Saturday, October 15, 2011 Bus to Mali

Talk about when taking a 2-hour flight would have been slightly better than 24 hours in a fucking African bus.  I was told to be at the Saint Louis transport station at 5am.  Of course the 7-seater Peugeot didn't leave until 8:30.  In the process, I was hot, tired, and probably contracted malaria from the relentless mosquitoes.  I asked when the car left, and the constant repornse was "Whenever it fills up", which apparently means 3.5 hours, during which vendors and begging children with pinkeye were everywhere.  I felt like it was almost worth it to just pay for all the rest of the seats in the car so it would just leave.  I got in the car to a shitty town called Ouro Sogui, deep in the east of Senegal in the middle of the Sahel.  It wasn't a bad ride since I was in the second row.  When I asked someone how long the ride was they said "Well, it depends if the car breaks down".  Awesome.  The owner of the car charged us $10 for a seat.  I feel that since cars are so rickety, roads are so potholed, and the terrain is so inhospitable to humans, that there is a real possibility that the car won't make it back.  So I felt like this owner was King Ferdinand financing a trip for our driver, Christopher Columbus to go sail to the end of the world and back.  The outskirts of Saint Louis were pretty shitty; basically nothing but flodded muddy streets and endless piles of trash.  Literally the prettiest part about it was the fact that the trash was multicolored.  I really hope my photo albums of West Africa consist of something besides people and goats wading through piles of trash.  Almost all waste is plastic wrappers, a reason why I hate using single-use plastic products when I can avoid it.  But here, there really is no choice.  Especially water; diarrhea or use a plastic bottle.  The former.  The road to Ouro Sogui flanked Senegal's northern border along the Senegal River, which gave life to the otherwise inhospitable Sahel-Sahara.  The landscape was arid savanna, with round mud-hut villages, colorfully-dressed women caring for children, men in long colorful tunics lying in the shade watching the colorfully-dressed women care for children.  Life here is very simple, people are desperately poor, and the oppressive sun makes doing any work that much harder.  It ended up taking 6 hours to go 180 miles because of the potholes; they were so bad that 50% of the time, the car was driving on the dirt shoulder.  The layover at Ouro Sogui lasted 15 minutes, which I used to buy and eat a delicious succulent watermelon.  That may be my favorite food in the desert in the draining 95-degree heat.  The car rides are pretty brutal.  This one was to the village of Bakel, seated in the back next to a girl who kept trying to flirt with me, and who had a full set of armpit hair.  I can only imagine what her... never mind.  It was dark when I reached Bakel, and I caused a scene ditching my unpromising taxi for one that was actually leaving.  I finally got to Kidira, on the Mali border, at 10pm, and decided to cross into Mali, so I took a cab to the Senegalese exit station, and just like that I was officially out of Senegal.  But then, when I tried to cross into Mali, the policeman strongly discouraged it, saying it's better to wait and spend the night in Senegal and then cross the border tomorrow.  This was probably good advice, because it was so poorly lit that I couldn't see anything.  I had no idea if I was even crossing a river, fields, a village, or anything; pitch black in the middle of Africa.  So I checked out a hotel, and they tried to fuck me over by charging $40 a night for this dump that smelled like urine.  So I went back to the police station and the officer so graciously let me stay in his nephew's house, which I was all about, yet he kept reassuring me that it was safe, as if I was hesitant and sketched out.  I'm way past being sketched out.  I'm generally a very trusting person, especially traveling because in my experience people in foreign countries (especially poor religious countries like Senegal) are very honest, hospitable, and generous.  In the US, do you think a policeman would offer his nephew's house to a Senegalese tourist crossing the border at Tijuana?  So this guy gave me his bedroom for the night; I literally paid $20 to sleep in his bedroom, with a fan and squat toilet (better than my room in SF).  It was kind of funny because the TV was in there, so people kept coming in to watch during the night, which I really didn't mind.  I had to turn the lights out and it was so annoying because even though the fan kept away the mosquitoes, these mini beetles kept biting me so I had to use a winter blanket and so I was sweating like a pig.  I can't believe how necessary a fan and mosquito net are here.  I was seriously so gross and sweaty from all the dust and 20 continuous hours of uncomfortable overland travel.

Friday, October 14, 2011 Saint Louis

Before daybreak, I caught a ca b to the transport station.  I call it the transport station because it includes taxis, 7-ater Peugeots, minibuses, and apparently some buses (didn't see any).  Although it seems that tere are people everywhere you turn in this place, Senegal's population is only 12 million, and it's hard to find enough people who are traveling to different places and can afford it.  Therefore, these 7 seater Peugeots (sometimes called bush taxis) are the most common.  I'd take a bus any day; these things are from 1982, they're completely battered, I don't consider Peugeots to be reliable in general, and when you factor in potholes these things are miserable.  Not to mention they are 7-seaters, meaning there's a third row of seats where the trunk should be.  Getting out of Dakar going north it got progressively hotter, as it was more inland (and closer and closer to the hottest place on earth, the Sahara Desert).  And that means, everyone's BO got progressively smellier.  I swear, some of these people go 18 rounds of sweat before showering, such that there is a constant tangy BO smell everywhere.  The ride to Saint Louis took 5 hours, which is pretty long considering it's pretty close.  I took a cab to the city centre, which is an island at the mouth of the Senegal River.  I had to go to a couple of hotels because the first was full.  Don't ask me how it's full in the middle of October when it's super hot and when there wasn't a single white person in town except for me.  Whatever.  I checked into this ridiculously expensive place right on the water, which was pretty posh, well, by African standards.  I went walking around and absolutely no one was out and about because it was 100 degrees with burning sun.  I was so hungry and thirsty, so I bought a watermelon and paid to have it cut up, which was absolutely amazing in that heat.  Immediately after that I retired to my room for a standard 2-hour siesta.  I kind of lack motivation to do anything here because I'm always uncomfortable; tired, hot, sweaty, don't speak French, nothing really to see except for piles of trash and poverty.  I'm painting such a great picture, huh?  Saint-Louis is the first French settlement in Africa, and while it's nicer than most other African cities I've visited, I feel that the only reason it's a Unesco Heritage Site is that West Africa doesn't have any others.  It still has trash everywhere, buildings are in disrepair, and most of the roads are dirt.  Kids were playing football in the street, and loved my camera, and girls were braiding each other's hairon stoops, much like in the South.  I walked across the river, where tons of canoes, and of course, piles of trash, lined the river banks.  The most evocative sight for me was the poverty in which these people live.  After all, West Africa is probably the poorest region on earth.  Basically attributable to the European influence.  I don't understand how West Africans like white people.  For 500 years, Europeans have basically raped this place.  Mali used to be the richest place on earth; now Mali ranks lower than 100th place on the Human Development Index.  Basically, Europeans drained the region of all its gold, then of course the Portuguese took preexisting slavery to a whole new level with the Transatlantic Triangular Slave Trade, which was one of the most brutal and inhumane events of modern history.  Oh, not to mention the fact that it plunged West Africa into warfare and robbed the region of young productive generations.  This reason in itself would be enough for me as an African to be racist against anything Western.  But then don't forget colonization and the Scramble for Africa, whereby every European country claimed part of the African continent, extracting every last bit of diamonds, gold, ivory, and rubber on the backs of native laborers.  Oh, and when that brutality was over, there was independence whereby Europeans created arbitrary borders and then massive civil wars and genocide ensued.  So yeah, I don't see why Africans all think it's cool when I say I'm from the US (and the West in general).  Oh well.  I had some shrimp for dinner and as I was walking back to the hotel, I happened to stumble upon this drum session in the middle of the town in the dark night.  These rasta dudes were drumming it up while a chorus of women dressed in white robes chanted, and little boys strutted their dance moves.  These 7-year old boys, who had no lessons or anything, were better dancers than anyone I've ever seen at any given nightclub back home.

Thursday, October 14, 2011 Dakar

Dakar by day was 100x nicer than Dakar by night, thanks to the simple fact that the latter is lit up.  Dakar by night is fucking scary because it's pitch black out there and people are sleeping all over the streets (many of which are not really sleping; rather just sitting arund looking at the odd lost foreigner).  I took a walk downtown, which had some 5-story buildings, lots of homeles people, and even more street salespeople.  Lonely Planet said the bus to Bamako in Mali is an experience; too bad that when I arrived at the train station, the tracks were covered in overgrown vines lined with shanties, and all that was in the station terminal was a clothesline with some laundry.  I had some tea with this group of boys who were listening to R Kelly and Akon (he's from Senegal).  Everyone was looking at me, yelling 'toubab', which is what Kunta Kinte used to describe white people in Roots (he is from Senegal). Besides me, the other toubabs were a ton of Lebanese people for some reason.  I had lunch at this really good Senegalese place and randomly started talking to this really rich accountant from Dakar, which was pretty interesting.  I took a peruse through the Grand Marche, since I love markets.  It was huge; stalls were everywhere, sellig everything from DVDs to shoes to goat meat to yams.  In true African fashion, it was loud, hectic, and dirty.  Definitely some sweatshops and child labor happening.  It was cool to see whole cars covered in sheets and merchandise.  A bunch of English speaking hawkers kept coming up to me trying to be my guide or to give them money, including these rasta-looking characters.  Tyler 1, scammers 2.  I took a look at the beach on the Atlantic Ocean, which was pretty and filled with guys playing soccer.  Everyone here loves soccer.  At night, this guy came up to me and recognized me from 2008 from my trip to Ethiopia where he was my guide, so of course I was surprised.  He was here for his mom's surgery.  Then as I was about to go to my hotel, he asked for money so he could make it back to Ethiopia.  Okay, RED LIGHT.  He totally had me going that I had met him in Ethiopia.  The fact that he didn't know anyone by name until I mentioned them, the fact he spoke French, and the fact that we are 5,000 miles away from Ethiopia and my fifty dollar donation was enough to send his dying mother home overland, makes me say SCAM.  I asked why he couldn't name anyone and azsked to see his dying mother.  When he refused, I told him to get the eff out.  Tyler 2, scammers 2.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011 Paris, Flight to Dakar

Air France decided that it would give me a free night in Paris on my way from London to Dakar; not complaining.  However, since I had packed for Africa exclusively, I was so scrubby for being in one of the most fashionable cities in the world.  I nevertheless set off, walking through Paris' charming little streets, lined with tables and seating.  I walked over to the scenic Seine River, followed by a jaunt to the grand Louvre, the exterior just as beautiful as the interior.  I can't get over the fact thqt qny given dqy from London, I cqn tqke the trqin right over.  I walked through the world-famous Champs-Elysses; one of the world's best shopping arcades amongst the throngs of international tourists and beautiful Parisians.  After finishing the day off with the Arc du Triomphe and falafels in the Jewish Quarter, I picked up my bag at the hostel.  The guy was pretty funny and said that the majority of their guests are Germans, who love Paris [evidenced by the fact they have invaded France multiple times].  I took the Metro to the ,ain Paris du Nord station, which was basically West Africa already; everyone was African speaking pidgin French.  Charles de Gaulle airport is huge and so it took a bit to get to the gate.  The flight to Dakar, Senegal was mostly Senegalese, and the odd European businessman.  I was without a doubt the only American on the wide-body plane.  The short 5-hour flight was boring, partly in fact because the TV screen was not functional.  The plane flew over Spain and the Canary Islands before landing on a strip of land jutting into the Atlantic Ocean known as Cap Vert.  Of course the first thing I see when landing is the window immediately steams up.  Then, fire crews are scrambling to extinguish a huge fire in one of the hangars; welcome to Africa.  Immigration, an unorganized clusterfuck, took an hour in a non-AC room, but Senegal is just about the only West African nation that does not require a visa, so I'm not complaining.  Then this guy wouldn't stop following me and so I got some money and was going to tip him 50 cents (more than most Senegalese make in a day), and of course he took my large bill and ran away without giving me change that I requested.  So things were off to a great start on my trip so far: First 15 minutes and someone already robbed me.  As if that wasn't enough, his friend got in the front seat of my cab and was going to "show me hotels" aka getting a commission for the hotel I was already going to.  I told him I didn't need him to come, and the cab driver and him got in a heated yelling match in some pidgin French language; so serious that I was opening the door getting ready to find another ride.  Finally the guy got out, and although I was slightly sketched out, I made it to my hotel, a place above the late-night shawarma stand, Ali Baba.  It was a clean hotel with my own room (I'm pretty sure I am the only guest) but was 30 dollars, which seems like a lot for West Africa, considering that's almost as much as a motel in the US.  I got some Senegalese food called tjibouienne which was a fish and couscous and vegetables, and was pretty tasty.  Then I took a cab to a Senegalese bar in the suburbs (meaning outside the city center, on the side of the "highway"), which was dead, so I went to a different one called Vicky next to my hotel, where a 23-year old Senegalese prostitute was trying to get me to take her back to Ali Baba.  Oh, and she also had a HUGE herpes cold sore on her lip.  I had to basically step over sleeping bodies on ,my way back to my hotel; homeless people EVERYWHERE.  So impoverished and heartbreaking.