A Day in Dakar

After one of our most pleasant refuelling stops to date in Conakry, Guinea, where the people were friendly and the scenery beautiful.  We seem to have left behind the squalor of most of West Africa, to clean organized cement buildings of red and yellow ochre, umber, azurite and Egyptian blue.  We elected to overfly Gambia and Guinea-Bissou and push the limits of our fuel endurance into Dakar, Senegal.  It was tight but neither of us saw our low fuel lights either.

Dakar had one of the most bizarre VFR arrival procedures we'd yet seen, though not as bad as Monrovia requesting we fly through a mountain.  We had told the tower we were looking for fuel on arrival, but he had us park way out in the boonies.  We only found out after shutting down and putting all the covers on that we had to restart and taxi across the airfield to get some Jet A1, then restart and taxi back to our remote parking spot out in the nether regions of GOOY.  After a long day the extra bullshit really wasn't appreciated.

Too late to push on, I called my good friend Filippo, an Italian fellow I had flown with in Tanzania and Kenya, who was in town training up Senegal Government pilots on the AW139, and he recommended the King Fahd Palace Hotel down on the beach.  It was a gorgeous spot but quite noisy as the U.S Embassy lads were having a big night out by the pool.   Lots of yelling, stripping down to their gitches and seeing who could score the biggest belly flop was fun to watch for awhile, but we soon drifted off in search of some quiet and some grub.   Next morning we were back at the airport but the old girls started giving us some grief.  The engineers soon set to work and after some troubleshooting, we had everything in working order but it was too late in the day to make it through to the next overnight, so we elected to see some of Dakar.

We caught the ferry over to Goree Island, the House of Slaves, but we were instantly attacked by all these pretty young things asking ever so politely to come visit their shops on the island.  Once we had arrived the aggressive shop keepers kept it up in ernest and while one hates to be rude, you had little choice, as it was overwhelming.  I got some great shots and saw some interesting and dark history, but the incessant and aggressive shops had everyone at wits end.  Times are tough all over, and I understand the desperation to sell us tourists trinkets, but I have more than enough souvenirs from the Dark Continent.  It put a bit of a damper on the day but we all took it in stride.  It was nice to get back to the Palace and chill before the next day's flying.

The next morning, we covered our bills, stocked up on water, and headed North into the desert.