| TOWN: BRIGHT LIGHTS BIG CITIES... |
Casamance ° Cayar &
Retba ° Dakar ° Eastern
Sénégal |
| Casamance
On the coast, the fine sandy beaches stretch endlessly from Gambia to Cape Skirring, a place regarded as having the most beautiful beaches in West Africa. The exceptional amount of sunshine, the warm sea and the groups of hotels scattered inside the coconut groves bordering the beaches, make Casamance a paradise for your holidays in Sénégal. The Casamance region is home to a very traditional group: the Diolas and their cousins, the Mandjakes and the Balantes. They live in a very lush area of deep forests and perform their initiation ceremonies in the "sacred woods". Some are annual, others take place every 30 to 40 years. The best way to understand the culture and really exchange with the people is through the highly successful "integrated rural tourism". The people of fifteen villages have built huts exactly like theirs, at the periphery of the village,and have added a few amenities for the tourists. Their guests eat the food prepared by the women, take pirogue trips with the men, enjoy the calm life of the village and the vitality of the numerous traditional dances and ceremonies. All proceeds remain in the village and are used in development projects. Casamance ° Cayar &
Retba ° Eastern
Sénégal Cayar & Retba
On the road to Cayar, you don't want to miss Retba, a warm, salty and shallow pink lake. Turning from pink to purple according to the time of the day, it is a magical stretch of water on which everything floats - including people - surrounded by sand dunes and baobab forest. During the week, men and women are busy crushing the bottom of the lake, which consists of a thick crust of salt that they gather to sell. If you choose to visit Retba on a Sunday, make a stop first at the monastery of the Benedictine Fathers at Keur Moussa where mass is celebrated, with Wolof hymns and Senegalese musical instruments, in a chapel decorated with African frescoes. ° Casamance ° Dakar ° Eastern
Sénégal Dakar
Turned towards the future, Dakar nevertheless remains a city of contrasts where businessmen and tourists, European clothes and traditional dress, colonial-style villas and huge modern buildings, supermarkets and small shops full of goods, new residential areas and the medina (native quarter) are all to be found existing side by side. But Dakar is also a city for leisure activities, with its many hotels ranging from the simplest to the most luxurious, its beaches equipped for water sports, its numerous restaurants offering European or African cuisine, its coffee terraces, its cinemas, its casino, its promenades along the coast and those keen on fishing, its deep-sea fishing centers. Casamance ° Cayar &
Retba ° Dakar Eastern Sénégal
The Bedik, Bassari and Tenda people of the Kedougou area have jealously retained their customs, costumes and ornaments. They are hospitable and friendly. Their villages are perched on top of green hills, near waterfalls, in the middle of wonderful landscapes. The Bassari are renowned for their initiation ceremonies, complete with magnificent masks, which take place between April and June. Lodges are available in Kedougou and Salemata. Casamance ° Cayar &
Retba ° Dakar Gorée: The Point of No Return
From the beginning of the 16th century to the 19th, men, women and children in huge numbers were gathered on this small piece of land, locked up in cells and shipped away to the New World. Gorée became the first, and for a time, the most important slave depot in West Africa. From its "door of no return", Fulanis, Wolofs, Mandingoes and Bambaras (the latter from Mali) were taken from their homeland to toil in the Americas. Listed as an historical monument and declared part of World Patrimony by UNESCO, Gorée today retains and preserves all the traces of its terrible past: the main Slaves' House built in 1777 with its cells and shackles; the many other slave depots turned into museums - the Historical Museum which traces the history of the great West African Empires and the Marine Museum - or residential homes; and, the two forts built by the Dutch to protect the infamous commerce. Though conscious of its past, Gorée is also a lively little town with numerous cafés, art galleries, and a beautiful beach. It is a weekend refuge for many Dakarese. Casamance ° Cayar &
Retba ° Dakar Saint-Louis
Saint-Louis increased in size; it was modernized and made more attractive; but, it soon declined with the expansion of Dakar, favored by its strategic position on the Cap Vert peninsula. Since then, time seems to have stopped; and, it is with a touch of nostalgia that you will discover Saint-Louis's narrow streets, flanked by fine houses decked with carved wooden balconies and verandas. It was here in these dwellings that the Saint-Louis bourgeoisie used to live. Not to be missed, are the governor's palace whose architecture reminds us that it used to be a fort; the Faidherbe bridge, originally designed to traverse the Danube, by a curious twist of fate now connects Saint-Louis to the continent - a sort of jetty linking the former times of the first French town of Africa to the old continent with its ancient traditions. Casamance ° Cayar &
Retba ° Dakar Saly
Saly is a convenient point of departure for excursions to Dakar, the Pink Lake, the Casamance or the Saloum islands. Casamance ° Cayar &
Retba ° Dakar
In the river region, during a canoe excursion round the islands of Saloum and Betani, one discovers a completely different landscape. Bordered by white sandy beaches and having an extremely dense vegetation, these islands shelter, beneath coconut palms, small villages of fishermen, a people whose traditional hospitality enables you to share their daily life: fishing, canoe excursions, meals of mangrove oysters grilled over an open fire. The wildlife here is rich with birds of all kinds. Casamance ° Cayar &
Retba ° Dakar ° Eastern
Sénégal
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A long
strip of land about 24 miles wide, Casamance extends well
over a hundred miles from west to east. In contrast, with
the rest of the country, Casamance offers the richness of
a mosaic perpetually renewed by its landscapes. Savanna,
bush, majestic forests, coconut palm groves rustling with
the ocean breeze - the list is endless. Here, each of the
tropical essences is present, imposing baobabs, mangroves
with multiple roots, glittering flame trees, undulating
palm groves, glistening bourgainvilleas, fragrant
eucalyptus trees and the most majestic of all, the kapok
tree, whose twisted trunk is sometimes more than two
meters thick. 
It is
5:00 pm, and the fishermen are coming back to shore in
their brightly decorated dugout canoes, leaping over the
foamy waves. This is the best time to discover Cayar, one
of the main fishing villages. On the beach hundreds of
men, women and children sell and buy the fresh fish,
prawns and lobsters; they haul the canoes or grill the
fish right there for a delicious snack. 
The capital of
Sénégal and seat of the government, Dakar is situated
on the tip of the Cap Vert peninsula and has about
1,500,000 inhabitants. In a matter of a few years, Dakar
has been transformed into a large modern city, teeming
with life and activity, where the bustle of the streets
and markets always constitutes a fascinating spectacle. 
Eastern
Sénégal is one of the best kept secrets of the country.
There, far from the touristic areas, you will enjoy the
traditional African life of the little villages. 
Less
than 2 miles from Dakar lies the island of Gorée deeply
rooted in the history of the slave trade. 
The
former capital of Sénégal with the appearance of an old
provincial town, Saint-Louis reached its zenith in 1854,
when Faidherbe undertook the reunification of Senegal,
which was divided into a mosaic of small kingdoms. 
Two
hours south of Dakar, lie the endless beaches of the
Little Coast. This is the domain of Saly, a beautiful
resort which extends over a green park of more than 1,480
acres. Saly has several first class hotels, swimming
pools, restaurants, horse stables, a deep sea fishing
center, shops, night clubs and miles of white sanded
beaches. 
A
region of contrast where the land and water blend
intimately together, Sine Saloum is characterized by its
hinterland, the groundnut growing basin of Senegal, and
the Saloum delta -- a myriad of small islands scattered
between innumerable "bolongs" (channels).