On to Saint Louis

We left Dakar this morning for Saint Louis, at the northern border with Mauritius, making an early stop at “The Pink Lake”, which unfortunately turned out to be plain old blue today because this is the end of the rainy season and the heavy salt content has been diluted so much it has lost its typical pink colour. Local workers dredge the heavy salt/water mixture into the boats, and make salt piles on shore to dry out, then use a pickaxe to break down the salt for bagging. It looked like very hard work to me, but they said not. I guess everything is relative…?

Next comment is on transportation. For the amusement of my Scottish friends and family, here is a truck we passed, a very long way from its original home in Bishopbriggs, a few miles from my cousins. Small world. The other is a bus we followed on a high-speed motorway — with a man relaxing on top, hanging out, checking his phone. Right after I snapped this I was horrified to see him suddenly scale down the ladder at top speed and swing himself around to the right side of the truck, holding on with a couple of toes and one hand — and yes, the bus was still travelling at about 100 km/hr. Had no idea what was going on, then realized there was a police checkpoint, someone had clearly alerted him by text, and he had to race down and hide on the other side of the bus from where the police were watching for illegal rooftop riders!

St. Louis is the old French colonial capital, and you see the influence in the architecture. Antoine de St-Exupery, the early aviator who wrote The Little Prince, lived here when he worked for the French postal service that flew between Toulouse and Dakar. We also visited the fishing village Gued Ndar, a place of frenetic streets and a busy beach…. and a pet pelican! We were surprised to see this fellow on the street outside a house, but learned he (or possibly she) is a house pet, taken early from a pelican colony and now bonded with a family. They sell fish to tourists who want to feed him — we did NOT, by the way, but certainly he looks well fed.