Lost and Found
In Dakar I had a few administrative errands to run. Most of these had me waiting in long, haphazard queues for a stereotypically Ray-banned, sometimes uniformed and always self-aggrandising African Man of Moderate Importance to go through a showy, convoluted process of blessing me with a stamp here or a photocopied permit there.
Heading to the corporate, commercial city centre, I found a modest cluster of steel and concrete high-rises with valet's in the town square fussing over weary, black and poorly parked luxury cars. I went in search of the Cameroonian embassy to procure a visa while Valerio sought out a barber to tame his remaining hair.
It turned out that I'd need to wait a week for the visa to be issued which wasn't ideal. I was mindful that the odd delays here and there to date were starting to add up to a risk of me not getting to Nigeria by my allotted entry date. Nigerian immigration policy is very strict and visas can only be issued in one's country of residence. If the dossier of supporting documents, photographs and bank account details results in you being granted a visa you have three months from the date of issue to present at a border. Those three months were dwindling rather faster than I'd anticipated.
Leaving the embassy a little unsatisfied I went to find Valerio and Filippo at a previously agreed meeting spot near the barber shop but my search wasn't immediately successful. A friendly (pushy) cab driver on his smoke break caught the whiff of a quick buck and offered his help. Trying to brush him off I stumbled through a explanation that I was fine and was just looking for my Italian friends. He caught the Italian part and indicated confidently that "oui, oui" he knew who I was talking about and where they had gone.
A wild goose chase ensured on foot in and around the CBD of Dakar with various urgent enquiries shouted across streets about "les Italiens". After about twenty minutes of traipsing around behind the guy we arrived at a construction site which he was certain was the last known location of my not-so-long lost friends. We were a good four blocks from where we'd started.
I was told to wait outside as the cabbie entered to make enquiries. After a few minutes and some more urgent shouts from within, my saviour emerged (much to my surprise) with two Italians. These, however, were not mine. They were construction workers who had been summoned to be reunited with the Australian friend they didn't know they had.
We eventually got it across to the leader of the search party that although he had in fact procured a pair of Italians it was not the pair I was after. Forlorn and frustrated he accepted the disappointing result and took me back to where we'd startedânaturally demanding a fee in compensation for the significant investment of time he had made in trying to assist me (but not receiving one).
Shortly after, the correct Italians appeared at the designated spot none the wiser about my exciting adventure to meet their fellow countrymen. Comparing outcomes from our respective missions we decided that a) I should also get a haircut and b) due to my visa being a week away we should take a side trip down the coast to Salyâa well-regarded tourist spot with a "piña coladas on the beach" kind of vibe (I'd had it recommended to me by Chris the GS rider I'd met way back in Morocco on my first night in Tangier).
I was starting to get quite nervous about reaching Nigeria in time with only 33 days left to get there and who knew what in between. If I didn't make it, I'd have very little else to do but abandon the trip. Going around Nigeria was a non-option, and re-applying for a visa on the road was even less of one. The issue was out of my hands for the moment and so it was time to not make hay while the sun shone.
Before we made for Saly we ticked a few Dakar todos off the list. First, my overdue haircut which was administered by a towering, Schwarzeneggerly Brazilian covered in gold chains and tattoos, the lower half of his face concealed by a black bandanna. Surprisingly, he had a touch so caring and gentle that it almost made me blush.
Once he'd "rĂ©parĂ© le problĂšme" my travel buddies and I paid a visit to the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Ăle de GorĂ©e, an island outpost of early European settlement about two kilometres off the main port of Dakar. Over the centuries it's fallen variously under the control of the Portuguese, Dutch, British, French, the British again and finally back to the French in the 500 years leading up to Senegalese independence.
GorĂ©e has a significant slave trade history but also served as a staging port for commercial shipping and a cannon post during the colonial years. As with St Louis the island plays host to the insane, disorganised reality of African past and present. It feels as though every aspect of humanity and civilisation is on display there at onceâand certainly not in a Utopian sense.
Although it is a hopeless place with people an animals scratching out a living amongst the crumbling relics of colonisation and beside the jarring relative wealth of middle-class tourists it has that strange, mystical attraction that so many of these so truly African places do. This isn't the Africa of tribes, jungles and pith-hat colonists. This is the Africa of today, having no time to wallow in the past or frolic in dreams of the future but simply having to thrash tirelessly onward through the mess of the present.
That evening we returned our bikes to the care of our Malian pharmacy guardâa man so sweet and gentle that I was certain he would be much more likely to help any potential thieves in their progress rather than hinder them. On the walk back to Espace Thialy we stopped at a Lebanese-run chicken shop to overindulge in an excellent meal cooked by a competent chef and served by a very surly waitress.
As the chef char-grilled our chicken on a hardwood fire in the corner the restaurant owner chatted to us about our where-froms and where-tos, pleased to hear about our enjoyment of Dakar, which he loved, but concerned about my plans to visit Nigeria. He had lived there for ten years and wasn't a fan. In fact, he insisted that if I was going to cross the country I'd definitely need to arrange a police escort for the entirety of the tripâit was the only way to do it safely.
Despite niggling thoughts of missing my deadline to reach the border, fears that I'd be too terrified to cross it and significant digestive discomfort due to too much Lebanese chicken I still slept like the trunk of a dead Baobab that night.
