Day 1. The 14 hours trip to travel 400 km

     We arrived at the airport at 2 am in the morning. Senegal is very different from Morocco, as they say, that part of Africa is more related to the Arabic countries and culture.  We slept the first night in a seminar. We woke up at 630 and a small minivan came to pick us up, with the Minister of Youth.  Foivos, William and me went to pick up the solar panels and all the equipment.  It was amazing how 300 kg of batteries and much more kilos of solar panels, plus 5 people, fit on a 7 people minivan. 

     We started our travel at 8 am.  Claudio and Luis had told us that they spent 12 hours to travel the 400 km between Dakar and Bignona.  I didn’t believe it, but apparently it was not an overestimation.  I didn’t know if the best idea was to sleep and relax or stay awake and be aware of everything, since our driver was a little bit crazy. The city looked like a mess, very unorganized. For me was very interesting that they still have horses and donkeys to travel inside the city. They have some small cafe mobile shops that appear interesting. 

     After leaving the city, the view become amazing, the land was completely dried, and just some plants stand the weather.  Groups of about 5 huts where surrounded with bamboo or other plants, as making small villages. Some black circles in the soil appear interesting to me, as if they burn something creating circles.  We asked the driver and it turned out that they burn a seed to get the oil from it.

     Since the boat that could take us directly to Zinguachor is not working at this time of the year, we had to cross the border, to Gambia, and then enter again in Senegal.  Our driver turned out to be an expert in all the migration issues, and everything went well easy. Since Luis had already passed the border, and had had some trouble, they already knew that a Guatemalan girl was coming, so I was known since the beginning.  We cross the border to Gambia and drove for some hours until we had to stop.  We got out of the car and realize that there was a huge line of cars in front of us.  That was the queue for the ferry.  

     We know we have to wait for some hours, we say a lot of trucks and apparently they wait for days. We walk until the riverbank and my real Africa experience started, I had to find a bathroom. I ask to the Minister and he took me to the bathrooms, it took me 2 minutes to decide if I was going to use it or not.  It was just a whole on the ground, no toilette. At the beginning I thought I would wait, but then I said to myself: “if you are in Africa, enjoy Africa!”.  

     We spend there more than five hours waiting.  I ate a delicious mango.  I hadn’t had a good mango since Guatemala, so it was a terrific experience for me.  Then we eat bread with sausage and onion, and they give it in a piece of newspaper.  After five hours it was hour time to get on the ferry.  It was amazing how you have to wait 5 hours to cross a 400 meters river. And if luck was not in our side, the ferry before us got stuck on the peer and even took us more than usual to reach the other side. The driver was a little bit worried, since when it gets dark, they close the road because of the conflicts with the rebels of Casamance. 

     So, he drove as fast as possible, we crossed the border back to Senegal and after some time, we had to stop because the border was closed. At first, I didn’t know want to think since it was already dark and they say it this conflict is very violent. But, since we were with the minister, he made some calls and after some minutes we were back on the road.  Like at 10 pm, we were already in Bignona. Amazing trip! We arrived here and everyone was glad to see us and warmly welcomed us. We went to the music festival and saw some typical dances, with a hairy character that’s turns very fast and looks amazing.