lac rose

Sunday, December 13, 2009, 10 of us drove, in two cars, to lac rose along the beach. The drive by the road can take hours because of the traffic. The lead car, driven by Mike, had done this trip before--once going all the way to St. Louis by driving on the beach--making it a much shorter trip.

I was in the second car, driven by Crystal, also a new teacher this year. She is originally from Seattle, most recently taught in Scotland. She bought a 19 year old Toyota with four wheel drive, when she came to Dakar. Mike told her how to let the air out of the tires, and how to put it into 4-wheel drive. We got onto the beach north of Dakar, near a neighborhood called Yoff. Yoff is a more conservative neighborhood and there are no women on the beach along here.















But there were lots of soccer games all along the beach as we started out--sometimes forcing us into the edge of the surf. Mike warned us to drive slowly past the games. He told us not to stop, even though people would wave at us to stop. Once we passed the soccer players, we could speed up, as there were only a few people on the beach. And at times it was totally deserted.

There were people bringing their sheep down to the water to wash them--we also saw a donkey getting a bath. You could see that the sheep didn't care for it--as they had to be dragged into the water.



It took about 40 minutes to get to the place where we turn off the beach and headed over the sand dunes to lac rose.

We were glad to follow Mike, we would have never known where to turn off. There are no signs. The sand was much softer here and the hills a challenge to the car. We did a few switchback to make it up the hill.

The tourist companies advertise lac rose as Senegal's answer to the Dead Sea. The lake is also famous because the annual Paris-Dakar motor rally traditionally finished at the lake. The race has been held in south america for the last two years because of political instability in some of the Africa countries the race has passed through. You can read more about it on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakar_Rally





The lake is a shallow lagoon 10 times saltier than the ocean. It is known for its pink hue when the sun is high, and the color is suppose to be more pronounced in the winter, during the dry season. It did not look that pink to me. I have added the two photos that look the most pink to me.

On the south side of the lake is an area called Niaga-Peul, where local people go out to collect salt from the water. The lake is shallow, so they wade out and use digging tools to scrape the salt off the like bed. Below are the boats they load up with salt.










































Seller by the roadside--I must have offered a good price for the necklaces I bought--because they were happy to have me take their photos, without asking for more money, and they gave been several bracelets--as "cadeaux". Next to the women selling jewelery were men selling sand art, similar to the ones I saw on Goree Island.
I also bought two dolls to add to my international doll collection.



















We left the sellers behind and headed into the little village, with its little mosque in the center. We ate lunch at a restaurant right on the lake. I had a brochette of grilled giant shrimp--delicious!

Here are four women from our group, 2 teachers, one a friend of Mike & Devon's visiting from Oregon, and the other woman, someone that Mike had just met and invited to come along for the day. There was a sightseeing boat that arrived with a group of Christian Senegalese women--what a contrast their colorful outfits are compared to the drab Americans!




We got a late start back, leaving about the time we had planned to be back--an example of living in African time. On the way back, we experienced some car problems. The car would jerk and cough and stall out. Luckily we were with the other car, otherwise, we could have really been stranded. We telephoned the other car, at first there were no bars, but finally contacted them. Mike had an Israeli friend who knew about car and driving on the beach. He called him for a consult. He said it might be wet spark plugs or air filter. The plugs were dry--so we took off the air filter. There wasn't much water in it but the car drove better. He said, just make sure you stay out of the water and we continued on our way. I think the air filter could have been clogged with sand. I doubt that it was very good for the engine, but we made it back. When we left the beach we drove past touristy beach area--with the thatched umbrellas. We managed to get passed the cattle on the road by driving around them something we could only do with an SUV. Most of you know how much I hate SUV's but I have a new respect for them and understand why they are needed for some types of driving.
As we returned to the city, we stopped at a gas station to add air to the tires and put the air filter back on. Devon then told us the hazards of driving the beach route. Several years ago, 3 cars were driving together up the beach route when they stopped because fishing nets had been stretched across the way. When they stopped men attacked the cars and they were robbed.
I glad I heard that story afterwards--not before--and understood why Mike said not to stop.