WAIST (pt 2) - The Journey to Dakar

I was on the PC only bus. It looked great from the outside, but the inside was not so great for one small reason. The seats had been intended for someone no taller than four feet, weighing no more than fifty-five pounds. Or so it seemed. And the seat backs were positioned at almost a ninety degree angle. Also, there were three seats on one side of the aisle, two on the other. Needless to say this bus was not the shining example of cross-contiental luxury touring. We were crammed in like sardines.

The first leg of our trek went smoothly. We made it to the bus company's station in Kayes in about eight hours. It usually takes over ten. Then our bus broke in Kayes and we had to wait two hours while repairs were being made. Of course, no one at the bus company told us this. They just pulled the bus to the side of the road, opened the hood, and started pulling pieces out.

When moving once again, it took about ninety minutes to reach the Senegal border. First we had to get our passports stamped to leave Mali, and then stamped to enter Senegal. At the border town in Senegal the bus broke down again, which delayed our journey another hour.

At this point it was starting to get dark and people were starting to think about dinner. We drove for another two hours or so before stopping in Tambacounda for food. Everyone was tired, hungry, and a little crabby from being on an uncomfortable bus all day, but still in relatively good spirits. Not for long.

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Before going any further I should say that when traveling overland in West Africa it is advised to keep your wits about you. Always make sure you know where your valuables are. People get pick-pocketed at bus stops and there are many instances of people having stuff stolen out of their carry-on bags by other passengers after they have fallen asleep on a bus.
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Since we had the whole bus to ourselves we let our guard down a little. When people got off the bus in Tambacounda they left valuables on the bus in plain sight. Who wouldn't? We all knew eachother. It was safe. Or so we thought.

After having been stopped for about 20 minutes something weird happened. All of a sudden about a dozen Senegalese men started sprinting down a dark alley next to one of boutiques we were stopped in front of and were yelling. Obviously this startled all the Volunteers. We quickly realized that these men were in pursuit of a thief. This could mean trouble as vigilantism is still common here.

A few minutes after the commotion started one of the bus employees started yelling at us (PCVs) while holding two backpacks from our bus. We soon discovered that while people were out using the bathroom and finding food, a thief had gone onto our bus, grabbed a few bags off seats by the door, and then took off. He dropped two bags, but got away with one. The scary part is that there were people sleeping on the bus when this happened.

Obviously this changed the mood of the evening. We had to call the police. File a report. Delay our journey another two hours.

We travelled almost non-stop for the rest of the night and got into the Dakar area the next morning about 9 am. At first the general mood was not good. The edge of Dakar is a dirty, industrial wasteland without much vegetation and a Philip Morris factory. The mood of everyone on the bus was "we spent over an entire day on a bus to come to a place that looks worse than Mali?". We didn't realize that our journey wasn't quite over.

After a few hours in really bad Dakar morning traffic we made it to the ocean side of town. Our opinion quickly changed. Tall buildings. Paved streets. Urban vegetation. Developed oceanside properties. Clean streets. Sidewalks. Piped sewers. It felt like America.

Our journey ended 28 hours after it began, at the front door of the Club Atlantique (American Club) in Dakar, where WAIST is held. We scrambled off the bus, grabbed our bags, grabbed a cold beer, changed into swimming suites, and jumped into the most beautiful pool that has ever existed.

Side note: When I took a little "rinse off shower" before going into the pool the water that swirled down the drain was brown. When it came out of the shower head it had been clear. It gets dusty out there on the open road...