Plymouth to Dakar Challenge : Team Spitting Llamas

Day 18 - Zebrabar(SN) and St Louis(SN)

Posted by Aaron on January 20, 2008 11:27 AM

Today was our chill day, and it felt good to know we were staying in Zebarbar for 2 nights and didn't have to rush around to get back on the road. We have been on the go for since Gibraltar and it felt good to have a sleep in and relax. The Zebarbar camping ground was very nice. It was in a great location on a little island surrounded by heaps of wildlife. There was a kind of observation tower of very doggy construction in the middle of the island that offered fantastic views of the surrounding area.

After having breakfast we all just hung out in the morning sitting on the banks of the island watching the world go by. It was just what we needed, the day was hot and sunny the whole area had a nice chilled out feel to it.

We were staying close to the town of Saint-Louis that was up the Senegal River towards the sea. Saint-Louis was the capital of the French colony of Senegal from 1673 until independence in 1960. The old colonial city was on a narrow island (just over 2 km long and about 400 m wide) in the Senegal River. A few of us took a boat ride in the afternoon to Saint-Louis to have lunch. I had no idea what to expect and was pleasantly surprised by how beautiful the city was, although it was very run down.

Saint-Louis was established in 1659 by French traders on the island. It was baptized Saint-Louis-du-Fort in homage to the French king Louis XIV. It was the first permanent French settlement in Senegal. Saint-Louis became the leading urban centre in sub-Saharan Africa. Following independence, when Dakar became capital of the country, Saint-Louis slipped into a state of lethargy. As its French population and military departed, many of the town's shops, offices and businesses closed. Due to this the city has preserved much of its 19th century morphology, reminiscent of other cities of the "Creole Atlantic": Havana and New Orleans. It was just like you see pictures of Cuba with all its run down buildings. (As you can tell, Corde copy and pasted that from somewhere!)

I thought it was one of the best cities we visited in the whole trip. We happened to be there on a public holiday and the streets were completely deserted. It is one place I wish we had more time to explore. Saint-Louis is apparently the most characteristically French colonial city in West Africa and has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. After a nice boat ride back to our camping ground (where Aaron accidentally dropped his phone in the bottom of the boat, that happen to be full of water) we settled in for the evening and dined on a very nice BBQ and good company of out rally team mates.

Talking to some of the guys from Team Speed that night they had a different experience of Saint-Louis. They had tried to drive to the city from the camping ground and were stopped by several local traffic police asking for brides. The police went all over there cars looking for any thing they could use as an excuse to give out a fine. One of the teams spent 40 minutes arguing over not having a fire extinguisher in the car. We were so lucky we hadn't taken Rusty for a drive there as she was looking a bit worst for wear by that stage. Another story Team Speed told us about was one of their cars had broken down the day previous in Senegal. They were in a village trying to get it sorted out but were getting harassed by the locals so much they dumped the car and literally ran for the support of their other team mates to escape. The 2 guys never went back for their car and continued the rest of the way in the other cars.

That night Aaron and I decided we would head off towards The Gambia the next morning as we both had to get our flights back to London. The rest of Team Dither were going to stay on in the camping ground for an extra couple of days so we arranged to join up with Team Speed in the morning. With our car in the state it was we wanted to travel in convoy is case it broke down again or we were pulled over by the police, safety in numbers!!!

More photos of Day 18