March 27 – Dakar, Senegal

This morning we boarded two buses for a drive through Dakar, the capital of Senegal...  

and out into the countryside.  After a missed turn we eventually ended up at a hotel near Lac Rose (Lake Rose).  At the hotel we transferred to 16 seat dune buggies for a trip around the area and the lake. 

Lake Rose has a high concentration of Dunaliella Salina bacteria that gives it a distinctive rose color, although on the day of our visit it was only a little pink. The color seems to be obvious from only certain angles, especially when it has been sunny with the wind blowing.  The lake is separated from the ocean by a narrow strip of sand dunes.  Because of its close proximity to the ocean some of the ocean water seeps in.  

As the water evaporates the salt concentration builds up.  It is almost 40% in some places.  The salt concentration is so high that the salt precipitates out so salt harvesters scrape the salt off of the bottom of the lake, pile it into boats and the salt is dried on the lake shore.  The harvesters cover their bodies with shea butter (obtained from local shea nut trees) to protect themselves from the salt.

While stopped at the lake some of the local ladies came up to the buses trying to sell their wares.

After a drive around the lake to see the farms and surrounding area...

we stopped at a nearby village of Deni Biram Ndao where we met the chief.  He gave us a tour of part of the village.  We pulled up water from one of three wells in the village.

We also saw his two homes, one for each of his wives.  The homes were basically one room huts. 

The kitchen was basically an open fire pit covered by a small shelter. 

We also stopped at the village arts and crafts coop and had an opportunity to buy a few souvenirs.

Many of the villagers followed us as we made our way around...

including many children.

Then we piled back into our dune buggies and headed through the dunes...

and down to the beach where we traveled along the beach for a while.  We saw a number of school children enjoying the surf.

Then back to the hotel for lunch and a walk down through a small market area and to the lake again.

Eventually we were back in the buses for a trip to our next event.  Along the way we stopped to get photos of the Baobab trees…the Tree of Life.  They are very long lived (one was recently carbon dated at over 2,400 years old) and hold a lot of water as insurance against droughts. 

We then went to a nearby town for a “festival”.  The local people had set up plastic chairs in a wide spot by the road and gave us an energetic display of dancing and drumming.  

Most of the dancing was performed by men…

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Watch video of the men dancers
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but eventually the ladies came out to do some dancing of their own.

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Watch video of the women dancers.
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While there it looked like most of the village eventually came out to watch the show.

There was also a display of wrestling by a couple of young boys. 

With the dancing over we headed back through some markets...

and piled back into our two buses and headed back to Dakar and the ship. 

Tonight’s show was called “The Tourist”.  Dancers were dressed in black and outfitted with lights.  The lights in the theater were turned out so that you could only see the lights in the set and on the dancers.  The lights were controlled to the music.  The entire performance was very entertaining.