Dakar, Senegal:

We enjoyed a few sea days after so many ports.  Betsy continued her afternoon writing class and I would hold us a spot at the craft class area.   In the mornings we often listened to the guest speakers or Jeremy the cruise director and travel guide who would prepare us for up coming ports.  Sometimes the guys played cards with a group of passengers we met. A few times they went to the casino to check it out and watch Texas Hold ‘Em being played.  The casino is still a smoking area which I personally hate but there don’t seem to be many players in the day.  The shops on board offer very little and don’t seem to hardly change any inventory.  They offer a few Lido sales but nothing like we have seen in the past.  

Here is a listing of all the Themed Events.  It seems like a lot but many were late at night and we just aren’t late night folks.  A lot have to do with different cultural foods but we never found many of them to our liking. 

Jeremy did give us good information on Dakar.  Some  things to see are art markets, museums, the pink lake which has to do with salt mining. We will port close to the downtown arriving at 9 and leaving at 6. We will have gone 1360 miles from Abidjan.  Dakar is a big city. You will still see horse carts being used to haul foods and other goods. Here you will find the tallest statue in Africa There will be a free shuttle that takes us to Independence Square. There is a museum near the square with 18,000 pieces of art. It took fifty years to build and they are trying to get back art that was taken from them from other countries like France. They opened in 2018 right before the pandemic. They also have a grand mosque here that you are permitted to enter. The Dakar Cathedral was built on an ancient cemetery site.  Seems as though that would have been controversial.   You will also be able to drive by the presidential palace. There is a market established in 1860 where you can find souvenirs, historic foods that they love.   It recently burned and has taken three years to rebuild .  They say “ to know a city is to know its markets life”.  The Museum of African Arts is very important to Dakar. 

Another handicraft market that Jeremy talks about is Soumbedioune.  He says you need to go deeper into the market to see it all.  A market called HLM is for material.  Some folks want to go their to buy material to make their own things. Also here there is a UNESCO site, the Island of Goree which was the largest slave trading site.   To get there you must take a ferry.  Lake Retba has a high concentration of salt. Micro algae thrives there and causes the lake to pink. The salt crop is harvested here year round with over 3000 laborers. They harvest over 60,000 tons of salt. It is hard back breaking work.   

The Bandai Wildlife Reserve is 40 miles from the city. Ike de ngor island is a small relaxing island but to get there you wade out to the boats for your going and coming. There are shuttles for this port which take about 10 minutes each way with the last one leaving at 5.  It is a hot and humid day at 84 degrees.  One of our dollars equal 624 XOF.  

If you want a taxi here you choose the yellow and black ones. The population of Dakar is very dense. 90% of the people are Muslim and 5 % Christian.  One man who came back from town said three fellows jumped him and pulled a knife on him.  He was able to struggle and run. 

 Senegal has many mineable minerals amd oil fields. In Dakar there are 4,000,000 people .  Gold has been found here too and exploited. Most people live on agriculture, cattle, rice, peanuts.  French is the official language but many speak what is called Wolof.

All these photos are from the cruise presenter so they aren’t great quality.  We had no tour here because Dakar had been removed.  Then when they cancelled Banjul due to the tides being too low they added Dakar back in. 

They also weren’t sure this museum would be open when we were there.  

Not open to the public





Pink lake where they mine salt 

This is the lake which can also look red.  All the white is salt 

Island you can take one of these boats to 

The port is very commercial 

We did our own thing and walked around a bit.  

It seemed lots of building was going on with cranes in many places. 

Their flag colors on a government building 

Everything had a motorcycle here. 

The main center of town was getting decorated for the holidays 

Streets were narrow and not much looked interesting.