Touch down in Dakar

After years of talking about it, we’ve finally made it to the African continent. First stop Dakar, Senegal’s colourful capital. The plane we arrived on seemed to struggle to take off, it wasn’t until baggage reclaim that we realised why. Everybody had at least 5 matching battered suitcases each, all wrapped in plastic or tied with string.  One man even had a brand new 50 inch HD television! The carousel was well adapted for the extra baggage as it wound itself a mile around the airport. After thinking we had packed too much, when our rucksacks finally arrived we realised just how light we were traveling.

Coming out of the airport was chaos with everybody wanting to take us in a different direction, luckily our names (or as close as) appeared on a sign and we were relieved to find somebody who might take us to the right place. We all climbed in through one door and set off to the Hotel du Phare. We headed to bed in our lovely rooftop room, looking forward to a good rest after a long day traveling.

Unfortunately our slumber was interrupted all night as we had left the fan on full blast and we were both freezing. We scrabbled for extra covers, towels, hoodies, blankets, yet neither of us thought to turn the fan off. This was quite ridiculous as we had just gleefully left the minus temperatures of England in pursuit of warmer climes. Even so, a disturbed nights sleep couldn’t chill our excitement especially as we woke up to blazing sunshine and a new city and continent to explore.