Hello Mudpuddlers! What a sad moment, its time for the last installment in the story of my journey through Africa. Fear not, however, as I have spent this afternoon looking up adventures that I can take on next year, so I'll be back with more tales then, yay!
We left things last time at the camp in Koba which involved a raucous late party and table wrestling. Hangovers notwithstanding, we set off the next morning destination Dakar and the end of the Odyssey for the bikes and many of the 2CVs, including Eriks that I was co-piloting.
The journey itself was relatively uneventful, featuring some off road through the Senegalese savannah, and some tarmac pounding, however the most interest was caused by a stereotypical Senegal copper who thought his lottery numbers had come up. As it happens, we were one of the first cars away and therefore were one of the first to reach the mentioned officers checkpoint. Senegalese policemen get terribly excited when they see foreign number plates. An uncharitable fellow might suggest they enjoy trying to make something out of the encounter, but woe betide I be that kind of fellow. Anyway, our erstwhile rozzer immediately began to request every piece of documentation imaginable. Surely he could find something, wrong, surely? We had passports, driving licenses, overseas driving licenses, car ownership documentation and so on and so forth as local cars were waved through and the 2CVs, motorbikes and vespas began to piled up behind us. Bless him, you could almost see the cartoon dollar signs in his eyes as he surveyed the parked collection.
Of course, he found a missing piece of documentation, some of the permission for the vehicle to be in Senegal documents were with the organisation. So he insisted these were required and no-one could go on. Rule one, you don't blink first, so we all got out chairs and settled in for a rest in the shade as it was frightfully hot you understand, and we had a few hours to spare. This dragged on for some time and the poor lad saw his riches beginning to be swept away in the tidal surge of European bloody mindedness. The straw that broke the camels back was when one or two of the group started chatting to him about the amount of paperwork there would be for the 18 cars and bikes. Such a lot of paperwork. He took the hint, and off we all set again, in possession of all the things we were in possession of prior to the checkpoint. Europe 1 - 0 Senegal, injury time winner.
Rather than Dakar city, the end point for the tour was by Lac Rose, a beautiful lake about 20km outside the Senegalese capital. Now, I have to point out here that we were not on a rally, which is a race, but a raid, which is not a race. So it was not a race. Thats important to note. Having said that, Erik and I were first to arrive at Lac Rose. So, it wasn't a race, but on the other hand, we won. We won, we won, we won. Nuff said ;-)
The idea was for everyone to arrive between 1 and 2 by the lakeside for a celebration before moving in to the hotel compound at Chez Salim where we would be staying. Problem one, I was immediately swamped by souvenir sellers. I made the mistake of buying from the first one. By the time I lost my temper I had about six of them chasing me round the place. I was eventually rescued by the brilliant method of spending all my money. That, and the police, who turned up and moved the souvenir hawks on. Problem two was that it was really hot and three of the 2CVs hadn't got the message about timings and had stopped for a lazy two hour lunch en route. That would be Herman and Rita, the fabulous Spaniards (Dr Daniel and Jose) and a couple of retired lawyers known as the roommates (as they shared a cabin with Fitz and Stan from Barcelona to Tangiers). So we got to sit in the sun until nearly four waiting. The only time I got burned on tour actually as I had been good with my sunscreen until then.
There was a party atmosphere for the rest of the day, and some of the Vespa dudes were pretty emotional. I can understand that given the rather more challenging aspects of doing this on a small bike. Everyone made it, no cars or bikes failed, thats pretty amazing given the terrain and some of the damage incurred en route. Without GPS it would have been very different, I can understand how Mark Thatcher got lost in the desert on the Paris-Dakar back in the 80s! We had a good drink to round off the tour and I had a hut with air conditioning to myself which was wonderful as it was still drippingly moist at midnight. 10 2CVs were going on for a further couple of weeks and should be finishing up round about now in Benin, so they had a morning off the next day before setting out once again on their (further) adventures.
For the rest of us, after taking lunch we took the vehicles into Dakar itself, a short drive of 40km or so, to the port as the cars and bikes will be shipped back to Belgium for collection. It was another blistering day and its important to keep drinking, so I found a bar whilst we waited for the port to accept the cars and tucked into some flag beer. A strange bar which, bizarrely enough, had dusty christmas decorations on the wall and door of the toilet! The beer was very tasty though. Once the cars were ditched, we gathered our stuff and took taxis to a hotel Gert had sorted out where we had access to showers, booze and food as we were not flying until 10.45pm. I was too hot for much food so I settled for an ice cream and beer for tea.
There was time for one last African Adventure though when it came to taking a taxi to the airport. The hotel receptionist said she could book us a cab and it would be 5000 francs, but if we walked to the street and hailed one it would be 2000 francs. Not wanting to waste money, Erik and I walked to the road and soon enough a cab pulled up. I say 'cab', it was somewhat hard to tell. We had a tessellated window with multiple cracks and no headlights (it was dark). I'd also like to say the tracking was off, but it was more that the wheels pointed in different directions. Oh, and the door didn't really close so much as cling on with its fingertips. He was a lovely guy though and I told him that his was the premier taxi in Dakar. Having got us there (somehow) he pulled away shouting 'taxi premiere!' at me with a big grin.
That just leaves the trip home. I slept most of the flight from Dakar into Brussels, waking up for breakfast about an hour out. Brussels was damp and cold. Noticably so given where I'd come from! I also had a four hour delay for my connection to Heathrow which I spent eeking out my last few euros on coffee and cake and timing how long it takes to walk the full length of the gate building slowly. 11 minutes, if you're wondering. The flight to Heathrow was only 45 minutes so no time to do much but buckle in and wait. Passport control was surprisingly easy and mine was one of the first bags off. Win! Dad picked me up and was there ready so the last part of the journey was a dozy ride back to Norwich and journeys end!
So, thats the story of my African Adventure. I hope you've enjoyed it. I'd certainly recommend this type of trip to amyone looking to get a feel of North and West Africa, and then offroading and camping gave it a much more adventurous feel than a hotel and beach tour (for example). I had a great time though and have many fond memories. A worthy odyssey.
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