Vacation Part 2

It's time for the second installment! It took some doing to get from Accra to Dakar and we landed in the evening, got a SIM card for Adiya's phone and contacted our Air B&B host who collected us at the airport and navigated us to our apartment. The Dakar airport is very much in the city, so it was a quick jaunt (happily enough, as we were wiped out) and the apartment was on kind of a main drag and near several shops and businesses (including this great hairdresser, which I was able to photograph the next morning.)

Upon waking, we took in the view (of a more functional construction site than that Greek one Lat and I saw). The way the apartment looked out over this area (can you spot the cat?) made the sound echo really well, and we were often hearing the horse-drawn carts (which operate right along with the traffic, not large or sleek horses but most looked pretty well cared for) and goats (not sure where they were hiding?), as well as sounds from the mosques. It was not a quiet apartment, but very cool to get the sounds of the city! I had an immediate flashback (as I'm sure every normal person does) to the last chapter of my Sophomore year of French class to the words for mosque and minaret (which are the same thing in French and English, I think) and it was a surreal feeling to know that when I had learned those words I had wanted to experience those things and here I was doing just that.

We spent the first day lazily loafing about, (we really needed this vacation!) changing money and buying groceries, until it was time to head out to Adiya's middle school friend's house for dinner (they went to middle school together in America, she just happens to live in Dakar now!). We made a pit stop on the way! What an immense and very cool sculpture.

We had Chicken Yassa (Yassa Chicken?) for dinner and it was amazing - chicken cooked in onions, it is SO good! 

The next day was jam-packed as we headed out to go fabric shopping in the garment district. We went down these tiny alleyways with guys sewing in every corner - my favorite was a guy listening to his MP3 player, sewing and holding a pen in his mouth! It was beautiful. I did get a hand-dyed Senegalese fabric (blue). 

The sewing alley

Trim for all the outfits they are sewing!

Garment selling street with dust from the Harrmattan, which was over in Ghana but not in Senegal yet.

Taxi! 

Then after lunch we boarded a ferry for Goree Island, a famous slave-trading island (though it may not have had as many slaves pass through as previously thought, it was still impressive.) We toured the slave house and wandered about looking at the art and gorgeous flowers (bougainvillea, my photos do not remotely do it justice) on the windy island until it was time to depart. 

We headed back to the apartment via a beach-side bar where we ate a GIANT seafood platter. YUM!

We await our food! Can you spot: (1) guy selling birds that you can buy and then 'free' (2) a dude working out by running in circles on the sand in front of people eating... we were mystified (3) surfers surfing! (4) the huge sculpture we had seen the day before in the background (5) Ella's glass recyclable Sprite bottle, one of the coolest recycling ideas in Africa I think!

Until next week all! <3