bugsonmyboard

If I laid on my back and turned my foot just so, I could get enough light from the nearby fluorescent lamp to dig the biggest urchin spines out of the ball of my left foot.  The restaurant parking lot in Dakar that I’ve called home for the last week isn’t the most glamorous of accommodation, but it is affordable and close to embassies that I’d been running around to trying to procure visas.   Despite the mood that this scene might conjure up, I couldn’t have been a happier camper. As I motored south to Senegal, the waves turned from very good to stupid good.  I arrived to find a perfect barreling lefthander grinding its way along a reef in front of a giant ornate mosque.  I surfed alone until two Spaniards living nearby came out to share some waves with me until dark.  The surf continued like this for the next few days and I mostly teetered at the edge of having myself truly stuffed into some tubes on my backhand, right in the pocket of the wave.  I got pitched over the falls pretty good on one failed attempt and managed to put a nice elbow sized hole just about dead center in the bottom of my board. Chalk one up for Senegal.

The pelicans thought the surf looked pretty good too.

After two and a half months in the desert, I’d had enough and was more than happy for the abrupt change in landscape that happened as I approached the Senegal River, which marked the border with Mauritania.  Near the border I caught sight of one of the longest trains in the world – with trains up to 1.6 miles long that traverse the Mauritanian Railway carrying tons of iron ore.

I’d eaten lunch that afternoon sitting on a sand dune, and now suddenly there was lush vegetation before me and I could feel moisture in the air.  It felt fantastic and it pulled me southward.

The shift away from such an arid landscape meant that I now got to fall down in the mud rather than the sand.  For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to hop off of the perfectly good track that I was riding down onto the tidal plane near the mouth of the Senegal river, which, rather predictably in hindsight, turned out to be a squishy moto-eating mud pit.  I hadn’t seen another car for the last 40 km on the track and the tide was coming up. After getting properly bogged, I took what I thought would be the quick option and tried to get unstuck without unloading anything. I ended up spinning the bike around barely in control so that it landed laying down pointing into the river rather than back up towards the track. It had to be the ugliest looking maneuver I’ve made on a motorcycle to date.  And mind you, I once ended a glorious momentary wheelie by chasing my bike down the street with a crowd from the party I’d just left looking on. So much for getting out of the mud quickly. I was feeling pretty foolish about creating this situation as I began to unload the bike.

Fortunately two German guys in a Toyota showed up to find my yard sale strewn out along the bank of the Senegal River.   They rolled up their pant legs and came down to give me a shove out of the mud and back up onto the track.

Their Toyota was kitted out with big suspension, a winch, and a roof tent, and full pantry. Their dinner cuisine was far better than any of my efforts to date. But they did have a strange sense of fashion.

While the landscape turned green, faces turned from brown to black, women went from fully covered or absent in public gathering places to being visible everywhere in vibrantly colored dresses.  Incredibly fit looking men trained on the beach and groups performed regimented soccer drills.  It couldn’t have been more apparent that we’d left Arab Africa behind and had entered Black Africa. Our first stop was a camp on a sand river bar south of St. Louis where I made a little friend who liked to wear my hat.

There is nothing more fun than gathering around big map laid out in the sand to discuss places, plans, and routes.   There were all brands of overlanders in the mix – trucks, motos, and bicycles.

Now traveling with the Germans in the Toyota, I motored south to Dakar.  We were stopped numerous times by police for fabricated violations trying to get some money out of us.  We’d already had our fill of extortion from people in uniforms at the border crossing, and we were in no hurry, so we just stayed friendly, bought mandarins from the ladies at the side of the road, and waited them out until we were simply told to go.

The city of Dakar sits at the end of the Cape Vert peninsula, the westernmost point of the African continent.  It is the historic finish point of the Paris–Dakar rally, the most prestigious off-road race in the world (now moved to South America due to security concerns). While in Dakar, in addition to roaming about the peninsula looking for waves, my task has been to procure visas for countries that lie ahead.  The red tape fun began in earnest.  Nearly every country on the west coast of the continent requires a visa of American citizens for transit.  Each one takes about 2 days to process and some have substantial documentation requirements such as a hotel bookings, letter of invitation, and letter to the consulate describing your travel intentions.  Even with everything in order, the fact that a visa may be denied for whatever reason deemed sufficient by the consular officer can become incredibly frustrating. I dug in and made myself comfortable.

Dyna Rae got some new rubber.

And between rolls of red tape,  I found some ocean magic at the western edge of Africa.