Startin off- in Senegal

This is our first blog from Africa. We have been in Senegal for 6 days. It feels like at least twice as long! Each day has been hard and tiring and fun and beautiful. We are continually shocked with how expensive everything is! The U.S. dollar is just killing us against the Central African Franc. As a result, we have not seen many U.S. or other travelers like us at all. The foreigners we do see in country are either ex-pats or people on a high-dollar, resort-type vacation from Europe. Upon arrival, we spent 2 days in Dakar. We saw good live music at the perennial Dakar music venue, Just 4 U. We ate good, African food, and watched the Euro Cup soccer matches (the Senegalese were all routing for Turkey and then Spain over Russia and Germany). We also went to the colonial island off of Dakar, called Ile de Goree. It was gorgeous there! Goree was a centre of the slave trade from West Africa to the U.S. during the 18th and 19th centuries and is now a U.N. World Heritage Site. We encountered a similar annoying phenomenon there as we had in Dakar, however. Everyone wants to sell us things! Crafts and jewelery, football jerseys and guide services- ugh, it is annoying. Since I (Erica) do not speak French, I feign ignorance and ignore these touts. Joe is stuck with the job of getting rid of them-usually with a smile and humor and friendly words (as is his way).
On our way out of Dakar, we intended to take a bus or shared taxi out to the beach (where we are now). We got in a cab outside of our hotel, Hotel Oceanic, and immediately, the cab driver offered to take us all the way to the beach- at least 2 hours. We declined and said we wanted to go the bus station. He kept telling us we did not want to go to the bus station and when we arrived, we saw why. I had never seen my husband change his mind so quickly! He told the cab driver to keep going and take us to the beach! I could not help laughing, though the desolation and ominous emptiness of the bus station was not that funny. There were no passengers in sight! The road out of Dakar included some of the most impressive traffic we had ever seen. I was so thankful to be in a taxi and not a crowded, big bus that would have gotten stuck in every traffic jam. We have basically concluded that public transportation is not an option for us in Senegal. We have been taking taxis, which are in abundance. Neither of us have ever travelled anywhere that we did not readily hop in and out of public transport, so this is a change for us. It is something we have gotten comfortable with, however.
Our next stop was in the small beach town of Somone, where we stayed at the Hotel Phenix (at 80 dollars a night we had sticker shock originally, but considering it had a kitchen, living room, and air-conditioning, we realiz now it was a good deal. The staff at Phenix was incredibly sweet and friendly. Joe made friends with all of them. The hotel was on the beach and we talked to the locals walking by and went swimming in the ocean with new, young friends all day long. I cannot say strongly enough how kind and open the people are in Senegal. We will be walking down a street filled with people who are not paying attention to us, who are just sitting outside their stores and houses and if we smile or wave and say, Bonjour, everyone lights up and asks us how we are doing. We also made ourselves sick in Somone; there is no one else to blame it on as we were cooking for ourselves. We alternate between blaming it on a raw (but washed and peeled!) cucumber or some funky, questionable (because it had travelled all the way from France to La Somone) cheese from France. : ) Our tummies are now on the mend after two days of chillin in the famed Petit Cote beach resort town of Saly. We do not like Saly. The beaches of Sanibel are 1000 times prettier and there are so many touts (would-be guides) and vendors of crap we do not want to purchase, that it is overwhelming to leave the hotel. Luckily, our hotel is an oasis with a pool and good restaurant (not that we can eat much because of our tummies) and about 10 young, beautiful Senegalese staff with great taste in music.

That is it from us today. 6 days into this adventure. Senegal has engendered complex feelings in us. It is way more expensive than we would have hoped from our first stop on our long journey, Dakar is overwhelming and was occasionally very bleak, the touts are way too numerous for our tastes, and yet we have been treated with such kindness at every turn and we make each other laugh 20 times a day (that my French is atrocious is constantly amusing to us! I speak Spanish uconsciously and hope someone might understand me).

- Erica; Saly, Senegal