TRANS-ATLANTIC CRUISE – PART 2

I’ve always had a passion for geography.  Wellington, the village where I grew up, had a two-room school: Grades 1 to 4 were la petite école and 5 to 7 la grande école.  My first geography book opened the world to me and vice versa.  When she was teaching another grade and I’d finished my assignment, Madame Orella would give me permission to pull down one of the two maps at the front of the room: the map of Canada and the map of the World.  I spent hours learning the names of countries and their capitals.  This curiosity remains as fresh as it was in 1961 when I made the big move to la grande école.

One of the attractions of this cruise was the opportunity to visit three African countries not normally part of cruise or land tour itineraries: Cabo Verde, Gambia, and Senegal.  We’ve only set foot on the African continent twice before: in Tangiers, Morocco, and on a visit to the Valley of the Kings and the temples of Luxor and Karnak along the Nile River in Egypt.

The African continent has a land area three times the size of Canada and is divided into 48 countries.  Adding the six offshore nations of Cabo Verde, Sao Tome and Principe, Comoros, Seychelles, Mauritius, and Madagascar brings the total number of ‘African’ countries to 54.  But two political entities further complicate the political geography of continental Africa.  The territory known as Western Sahara, wedged between Mauritania and Morocco, is administered by Morocco but doesn’t really ‘belong’ to any one country.  Somaliland, formerly British Somaliland, declared its independence in 1991, but its sovereignty is not recognized by other nations.  So, the correct answer to the trivia question “How many countries are there in Africa?” is “It depends!”

As interesting as Africa might be to an outsider like me, I doubt I’ll ever visit many of its countries, simply because many are too poor, too remote, or too unstable politically.  In many cases, all three limitations apply.  It’s a shame because there are so many interesting places to visit and so much important history here, including the fact that our ancestors came out of Africa many thousands of years ago, making it the cradle of the human race.

After spending a couple of days in the port city of Mindelo in Cabo Verde, we set sail for the capital city of Praia on the island of Santiago.  We’d been told that this island, further to the southeast was one of the leeward islands in the Cape Verde archipelago — leeward meaning sheltered.  Alas, it was anything but when we arrived at the entrance to the harbour of Praia.  The wind was howling at 80 km/hr or so and the captain decided not to chance the tricky backward entry through a very narrow channel.  And so ended our brief visit to another interesting country.

 
We set sail for Banjul, capital city of Gambia, where we were to spend a day and a half.  Gambia is the smallest nation by land area on the African continent, about twice the size of Prince Edward Island.  It was colonized by the British and used by them as a base for capturing and transporting slaves during that terrible period of human history.  According to the classic tale Roots, written by American author Alex Haley, Gambia is the ancestral home of Kunta Kinteh. 

The nation gained its independence in 1965 and has a population of 1.9 million.  It’s extremely poor, with an ANNUAL per capita income of $1,900 US.  To put that into perspective, if Carey Price played every one of the 84 NHL regular season games with the Montréal Canadiens, he’d make that much standing in his crease for one single MINUTE!

The market we visited on Day 1 in Banjul was as poor as we’d seen anywhere, a rabbit warren of stalls featuring high-pressure sellers of all manner of goods.  The smells in the food area were overpowering, enough to “knock a dog off a gut wagon”.  We wished the shuttle had taken us to a better part of town, one that might have left us with a better first impression of the place.  I blame Holland America for that.  That, and for not telling us in advance about the $100 US per person Visa fee!

On Day 2, we teamed up with fellow world travellers Olga and Yan from Ottawa.  As a visitor to a country like Gambia, you’re torn between two options: take the outrageously-priced Holland America shore excursion, or strike out on your own and try to create your own interesting itinerary without getting ripped off or kidnapped by the locals.  We’ve learned through experience that the ship’s excursions are superficial and sanitized; that they don’t always give you a true picture of the location you’re visiting.  Independent travel is usually better.

Our experiences in Banjul and the nearby cities of Bakau and Serrekunda are hard to describe.  Words fail.  The things we remember are the all-penetrating dust; the primitive infrastructure; the utter chaos of garbage-strewn street scenes; and the overpowering stench of open sewers.  Such a contrast to the friendliness of the people and the beauty of proud women wearing brightly-coloured dresses.  On a five-hour tour with a private guide, we visited a crocodile farm, a monkey sanctuary and a textile market.  For many reasons, Gambia is a challenging place to visit although our guide, Abdul, and driver, Dominique, were both excellent.  The country is clearly not ready to welcome tourists, but we did the best we could.

I love this photo as it shows a typical Gambian scene: woman carrying child on her back with cellphone in hand; men lounging around; dirt street; and souvenir stalls.

 My new BFF, Charlie the Nile Crocodile!

Elva feeding peanuts to her new BFF.

We docked in Dakkar, capital of Senegal, a vibrant country of 13 million people, who seem slightly better off than Gambians, but not by much.  Again, together with Olga and Yan, we hired a taxi to drive us to the Bandia Wildlife Reserve, ninety minutes away.  Our driver turned out to be the worst Elva and I have encountered in all our travels: abusive, aggressive, disrespectful and, worst of all, dishonest. 

Things weren’t much better when we arrived at the Reserve.  Even though we had no difficulty communicating in French, no one seemed willing to serve us.  Our impression throughout was that everyone was intent on cheating us out of every dollar they could.  Fortunately, our 4x4 trek through the Wildlife Reserve, a 3,500-hectare enclosure that’s a cross between a zoo and the wild, offered a great opportunity to see self-sufficient animals up close.  We ended the day with a walk around Dakar’s Independence Square and managed to find a semblance of civilization — and welcome wifi — at the five-star Pullman Hotel.

I wish I had better things to say about Dakar and Senegal, but one bad experience is enough to sour you on a place.  It’s clear from the spanking new international airport and new developments on the outskirts of the capital city that Senegal is a country on the move.  Dakar is positioning itself as the emerging financial and administrative hub of French West Africa.  It may yet achieve that goal.  But until those in the tourist industry begin to understand the meaning of service, they haven’t got a hope.