25th May - Zebrabar, 2nd time round

For David that is. It is my first time obviously, but more of that later!

 

We departed from our camp spot early in case people started to notice us, so off we went with me nibbling on some cereal for breakfast (David doesn't eat breakfast often). The drive passed uneventfully until we reached the town of Touba.

 

Touba is the sacred focus of the Mouride Islamic brotherhood and Amadou Bamba, their founder, is buried in the giant Mosque here. We decided to stop and have a look round and the minute we slowed down we were accosted by locals wanting to be our guide. We stood our ground and demanded one who spoke English and eventually an English speaker arrived. We changed to trousers and long sleeves and jumped out the truck, to be told by our guide we had to move the truck to just around the corner. So we unlocked all the doors again and moved it, much to our unamusement! We then negotiated our price and headed towards the mosque. We passed via the guide's car where he gave me a head scarf to wear and wrapped round my sarong like piece of material OVER my trousers (what with these two items and my trousers and my t shirt and my fleece I was starting to feel a bit like a mummy!!). Finally we headed into the mosque which, it has to be said, was pretty stunning. It is probably the most interesting piece of architecture in Senegal after the various government buildings and consisted of huge pillars and detailed glasswork, which altogether gave the feeling of vastness. It was being methodically cleaned by many women in preparation for tomorrow (Friday) as this is their holiest day of the week. I understand it gets rather busy on a Friday so lucky we visited on a Thursday! The town itself is a very holy town, with no alcohol or cigarettes. Apparently even a hotel is seen as a den of iniquity!

 

We left mid morning to continue our journey and two events worth noting occurred on the drive from Touba to our next stop. Firstly, one of our main missions each day is to distribute the empty plastic water bottles to nice looking children. Today I have to say I excelled myself, as I managed to pass a bottle out the window of the moving truck to a little boy who was standing up on a cart and single-handedly driving a donkey! We laughed after as we thought the kid was probably sitting there thinking 'well now what am I going to do, I have a useless piece of plastic and I also now have my hands full so can't drive the donkey'!! I am sure he was grateful for the bottle really.

 

The other event involved a herd of cows crossing the road ahead of us. There was one dopey cow standing right in the middle of our lane. All the other cows moved off to either side of the road, and as we got closer David started to brake…and brake… and slammed the brakes on hard as the cow did not move! Alas we may have bumped the cow from behind a tad, as it turned around just before the shunt, but it indignantly shot off the road and we think it has learnt its lesson! The problem was we couldn't go round it as we did not know which way it would run.

 

A hundred or so kilometres on we reached the turnoff for Zebrabar so we eagerly took the piste that would take us closer to the sea and away from the heat. My first impressions of Zebrabar included the peaceful atmosphere that accompanies the fact it is at the end of a spit in the middle of nowhere. It is in a national park which you can read about in previous blog entries I am sure, and there are a lot of birds around to prove this. We headed straight for the newly fitted bar and helped ourselves to a drink, as it is an honesty bar. There were a group of westerners sitting close by so we said hello to them, establishing that all bar one were gap-year teachers from St Louis. The 'one' was a medic also doing some work in an extremely basic hospital in the town, by all accounts.

 

Hunger arrived about 3pm so I made tuna mayo rolls as a mid afternoon snack and had a nose around the camp. There is a watch tower you can climb for amazing views of the area, a small beach with boats and canoes for use, hammocks, and did I mention the bar??! Sorry for those who know about Zebrabar already, this is for the benefit of those who started reading when I came out.

 

We spent the afternoon lazing about until the evening. Dinner was a fantastic meal of salad, gnocchi and beef in a creamy sauce followed by mango ice cream. Ironically we haven't had mangoes for quite some time so we did enjoy the desert! We enjoyed the company of the owners Ursula and Martin and two of their friends, so David chatted away in German while I picked up bits here and there.