Postcard Perspective

After our art excursion, we asked our driver to take us further up the coast to the fishing village of Yoff. He was a bit out of his element, and had to stop several times to ask a passerby for directions to find, um, well - the Atlantic Ocean. He parked the cab about a block away, and pointed us to the beach where the fishing boats were to be found. We walked down the sand road past donkey pulled carts, cooking and garbage fires, goats, running children, and locals in various forms of traditional Muslim and Senegalese attire, smoking, talking, repairing nets, smiling, scowling and staring at the two tourists with dangling cameras walking down the road.

This is the picture postcard view that greeted us through a telephoto lens when we got to the end of road:
These are a few of the thousands of fishing boats that are rolled into and out of the Atlantic surf every day. This is an iconic Senegalese image, that can be found in travel brochures, postcards, and on postage stamps [Yes Dad, postcard with Senegalese stamps is on the way]

And this is the view from the exact same spot, with a wider angle revealing the piles of garbage and debris between us and the boats: It was enough to keep us at the foot of the road.

More pics from the Yoff ocean front:




We made our way back to the cab. Sigrid became the object of attention for a small group of laughing jumping kids. She took pictures of the ones that asked, and not the ones that were camera shy.

When we got back to the cab, it would not start. You know the sound, turn the key and get that dead-as-a-doornail battery staccato clicking noise.

Among the images that we neglected to capture:

• Mike and 4-5 kids and young boys pushing the cab down the sand road in 90+ degree heat while the driver repeatedly dropped the clutch to try and start the cab.
• Sigrid and Mike standing in the middle of road next to the abandoned cab, getting honked at by passing cars, while the driver went looking for help.

He returned with another cab, which we commandeered to get us back to the hotel.

This cab was not air conditioned. But it did induce in me an advanced case of cognitive dissonance, lurching in and out of the frenetic Dakar traffic while looking through the multi-star cracked windshield past the pine tree shaped American flag air freshener bouncing under the rear view mirror.