22 April 2007

Today, we went to Goree. It was basically an all day affair. We started by having an early breakfast with Vieux, Mame's newphew. It's funny, I noted that his name is Vieux as that means old person in French and he is only 23. We walked from Mame's to this bus/ carstation thing which was packed with people selling things and talibe... slightly overwhelming. Then, we got in this car with about 5 other people that took s on the hour ride to Dakar. Once we gotthere, we had to wait a while for the next ferry. The ferry ride andwaiting room were packed full of tourists, so this was interesting inanother sort of way because it was my first time seeing so many a)white people and b) other signs of wealth. The other white people were mostly European tourists and I didn't talk to any of them, but they were definitely interesting. The island is absolutley gorgeous and very historic, so you can understand why there'd be so many tourists. We went to the "maison des esclaves" and saw the famous port that slaves went through on their way to America. It was pretty intense... as was the tour guide. We also went swimming for a bit inthe water which wasn't warm at all, but felt supurb in the African heat. We ate a late lunch at a little Senegalese cafe that was excellent. Eventually, as we all got tired, we took the ferry backand then this time a bus... one that made rather frequent stops...back to Thies. I was pretty tired by the end but it was awesome to goout and see this historic and beautiful place.