St. Louis to Dakar, Senegal
250 miles / 400 km
Wx: Clear skies, warm.
The sun rises on Day 16 and I am excited and sad at the same time. I’m excited because today we finally ride into the mythical Dakar, the place of motorcycle legend. Although we still have another day of riding tomorrow to get to The Gambia, Dakar has always been the emotional destination and reason for the trip. I am excited that after months of planning and weeks of riding that this afternoon I will finally be there. I am also sad because I know this fantastic trip will soon be over.
We all meet up for a quick breakfast and a briefing on the days ride. We are all going to start together and do one last small bit of piste riding before making it to the tarmac then we will break up into smaller groups and make our own way to Dakar. Our destination it the famous Lac Rose, the tradtional finishing point of the Dakar rally. Awesome.
Leaving Zebrabar
We pack up the bikes and bid a farewell to the idyllic Zebrabar camp and head off down the piste. Everyone is gee’d up for the days ride after the rest day yesterday. We are off!
We head off down the piste, which is over far too soon and we are back on the tarmac heading south towards Dakar. The landscape is gently rolling hills as we move away from the coast as the main road moves a little more inland. We pass few some small towns on the way and traffic is generally light until we get a bit closer to Dakar.
Approaching Dakar
As the road turns back towards the coast and approaches Dakar traffic starts to get a bit more frantic. We come over a large hill and we can see the road stretching down towards the coast with the city of Dakar in the distance. A couple of the lads get a bit of finish line fever and take off weaving through the crazy African highway traffic.
As we reach the edge of the city we are once again greeted by the traffic mayhem that Africa does so well, although by now we have lost our fear of it. I am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. At any rate we launch straight into what appears to be peak hour traffic, but who the hell knows. We weave in and out of the crazy traffic, all the while trying to read our GPS to be sure we don’t miss the turn off to the hotel and Lac Rose. We take a turn and follow a side street for a while before we decide it isn’t the right way (turns out it was, but who knew?).
Back to the main drag, a little further on, then another turn off and through some back streets. Problem there is loose soft sand all over the streets. Now the technique in soft sand is to gun the throttle, keep the momentum up and kind of let the bike go where is wants to keep it moving. This works great in the open country side, not so great in tight crowded back alley streets, because it seems where my bike ‘wants to go’ is straight into the back end of a donkey cart or the nearest truck.
We all have a few close calls, but avoid killing ourselves, the locals and any of the wayward donkeys in the area. We finally make it to our hotel, Hotel Palal on the shores of Lac Rose. Lac Rose (Rose Lake) is really weird, the water is pink (hence the name) and the lake is full of salt and minerals which make you so buoyant that it is almost impossible to force your body under the surface of the water.
We all make it and congratulate each other with a few well earned beers by the lake, before adjourning to the pool to spend the rest of the afternoon lazing in the sun before our last supper in Senegal. Dakar at last!
