Strange Days in Saly
It had taken me many years to truly commit to doing this trip: to look it in the eye and acknowledge that it wasn't just a peripheral dream any more but something that I had the responsibility to start. And finish.
Being 6 countries deep I had to give credit where it was due and acknowledge the contribution of a healthy nudge from my partner Roma who (as she liked to do) urged me to "shit or get off the pot", which was the final straw in the camel's backpack that forced it to start its trek.
We'd been together for four years by the time I boxed my bike up and sent it off to Basildon and there had been at least a couple of years of missed connections prior to the point where our lives converged. (I'm talking about Roma, not the KTM.)
With biological clocks ticking and the pressure to hit mainstream milestones mounting it was clear (or clarified) that I should get this trip over and done with so that we could move on with our lives.
Though I won't pretend that my trip was the only source of conflict it was a significant one and thankfully (ironically) my commitment to it and a concession to do it in a much shorter time than I'd hoped was in effect a commitment to the relationship. It was a signal that I was willing to shape a life in partnership rather than stubbornly cling to my own goals (or dreams, or possibly youth).
Although I'd been a financial imbecile in my twenties my dream had given me reason to learn how to save and over the years I'd gotten so good at it (and also procrastinated for so long) that I'd accumulated enough to fund the trip and put down a deposit on an apartment for us to boot.
So the flat was purchased, the bike was dispatched and I was sent off at Kingsford-Smith Airport with a teary but happy good-bye and rough plans for a mid-trip rendezvous in Ghana should I even make it that far.
So far, we'd managed to stay in close contact and thanks to the Great African Cellular Revolution apart from treks in the Moroccan mountains or expeditions into the Mauritanian interior we'd been able to get at least a few WhatsApp messages exchanged each day. As a result, our initial anxieties about separation and fears that we'd be unable to stay connected had started to seem overblown. We still felt in sync even though our time zones weren't.
By the time I hit Senegal we had gotten into a groove and each of our fears seemed to have subsidedâmine being that I'd never do the trip and hers that I'd never return from it.
Valerio, Filippo and I were still getting along well and in Saly, 80 km south of Dakar, we found a tired, beach-side village which never quite managed to make good on the promise of paradise. The tourists and the dwindling industry clinging to them appeared to be soldiering on in mutual agreement not to admit that this actually wasn't really working out and perhaps it would best for both parties if they parted ways.
Some of the hotels lining the beach seemed to be doing quite well with just enough greying, leathery Europeans paying to bask on deck-chairs to fund upkeep of the large staff and bougainvillea-drenched compounds.
Approaching the beach-front from the village was like picking your way through the back of a makeshift film set. Everything shoddily constructed and hanging together to contribute to the façade facing the beachâgiving the impression to those who didn't look behind the scenes that they were in a dreamy, tropical wonderland.
The area was clearly struggling after the search-light of European tourism had cast itself on more convenient destinations. Perhaps cheaper flights, waxing security concerns or the whim of the Instagram influencers had sent the visitors and their dollars elsewhere. What remained was a kind of nuclear summer scene with abandoned hotels overrun with vegetation crumbling into the ocean as the waves slowly eroded their foundations.
Taking the cheap option (and getting what we paid for) we camped in the back garden of one of the less dilapidated hotels on a patch of sand next to a god-awful, reeking toilet block. Thankfully, we had direct access to the beach and a heavily bosomed lady in a dangerously worn out tee-shirt to make us delicious local meals like "Mix de la Mer".
We took a walk along the beach, stepping over fallen palms and through crumbling buildings, followed by an eager, scruffy and aptly named urchin called Paradise who was trying to tout his way into a franc or two by acting as local guide. Though well into his twenties he was clearly new to the trade and hadn't quite figured out that guiding as a profession involved something more than following one's customers around and retrospectively pointing out things of interest that they have already discovered for themselves. It wasn't a total loss for Paradise, though, as his hour's work earned him a free Coke from Valerio when we made a pit-stop in Saly proper at the end of the beach. Despite the efforts of Paradise to play it cool it was clear that it had been a while since he'd experienced such a treat.
Ambling back to base we passed groups of young locals playing intense games of football on the sand. We stopped to "help" pull a large fishing net to shore in a strange act of indeterminable authenticity with the crowd that had gathered to get the job done. A row of mangy dogs sat patiently in a line behind the impromptu market that had formed to bid over the best bits of the catch.
The haul was meagre and that was now the norm, as a bystander explained to us, since big trawlers had started sweeping up most of the available stock before local fishermen could get a look in. The good old days of Saly certainly weren't now.
