Camels in the Desert

February 17, 2008

The girls and I decided to take a weekend trip to the Desert de Lompoul which is north of Dakar, but south of St. Louis. We left early yesterday morning and met two Spanish friends of ours at the transportation center in Dakar. After arguing about prices and vehicles for probably a half hour with the men who worked there, we ended up renting a white mini-bus for ourselves. There were eight of us going, so that meant two to a seat which made things comfortable enough.

We arrived at the nearest village to the desert, and then were picked up in an SUV by a worker at the campement where we were going to stay. A few kilometers away was the desert. We passed by women carrying things back and forth between the villages on their heads, and people working at agriculture sites funded by NGOs.

We arrived at the campement to find it consisted of many "Mauritanian style tents." In true Senegalese style, the owner brought us to the main tent and pulled a bunch of lounge/couch/bed things into the same vicinity and told us to nap after our long journey (which was only about 4 1/2 hours… and I had actually slept the whole way). We chatted with the workers and waited about an hour for lunch to be ready. Lunch, of course, was rice and fish. It wasn't my favorite, but it was ok. Afterwards, we settled into the tents where we would be staying for the night. We tracked down the showers and toilets, which were very basic and were found in small structures built with dead tree branches and brush, with pieces of fabric that blocked the doorway (which didn't stay in place when the wind blew). After napping for half an hour, we sent out to explore the desert.

I am not a big fan of sand at the beach. I don't like how it sticks to you after you've been swimming. So I REALLY like that aspect of the desert. No water, no sticky stand, just sand everywhere. Granted, it still gets all over everything, but I don't mind. We started walking and saying we would "just go to the top of the next dune," but then when we arrived there we'd say, "ok, just to the top of the next one." Needless to say, we walked for quite some time. When we found a really good drop off, we spent a good half hour running and jumping off of it. This resulted in lots of sand getting stuck in my jeans. The landscape was incredible, and made me want to go to North Africa even more to see the Sahara.

When we arrived at dinner, a lot more tourists had shown up just for the night. We were all exhausted, but they had organized a dance outside around the fire with drums and everything. I laid on one of the couches on the tent and watched from afar, but it was a bit too touristy for me and I ended up going to the tent to sleep.

The next morning (this morning), we had arranged to ride camels in the dunes. So, a young boy (yes, there's child labor in Senegal) arrived with three camels. He only spoke Pulaar, so we could hardly communicate with him. He was about 12 years old, but looked younger. We jumped up on the camels and he led us around for a little while. It was super fun. However, the way the seat on my camel was a bit broken, one of the sides was missing and the leg holds were obviously made for a child. So, I spent much of the ride awkwardly trying to stay on top of the camel. It wasn't too difficult until we started heading downhill. But it was fun nonetheless, and I didn't fall off, so that's good.

After breakfast and camel rides, we headed back to Dakar.