Plymouth to Dakar Challenge : Team Spitting Llamas

Day 19 - Zebrabar(SN) to Koalack(SN)

Posted by Aaron on January 21, 2008 11:01 AM

It was a respectable starting in morning hitting the just after 9am. We had now joined Team Speed in a convoy of 7 cars. It was really sad to say good bye to our Team Dither team mates as they were staying on for a few extra days in Senegal and it was looking unlikely we would see them again in Africa.

The day looked like an easy drive as the distance wasn't too far and we made the decision to stay close to the boarder on the Senegalese side and cross the over the next day. Our biggest concern was the corrupt police and knew we would have to contend with in Senegal getting to the boarder. There were two boarder crossing we could have used to get across and were told the roads to both were pretty average but one was reported to be way worst than the other. We decided to go for the easy route as we just wanted to get there by this stage. We were all getting tied of the driving and hassles from the locals and looking forward to getting to the end and kicking back for a few days. We on the road 15 minutes and came across the first police check point, to our surprise they just waved us through. One down and we expected 8-10 to go. The drive though Senegal was really good and it was apparent Senegal was a lot better off than Mauritania. The houses were off better construction everyone was dress in newer/fresher looking clothes, also there were power lines going to most of the houses we saw on the main roads. After the next two police check points we still hadn't been asked for bribes and were starting to think it might be our lucky day but didn't want to jinks it just yet. The cars were all going well; we were going through some really cool towns with lots to see, all was good.

Team Speed were going at a good pace, we got lost a couple of times in some of the towns but that added to the experience. Before we knew it we were at the town Kaolack. Team Speed had planned to stay the night in. It was only 3pm and it felt funny to have such an easy day. None of the police had given us any grief, I believe it may have been because the Team Speed boys were pretty rugged lads and weren't going to take any rubbish from anyone. We talked about the option of continuing on to the boarder that night, but would have meant crossing just at dark. I was keen but Aaron and the rest of Team Speed were not so much. This was cool by me and turned out to be a blessing after hearing a horror story from one of the teams who try when we got to The Gambia.

We found a nice hotel for the night (nice by Senegal standards that is) and settled in for the evening having some dinner and a few beers and compared stories with Team Speed on our experiences through the desert. As it turned out Team Speed weren't driving any quicker, they were just way more organised as a group than our Team Dither comrades we left back at the Zebrabra.

More photos of Day 19