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.
