London on your own actually seems more exotic than Egypt on a tour. - Laura Fraser

8-11 February 2020, Saint Louis
Chez Titi 11,460XOF (R280)

At around 04:00 on our first morning in Saint Louis, I was wrenched from a deep sleep dizzy and disoriented. So wild was my flailing, that I actually shoved poor Charl out of bed and onto the floor! In the days that followed, I treated myself with ear drops left over from Charl’s serious ear infection in Ghana. I had no obvious earache, but assumed therein lay the problem, and the drops seem to have done the trick.
The old city of Saint Louis lies on a rectangular island near the mouth of the Senegal River. The impressive and attractive Faidherbe bridge links the island to the mainland, and the bulk of the modern city, to the east; two smaller bridges link the island to the narrow spit of land that separates the river from the ocean to the west. It really is an extraordinary topography, the spit running for many kms north to south, before fizzling out in the Atlantic.
The old city colonial buildings date from when Saint Louis was the capital of French Senegal and Mauritania. (“Saint-Louis was the capital of the French colony of Senegal from 1673 until 1902 and French West Africa from 1895 until 1902, when the capital was moved to Dakar.” (Wikipedia)) Many are dilapidated, many renovated, most charming, some decorated with bougainvillea. Some roads are tarred, some sandy. Prayer schools and mosques are everywhere. Because there is a tourism industry, there are hotels, restaurants, a massage parlour, and horse-drawn buggies for transporting foreigners around town.
We did not do much. We rested. We watched YouTube videos. We caught up the blog. We visited the photography museum. We walked the streets. I had a neck and shoulder massage. Each morning, from our breakfast table at Chez Titi, we saw the buggy drivers bathe their horses in the narrow western section of the Senegal River, watching the four-legged beauties, often white, swim and toss and enjoy the clearly affectionate pampering. We dined at a series of restaurants. Twice at the incomparable La Kora; a couple of times at the more casual Chez Natty, once with three cyclists cycling south*. We tried “yassa poulet” (“A simple, yet delicious concoction of lemon juice, caramelised onions and garlic (and sometimes mustard), yassa is omnipresent in Senegal. Most commonly served over chicken or fish with a side of rice…” (theculturetrip.com)) at La Linguere and “thiéboudienne” (“Pronounced ‘cheb-o-jen’ and often referred to as chebu jen, ceebu jën or simply tcheb, thiéboudienne is the quintessential Senegalese dish. Literally translating as ‘fish with rice’ in Wolof, Senegal’s national dish comes in all shapes and sizes with recipes and techniques varying from family to family. At its core: a piece of fried or grilled local white fish, fluffy seasoned rice and a flavour-rich tomato sauce, accompanied by a varying phalanx of steamed vegetables such as carrots, sweet potatoes, manioc, aubergine and a sweet-sour tamarind called dahkar.” (theculturetrip.com)) at Restaurant Taranga.
*We met the cyclists via the West and Central Africa WhatsApp group. Andy from the Canary Islands, and a couple from Switzerland who, with the wind behind them, averaged 150-180km per day through the desert.
“The Senegal River … is a 1,086 km (675 mi) long river in West Africa that forms the border between Senegal and Mauritania.” (Wikipedia)
“Transferred to Saint-Louis in 1897, the Pont Faidherbe is the city's most significant landmark. The metal arches of this bridge linking Saint-Louis to the mainland were designed by Gustav Eiffel and originally built to cross the Danube. You'll cross its steel planks when driving into town.
The bridge is a grand piece of 19th-century engineering – 507m long with a noteworthy middle swing span that rotates to allow ships to steam up the Senegal River. The entire bridge was rehabilitated in stages between 2008 and 2012, with sections of the original bridge's crumbling metal spans replaced piece by piece with steel replicas of the original design.” (LonelyPlanet.com)