I decided that I should try to take in Saint Louis, though I probably wouldn't be able to make it up into Mauritania. So, I packed up my stuff and headed out. It was a little after 8am. The guide book suggested to be there before 8:30 because the vehicles fill up fastest then. I went by the Total gas station because they keep 1.5 liter water bottles in the freezer and I got a nice cold one. I consumed about a quarter of it just after leaving the store and headed for the Gare Routier Pompiers.
When I got there it was probably about 8:45. A guy approached me just outside and asked "Saint Louis". I said yes, and he brought me to a big bus. I should have insisted on a sept-place or minibus, but I decided to just go with the flow and see what happens. They quoted me a price of 2300 CFA for me and 500 CFA for my back pack. Not bad--a 300km trip for only 2800 CFA--like $5.50. The catch with these reasonable prices is that departure is not at a set time--it's when the bus gets full. I got on and took a seat. It was about half full. Again, like in the non-tourist bus we took in Morocco, people were coming onto the bus and selling stuff. I bought a 100 CFA candy bar (which I still haven't eaten) and a 100 CFA towel to wipe away my copious sweat. Most of these vendors are selling stuff that is OK to sell, but there were one or two who sold these little toy organs that play various tunes in that piercing toy organ sound. Some of the kids were lucky enough to receive those and they were playing those damn tunes over and over and over. Next time I'm going to pay that guy to not sell those infernal things.
I was just sitting there in my seat. I sat on the left side--figuring that as we headed north, most of our time would be in the morning when the sun is on the other side of the bus.
I just sat there observing life at the Gare Routier. Pretty interesting. There was a bus parked about 6 inches away from where I was sitting. A kid--probably about 9 years old--squeezed in there and climbed up into the driver seat. He started the bus and put it into gear. I looked at him. He looked at me. We both laughed and he gave the thumbs up sign. Then he reversed the bus about 6 feet and came back down.
Ten o'clock came and went, still not full. I began to notice that this bus also has the fold-down seats in the aisle and I wondered if they had to be filled as well or if just the regular seats were enough. Things started looking good. People were even starting to get into the fold down chairs. At 10:34, the engine started. I started to get optimistic.
Eleven o'clock rolled around and I was starting to get warm. A girl sat next to me and she had a fan so when she fanned herself, I got residual fanning. That was nice. Finally, things started happening. A guy came on and asked where everyone was getting off so he'd know. Finally at 11:21, the bus left. My ass was already starting to hurt when we left. It would be on uncomfortable ride. Traffic was heavy. Most of the time we were moving fast enough that a refreshing breeze kept us relatively cool, but sometimes we stopped.
There were a few reasons we would stop. Obviously traffic was one reason. Another was that people had to get off the bus. Yet another reason was that there were roadside markets. We stopped for two. The first was a mango market. The bus stopped and about a dozen women with large baskets piled high with mangos came rushing to the bus. The bus went from relative calm into marketplace chaos and cacophony. Deals were made, bags of mangos were passed forward, money was being slipped through the windows. More women came running with their baskets of mangos. Finally, the passengers bought all the mangos they were going to buy and we left. There was another scene, similar but less chaotic for a slightly smaller lime market. The final reason we stopped was police checkpoints. We got stopped by the police 3 times. I saw the police stop a sept-place going the other direction. The driver got out and opened the hatchback. The officer grabbed the chassis and pushed the car about 6 inches forward, then pulled it back, then repeated the process. The driver got back into the car, moved it a few car lengths and then came back with his papers. They were still talking when our bus left.
One nice thing about Senegal is that they have kilometer markers on the road. Concrete stones that show the number of km to Saint Louis every kilometer. So it is easy to gauge your progress. And our progress wasn't good. It wasn't until about 5 pm that we finally got to the station for Saint Louis. So much for my 3 hour trip mostly on the shady side of the bus. About halfway through, I stopped sweating from dehydration. I didn't have much water left. Just about a quarter bottle. I took sips every time we stopped and the sun beat too hard on me. Then I'd fan myself with the sweat the water allowed. It was a relief to finally get there. I got my luggage pretty quickly and headed over to the taxi stand where I got them down from 2000 CFA to 1500 CFA to take me to the youth hostel.
It's a bit of distance from the station to the city. Finally we came to a bridge--the interesting part of Saint Louis is on this rectangular island in the Senegal River--a sort of mini-Manhattan. Just as we entered the bridge, I saw about 2 dozen people all in identical T-shirts posing for a picture. But before I go further, I need to do a little flashback 15 years to the early 1990's.
When I was a student at the University of Wisconsin, there was this girl in my Japanese language class named Tammy. I had a thing for her. I was shy and scared to death of her, but she was the cutest, sweetest, most adorable thing I'd ever seen in my life. In my one attempt to ask her to coffee she brought her roommate along with her, so I assumed she wasn't interested. But I continued to write poems (tanka 5-7-5-7-7, like haiku with 2 lines of additional commentary) about her--about her cute green coat, her red Trek bicycle that she rode around with her Kryptonite lock hanging off her handlebar, etc. Damn, she was so cute!
Anyway, I know that she was taking a Swahili class near the end of her college career and I think I found she had been in the Peace Corps in Sri Lanka or something when I googled a bunch old classmates a few years ago. So if I were going to just randomly see somebody in Africa I knew, she would be on the short-list of likely candidates.
Flashback over. Back to 5pm, August 6, 2008. So I'm in the taxi and we're entering the bridge when about 2 dozen people all wearing an identical T-shirt were posing for a picture. And I could swear she was there. I haven't seen Tammy for 15 years and I didn't see this person except for a fraction of a second, but this person just looked so much like her.
As with my malaria, I'll never know. Was it malaria? Was it Tammy? Life's mysteries...
On the bridge I saw a couple dozen more of these T-shirted people. Some sort of missionary conference or convention, August 1-7. Hmmm.... My thoughts turned to my ability to get a room in the youth hostel. Maybe these missionaries are using up all the cheap hotel space. We soon got to the hostel. I paid the 1500 CFA to the driver and went in. Whew! They had space. The missionary conference people aren't here. Relief!
I got my bed. I'm in a room with two young Norwegian men, Richard and Andreas, who are traveling through Africa--a sort of shorter version of my trip. We talked over many many beers and dinner about our experiences. They came through Mauritania. They actually took a bush taxi to the border--something I thought you couldn't do yet. At first I was jealous of having missed this opportunity overland from Morocco to Senegal, but their description of Mauritania didn't keep me jealous for long. Flies swarming so think it's like a black cloud. Temperatures in the shade of 45°C and lows of only 36°C at night. Electricity out for long stretches so no cold liquids. They had 4 flat tires, and an expensive experience at Rosso which is famous for giving travelers expensive experiences.
They just exited Mauritania and now are in Saint Louis. Then they informed me that there was just a coup in Mauritania and the capital was shut down. So I guess, Mauritania is out of the question for me now.
August 7, 2008 12:55 Senegal local time
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