Woolly says – Another early start to the day as we headed back to the airport, we sat waiting for the transfer to arrive joking between ourselves as to how quickly we would be ripped off on this one.
The hotel had booked the taxi for us and told us the exact amount to pay so Jo had that ready in her pocket, the driver collected us on time and off we went and what do you know we arrived at departures for him to tell us that it was double what we had been told. ‘Don’t mess with me Jo’ held out the sum we had been told and explained that that was what he was getting, he argued, ‘phone the hotel’ said the human, he phoned someone no idea who and then begrudgingly took the amount instead of the double that he was asking for. One unhappy driver, one happy human and mammoth.
We passed through security unloading all the tech stuff that we carry along with the phone and everything else, through that, we sat waiting for check in to open and once it finally did we were first in line and with our tickets clutched safely we headed through another security, out came all the gubbins and off with Jo’s hiking boots and we proceeded to immigration. The official at the desk told us to get a visa although my human told him that we didn’t need one for Côte d’Ivoire the layover for our first flight as we would be in transit and not going through immigration. He wasn’t having it and told us that we had to have one and to pay him! Jo stood her ground and refused asking for the head of immigration to come and clarify the situation. A few minutes stand off commenced, inside I wanted to cheer because we were dammed if we were paying anything else to the corrupt people here. Finally, he seemed to realise that we wouldn’t be handing him any money and stamped us out of the country, another point to the mammoth and human.
Another round of security and Jo unpacked the hand luggage once again and removed her boots. Finally, though we settled in with a cup of tea to celebrate.
The departures board flashed up telling us that our gate was open and off we went, getting to the top of some escalators to go down to the gate, there was yet another security search and out came all the stuff and off came the footwear again. By this point we were both starting to giggle as it was getting a little bit silly, and we were flummoxed as to what they thought they might find. No matter, down the escalator we went and you wouldn’t credit it but another security, by now I had shoved a hanky into my mouth to stop the laughing bubbling out, how on earth could we have acquired anything on a short escalator ride was beyond me but out it all came again and the boots were off once more.
We sat for a few minutes until the doors opened and all of the passengers trooped onto the bus, and we headed to the plane, Jo and I were outright laughing by now and felt that at least it was all over and done.
Wrong! We climbed off the bus and there was another load of security to get through and the same stuff was removed and searched for the 6th time! I mean seriously the country is insane. Racing up the steps and onto the plane at least we knew we would be safe for the hour or so flight.
Arriving in Côte d’Ivoire we passed through their security which we did expect and headed to our next gate. Three and a half hours later and we arrived in Senegal and were ready for our next adventure. Senegal, officially the Republic of Senegal, is a country in West Africa, on the Atlantic Ocean coastline. Bordered by Mauritania to the north, Mali to the east, Guinea to the southeast and Guinea-Bissau to the southwest. Senegal nearly surrounds The Gambia, a country occupying a narrow sliver of land along the banks of the Gambia River, which separates Senegal’s southern region of Casamance from the rest of the country. Senegal’s economic and political capital is Dakar which is where we would be staying.
Dakar had been the fourth place to be added to our travel list when we started planning and all because of a gentlemen called Charley Boorman of whom the human and I are huge fans. The race to Dakar was a documentary series following Chaley, an actor and keen motorcyclist who entered into the 2006 Dakar Rally going from Lisbon to Dakar. First aired on Sky Two and ABC Television (Australia) during 2006, it was also released as a book. We loved the idea that our trip would finish as a race to Dakar even if the race had actually been held in January this year, so we had missed it by a mile.
Our transfer driver must have got the memo regarding the race given the speed he was hitting as we headed into the city centre.
The area around Dakar was colonized by the Portuguese in the early 15th century who established a presence on the island of Gorée off the coast of Cap-Vert and used it as a base for the Atlantic slave trade. France took over the island in 1677. Following the abolition of the slave trade and French annexation of the mainland area in the 19th century, Dakar grew into a major regional port and a major city of the French colonial empire. In 1902, Dakar replaced Saint-Louis as the capital of French West Africa. From 1959 to 1960, Dakar was the capital of the short-lived Mali Federation. In 1960, it became the capital of the independent Republic of Senegal. Dakar will be hosting the 2026 Summer Youth Olympics.
After good night’s sleep we had been woken by the incredibly loud call to prayer transmitted through a megaphone across the road. At least it meant we were ready for breakfast on time. Croissant and tea downed we headed out into the 94% humidity having a rough idea of where we were going.
The streets were busy, but walking was easy, it seemed like a long time since we had seen pavements and traffic that stayed in the lanes. Within five minutes we had arrived at our first port of call.
The Our Lady of Victories Cathedral or Cathedral of Dakar, serves as the Catholic cathedral in the city. The sanctuary was built on the site of an ancient Lebu cemetery, whose land was granted by the government to the church. The construction began in 1924, and the cathedral was consecrated 12 years later, on 2nd February 1936, by Cardinal Jean Verdier, archbishop of Paris. In 2001 in the church the funeral of former President Leopold Senghor was performed.
The building was interesting a slight crossover between a mosque and a cathedral but inside it was all cathedral. With a huge domed ceiling beautifully painted.
Above the doorways were small pieces of stained glass, with a plain altar with another dome although that one was only painted on. It was pleasant to spend a while just sitting and enjoying the space before heading out onto the streets once more.
The next place on our list was only up the road and to the right and we felt very chuffed with ourselves when we found it with no problem.
The Théodore Monod African Art Museum is one of the oldest art museums in West Africa, it was promoted by Léopold Senghor, the country’s first President. Originally called Le Musée d’Art African de l’Institut fondamental d’Afrique noire Cheikh Anta Diop IFAN/CAD, which is a bit of a mouthful it was later renamed Musée de l’Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire or IFAN Museum of African Arts. In December 2007, its official title was changed to The Théodore Monod African Art Museum.
The yellow building looked nice and as we headed up the steps to the front door, we were excited to see what it offered, as Jo went to open the door, we noticed the sign ‘Ferme’.
Of course, it’s closed they must have seen us coming and raced to close it, my small companion looked up at me through his sweaty fur and I could offer little.
Woolly says – We decided to walk round the exterior and see if anyone could tell us more, passing what looked like a giant mango tree we found a small bar area and went in to ask for help. A nice man in broken English told us to take a seat, pointed a fan directly at us and disappeared. A few minutes later as we were starting to cool, he returned to tell us the news that the museum was shut for the time being and had in fact closed its doors yesterday. I thought about sulking, but it was too hot to do that, instead we plodded out of the grounds spying an ATM at the other side of a roundabout which would at least mean we could replenish our dwindling funds.
With money in the purse, we now needed a taxi as I knew that the three mile walk to the next destination would be too much in the heat.
Woolly says – A battered yellow taxi pulled up at the kerb and Jo showed him our piece of paper with the name of the place on it, giving us a price we climbed inside and rolled down the windows enjoying the cool air that greeted us as we headed through the city. Five minutes passed as we alternated between sitting in traffic and then moving forwards for a while, another ten minutes went by and the human and I looked at each other, the driver wasn’t going to the correct place, in fact we were now driving along the port area which having studied google maps we knew meant we were in the completely wrong place.
I sat wondering how we were going to get out of this one as Jo’s eagle eyes had spotted a KFC sign and she demanded that he stop, handed him some money and grabbed my paw as we climbed out. Given that neither of us like KFC I was a bit bemused, but my clever carer had the bright idea of going inside, grabbing a super strong coffee and using the Wi-Fi.
With the Wi-Fi connected I googled the museum and carefully wrote down the details in French, having downed the coffee which was strong enough to get me through anything we headed back into the heat, waved down a cab and showed him the French details, price agreed and we headed back the way we had come passing the Cathedral before pulling up in front of the lovely circular building.
Woolly says – I was rather impressed with her and having given her a quick kick of appreciation we headed into the Museum of Black Civilisations. Opened on 6th December 2018, it was conceived with the goal of highlighting “Africa’s contribution to the world’s cultural and scientific patrimony.” Holding 70,000 objects from Sub-Saharan Africa, the museum was recognised by Time magazine as one of the “World’s 100 Greatest Places of 2019”. Well, the building was defiantly great so hoping to find out lots more we passed through the door, had the bag searched and headed into the huge circular hall.
A large metal tree stretched up through the floor and was surrounded by display cases and information boards giving us the history of man, with skulls dating back to the start of humankind. Sadly, most of it was in French but Jo can read more French that she can speak so we were able to make sense of some of it. The skulls were fascinating and even better there in front of our eyes was Lucy.
AL 288-1, commonly known as Lucy is a collection of several hundred pieces of fossilized bone comprising 40 percent of the skeleton of a female of the hominin species Australopithecus afarensis. It was discovered in 1974 in Ethiopia, at Hadar, a site in the Awash Valley of the Afar Triangle, by Donald Johanson, a paleoanthropologist of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.
Dated to about 3.2 million years ago, the skeleton has a small skull akin to that of non-hominin apes, plus evidence of a walking-gait that was bipedal and upright, akin to that of humans (and other hominins); this combination supports the view of human evolution that bipedalism preceded increase in brain size. Lucy was named by Pamela Alderman after the 1967 song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” by the Beatles, which was played loudly and repeatedly in the expedition camp all evening after the excavation team’s first day of work on the recovery site. After public announcement of the discovery, Lucy captured much international interest, becoming a household name at the time. We stood looking at the bones for quite a while.
Moving round the corner we came to a huge board of photographs of African people who had changed the country or represented their country in some way or another, so many names that we had seen on our trip were there as well as ones that feature in the international papers on a regular basis like Lewis Hamilton.
We followed the contour of the building round and arrived at an area about Egypt, it proved to be fascinating as it linked the ancient Egyptians to modern day with the hairstyles still used in many areas of Africa and the words that have been transposed and are still used across the world now.
Next came a gallery of modern art which was lovely and colourful although slightly mystifying as to what it was all about as the written French was beyond the human.
We arrived in a large hall given over to ancient artefacts that have been found all over the continent, there were incredible although some were a little on the scary side.
An incredible coffin stopped us for a while as we admired the carved figures on it.
Heading up the stairs we found ourselves in a section all about the influence of women in Africa which made of fascinating viewing especially as eight of the African countries have laws in place to ensure that women are represented in the government if not actually running the countries.
Things got even better as we started in a section that had all sorts of displays of African tribal and ceremonial dress, some were a bit freaky including one that had more feathers on it than an emu and ostrich put together.
Suddenly it appeared that we had done it all as the rest of the exhibition halls were closed for refurbishment, we both felt a bit bereft at this as we had been enjoying it so much.
With nothing else to look at we agreed to walk the short distance to the railway station, grab a cold drink and find a taxi to take us back.
Woolly says – A wonderful example of colonial architecture on the exterior it was all modern inside as we found a small café and sat slurping on our ice cold drinks. I was enjoying the city, quite modern in most areas, no where near as much traffic as the last two cities we had been in and if anything, it reminded us a lot of the streets of some of the Turkish cities but with French not Turkish being spoken. Tomorrow would allow us to see even more.