Rabat To Dakar

This morning I woke up Rabat. My goal was to fall asleep in Dakar.

Though my ticket was for the 4 pm train to the Casablanca airport, I decided to try to board the 3 pm train. No problem. Fortunately, the train system in Morocco is pretty good with schedules. I made the switch at Ain Sebaa to the airport line and arrived at the airport at 4:20 or so.

As my luggage was heavy, I thought I should see if I could check in. I lined up not realizing that it was too early. I even asked "est-ce que il est trop tôt?" but he said no and let me check in. I checked my backpack and a stuff sack that I had attached to the top of the backpack. Then, went looking for something to cool me off.

I bought a Speciale Flag and sat down in the cafe. They have WiFi--but you need to buy a voucher for 40 dh for 30 minutes or 60 dh for an hour. Anyway, as I was sitting there, it occured to me that my backpack and stuff sack were sitting there as sitting ducks for anyone who would want to look through them--and maybe even pocket a few goodies like a Swiss army knife or rechargeable flashlights or clothes. But fortunately, not much else is of value expect clothes.

So I sat there sipping my ice cold beer (WiFi and ice cold beer--the airport gets a few things right) thinking about my stuff. Then I decided to fill out my disembarkation card. It said I cannot take more than 1000 dh out of the country. Well they're worthless out there, so I went to a bank where I turned 800 dh into US$ 107. At least I can use dollars. Then back for another beer. I actually had a lot of time to kill, so another beer seemed like an OK idea. Then I decided to pass through security and passport control and enter the gate area. I didn't know what there would be over there. Cafes? Restaurants? Stores?

I went through the first set of people--5 police standing there making sure I had a boarding pass. Then the next step. Two officers. I stopped there and they only wanted to know how much foreign currency I was taking out of Morocco. I told them about US$200 and about €600. They looked askance at me and asked if that was really all. I said it was. They handed my passport back to me and wished me a safe trip.

Next I went through passport control. Just a stamp in the passport next to the one I got when I came. I like it when they put the stamps next to each other like that. Then security. It was pretty easy--no taking off shoes or removing the laptop from the case. Just normal pre-9/11 security. Good enough for me.

And then voila! Not only do they have stores and cafes and restaurants, they have better ones on that side. I went to have a cheeseburger and a beer. The guy tried to get me to bump up to Casablanca brand beer for 38 dh, but I stuck with the Flag for 32 dh. The burger was not the best--the fries were cold. But it was OK. My last Moroccan meal--probably ever. It least it wasn't as bad as my worst ever hamburger which I had at the Perkins Restaurant and Casino in Butte Montana. That was one bad burger.

Anyway, I went up to the boarding area. There were a few white people but not many. A lot of black people. Almost no Moroccans--to my surprise. The boarding announcement came but my French wasn't up to it, so I just let the crowd go in and went when they were almost done. When I got to my seat, of course there was someone in it. So went back further to the rear and got a nice seat in the less crowded back. The plane was about 90% full. Let's see--30 rows times 6 seats per row, minus about 12 for business class--168 people, approximately on the Royal Air Maroc 737-800.

We took off and the little video screen came down with my favorite thing--the map showing your track. It puts up little random cities and Montpellier was one of them. Cool, I thought. I didn't even know Montpellier had a beacon. Eventually, though, that went away and they showed a British version of Montreal's Just For Laughs Gags--something called Just Joking or something like that. After that, they had Mr. Bean. Finally back to the map. It was getting late. The plane took off at 8 and would arrive at 11. The guy in my row decided to sleep and his head was sort of in my space. But he was a funny guy.

The plane started descending. There were a lot of lights. It's not like Seattle lit up, but it's pretty lit up. There are houses right up to the runway. I felt sorry for the inhabitants. It's gotta be a pretty bad place to live. We landed safely. Whew! I hate flying.

So we taxied around for a while, then while we were still moving, people started to get up and move around. I the US, we typically wait until the plane at least stops. Not in Dakar. It's just anything goes. I originally thought it would be a long time to get off since I'm at the back, but there wasn't one of those jetways--instead shuttles came and the back doors were opened as well. So I actually turned out to be one of the first off the plane. It was stiflingly hot, but no mosquitoes seemed to be buzzing around. The shuttle took us to customs where there was a rush for the customs forms. There were 2 parts. One part is the immigration form for immigration, and the bottom half is more of a survey for the tourism agency. I filled it out and got in the international line. Most people were in the ECOWAS line. A cute girl in front of me borrowed my pen to finish filling out her card.

Then it was time to go through. I handed the man there my passport and the boarding card. I had my Yellow Fever certificate ready if he asked. He didn't ask. Just stamped stuff and gave it back to me. So I went to get my luggage. It took me a while to figure out which carousel. Embarrassing since there are only 3. Eventually I realized that the computer screen switches between displaying the flights of the 3 conveyors and all the screens over all the conveyors show the same thing at the same time. It wasn't until it was showing the flights for conveyor 1 that I saw my flight.

I waited and eventually saw my things. Just as I was getting them, a guy came up and offered to help. I told him I was OK. He said he could help. I said I was fine. He said he could get my stuff through without it being opened by customs. I still turned him down.

To go through customs, you run your stuff through an X-ray machine again. I did and gathered it up at the other end. Done. Now to find out if there would be a guy waiting for me with my name on a piece of paper.

I went out. And voila. A guy pointed at me and the guy next to him had the paper with my name--misspelled of course. We shook hands and headed off to the car. Here's where it gets bad. I'm a white guy in Senegal. That makes me a beggar magnet. By the time we got to the car, I had a train (to use an old EQ term) of people hobbling on crutches, dragging their kids, hands out, asking for just one euro, they knocked on the window of the car and pleaded. But I had no money handy even.

Fortunately, the driver managed to take off. I noticed there was a digital display on his dash alternating back and forth between "ABS fault" and "Engine coolant temp too high". We drove along the road from the airport. It was interesting. Even at 11 at night, tons of people out. There are restaurants, night clubs, hotels, a Shell station with a Select convenience store. Soldiers every few hundred yards. It was amazing. Like nothing I've seen yet. Eventually we got close to the lighthouse. Then the hotel--Les Mamelles du Phare. The driver, outside the door, called them on his cell phone. I heard the phone ring inside. They let us in. It turns out, I had to pay the driver the agreed upon fare from the website when I made the reservation. Also, they want all payment up front. So I payed €70 and got 5200 CFA back. (You though dirhams were hard? Wait'll you see the CFA prices.) The driver got paid, and I got my room.

Shared bathroom, 2 beds, WiFi, a fan, screened windows (whew). I'm here for 2 nights. I have that long to figure out how to exist in Dakar or its environs for cheap. That's my job tomorrow.

And speaking of tomorrow, it's already here and I need to sleep. Which I can do because my room is pretty good.

By the way, my friends over at Capitol Hill Seattle are trying to get their blog back up to number 1 on google. They used to be number one when they were with blogger.com, but now they are http://www.capitolhillseattle.com. So this link should help them a bit.