I went to bed very early and got up fairly early. I felt a bit of sore throat--the kind I feel when it's a tad cold out and I've been sleeping shirtless and exposed. And indeed, when I thought about it, it was rather cool. I got up for breakfast and when I went out, the temperature was something refreshing. Whew! It was nice.
The usual pattern followed--I took the #8 Palais till I saw the Melissa Restaurant and got out and headed to the Guinean embassy. I knew I was early, so I decided to check out the internet cafe by the Olympic swimming pool. It was open this time and I bought an "hour" though I received a half hour login. It was almost 10am but I decided to check me email--people must be worried. So doing all my usual tricks to foil any keyloggers, I logged in. And sure enough--worried emails from my parents and Elena. I wrote my parents. I also wrote a long email to Elena, but since I got only a half hour, the screen went blank and I ended up losing my Firefox screens. So I just wrote Elena a short email after that. I also checked up a bit on the news: a beheading on a bus in Canada, a corrupt Alaskan getting his come-up-ance, corrupt justice tamperers in contempt of Congress.
Then it was onto the Guinean embassy. I went in and went to the room. Of course they recognized me immediately and pulled out my passport. He told me that the usual visa was for one month, but he had given me 2 months because of my delay in making it to the border. I was happy and thanked him and smiled. He seemed happy that he was able to do this for me and happy that I was appreciative. I thanked him again and left. When I looked back one more time, he smiled and gave me a thumbs-up sign. I wonder about some of the reactions I get. I think, as a solo American traveler, arranging all the visa stuff myself instead of hiring some runner to do it for me, I am a bit of a rarity--a person who wants to wants to see what these countries have to offer. My total willingness to speak French--a language I have obviously just learned for this trip--probably impresses them, too. I suspect most Americans, knowing that English is the current lingua-franca, decided to embark on such trips knowing that it is up to their interlocutor to make all the effort to understand what it being said. Anyway, I left the Guinea embassy in a state of happiness.
Since I have to leave Dakar tomorrow morning, I decided to make one more trip to SportCity to buy a watch, and a stop at Casino. I walked into SportCity and I was in absolute heaven! The AC was on full blast! It was like a refrigerator! So so so sweet. I got a watch for 45000 CFA. It's a women's Timex triathlon watch. For some reason the women's watches were all about 2/3 the price of the mens'. So pride aside, I went girly. ;-) Besides, it's a bit more discrete and smaller and makes a smaller tan line and has less sweat trapping surface area. Then I went to Casino where I got a 4500 CFA extra large poison mosquito net (their only size), 10 anti-mosquito coils that I can burn when I'm somewhere without electricity for my electrical mosquito poison dispenser, and 15 medium zip lock bags. The bagman wouldn't give me my bag until I tipped him. How much? I gave him 100CFA and he seemed satisfied enough. All he bagged was 3 items. Sheesh!
Then I took the bus home and had a nice beer.
So as I said, it's my last night in Dakar. I plan to go to the Île de Gorée Saturday morning. It's a small island but has an old slave holding area and a few other things. I'll try to spend the night.
August 1, 2008 14:15 Senegal local time
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