T3H Blog

During my last visit to Dakar in January, I had some time on my hand – so my friends (Andre, Maggie, and her son, Abdulaïde) and I returned to Île de Gorée, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This island is very nice. It could be a real paradise if it was spruced up in a manner befitting its world heritage site status.

Now given the current ‘bad image’ of Africa, Dakar is not at all what one expect from the Continent. It is a nice enough city, with some very quaint neighborhoods, fairly clean avenues, and lively nightlife, and most important relatively (and apparently) safe.

However, it is very hard to venture into the many open air marketplace – merchants are too aggressive and just cannot take no for an answer (in any language); forget the concept of just leisurely strolling the market looking about. This is a real detriment to tourism.I was told the aggressiveness was due to poverty – hogwash, it is just plain rudeness and the lack of good manners among the merchants and so called artisans.

Dakar has many good restaurants; one in particular is the  Lagoon-1, which serves excellent seafood dishes. It is right next door to the Hotel Lagoon-2 on Route de la Corniche Est. I staid at the Lagoon II, the last time I visited this city; it is comfortable enough, and only a few minutes walk to downtown services, entertainment, and eateries. (It has it’s own little quiet nightclub, and of course it serves the ubiquitous Francophone beer – Flag.)

This time around I staid at Le Meridien President at Pointe des Almadies. Although the hotel is self sufficient and well appointed, (it has a great Jazz Bar called Le Dizzy Gillespie Bar), it is too far from downtown and the many nice little boite de nuit.

I look forward to return to Dakar, where I managed to make a few new friends and acquaintances.

To save your CPU some stress see the pictures here – http://picasaweb.google.com/triple3house/Dakar0109#