One of the experiences recommended by the Lonely Planet Guide is staying at a small village campement. These are often community run projects where you can get a feel for African village life, all the sights, sounds and smells!
An example of the above was in a place called Yayeme, just north of the Sine Saloum Delta in Senegal. Totally off the beaten track down a maze of sandy passages that ran past groundnut and maize plantations we finally found, were led to a colourfully decorated wooden gate. The bemused guide earned himself a biro and a box of matches!
Here we were greeted by a number of characters who all seemed to have part ownership in the property, only one had the key though. It was clear that we were the first tourists to venture here for some time judging by the intense local interest and the fact that the campement sign had been taken down and was on the firewood pile. We did however get let in and parked up next to the village well.
It became clear that there was a western owner who had not actually visited the property for a number of years but had a god like status and apparently phoned the local mobile on occasion to check everything was going okay. In his absence the gardener and sand sweeper became our host.
He had taken on one of the larger and more comfortable buildings as his own private quarters and seemed to thoroughly enjoy the lack of boss.
Being next to the Well caused some amusement as we became bucket lifters to the women and children who came to fill up. Some were not too keen as they had seen me soaking a woman on an earlier attempt to get bucket to head in a smooth motion!
This was an ideal location to have a day trip out towards the towns that line the delta and to hopefully get a pirogue trip to see the mangroves and local bird life. So one morning we set off on foot to reach the main road leading to the water, much to the amusement of the locals who knowing we had a car could not understand why we would walk? It is however the best way of seeing the area in detail and indeed there was no shortage of action as we walked in. As we admired the graceful glide of the local vultures, one decided to attempt a low approach and ended up hitting the powercables along the side of the road, this caused a tremendous bang and fizz as fried bird hit the deck! Hopefully i have an action shot on my camera.
We arrived at the pirogue port and found the bargaining remarkably easy as neither of us had been to a cash machine for a week and so with 10,000 CFA and a handful of Ouguiya’s we got on a boat. I nearly tipped the thing over as i bounded about in it but apart from that it was a pleasant trip. We saw the World famous Tam Tam telephone, a drum in dire need of repair which was once used to signal locals into action or as an alarm clock? Not sure which?
On departure from Yayeme we headed towards a recommended group of bungalows where we could pitch the tent in the forest. Every move was monitored by a troop? of monkeys who howled and jibbered as we passed through the trees to the bar. Similar was dinner when the host insisted on watching us eat the fish soup, fish and pancakes he had prepared constantly looking for approval.
The next day we headed off, excited about the prospect of reaching an english speaking country. The Gambia.
