TIA Day 3

Bright and early the next morning, we headed off to Toubakouta on an Ndanga Ndiaye, which is the national version of a car rapide. Thus, it was cheap and crammed. It didn’t help that the only road to Toubakouta was riddled with potholes, causing our large white van to offroad at various points and preventing Liana and I from ever finding our balance. It was a relatively short 2.5 hour trip for 70 kilometers, and we were unceremoniously dumped by the side of the road with our luggage. We followed the first path until we saw a large pink building which resembled a hotel and consulted a local woman, who said it was abandoned. After a quick phone call from Molly, the proprietor arrived shortly from his other property and explained that this was the new compound. Being the only guests, we decided it would be fun to have the place to ourselves. Yet when we entered the room, there were lots of spiders (which did wonders for Molly’s arachnaphobia) and no power. Determined to find lunch during Ramadan, we sallied forth to Toubakouta proper, helped by a “friendly” artisan who showed us his older brothers’ ateliers so that we could gaze at their synchronized repertoire of elephants and hippopotamuses. While genuine teranga is always appreciated, we hadn’t signed up for the tour and hoped to ditch the guy by going into a hamburger joint for lunch. They were amazingly tasty and filling, which was fortuitous as we needed to muster all of our strength in order to look at all of the artisans’ wares. Evidently, during the November to February tourist season there are enough customers for them all, but with only 8 toubabs in town, their prospects didn’t look so good. After fending off the last we bought some water at a boutique and headed home. Liana hadn’t been feeling well and had headed back early, leaving Molly, Colette, and I to get totally lost in this (literal) backwater. Some nice neighbor kids walked us back across town to our compound, only to discover that the water was no longer working. Sweating on a mattress for two hours was delightful, but it was worth it for the amazing pirogue ride. Toubakouta is in the Siné-Saloum river delta, and the mangrove swamps which line its brackish shores host large bird and crab colonies. Just floating on the river, watching the sunset, I thought “TIA.” Our host’s wife had prepared dinner for us at the main compound and after some quick discussion we decided to move to a place located near another place with running water. We stayed up and chatted until we heard djembe drumming. Unfortunately, the spectacle had ended by the time we arrived, but it was still beautiful to listen to.