pick pockets, there are no security worries. Usually, people stay the time it takes to acquire a 6 month temporary importation permit for the boat. We only took a month so it was immediate but we needed to get a visa for Brazilwhich took a week. We didn't do much tourism inside of Dakar because of lack of time and lack of interest.
We did however go to Thies and Fandème but I will talk about these places in my next post. We celebrated X-mas at the CVD (Dakar sailing club). It is like an oasis in the city. I wasn't born in the sixties but if I had to imagine what a hippie encampment would look like th

e CVD would be it. So each
sailor brought a plate of food and we spent the evening eating and talk
ing. It was pretty quiet. We brought a paëlla and monkey bread juice. Strangely, by the end of the evening all the local present were sitting around Gaston and I. I don't know if it was because of Gaston's jokes or my monkey bread juice but we were quite popular. We left the next day to go on the Casamance river. Are you wondering yet what monkey bread juice is? to be continued...
In the french version I added a typical conversation with a Wolof taxi driver. Senegal being french, some of the subtilities would be lost if I translated it... sorry.
Note that we do not have a internet connection at the moment so no pictures...
Happy New Year everybody!