Senegal: Africa's Gateway

I remember reading recently a travel diary about Senegal in which the protagonist, before departing, said he was often asked: "Why Senegal?"... The same thing happened to us and we tried to give an answer... Because Senegal is an intriguing destination, one we've heard good things about, but above all because we believe it can give us a taste of Africa... the real one! After ups and downs and tribulations regarding possible vaccinations to get (in the end, thanks to the agency's disinformation, we only did the antimalarial prophylaxis) we are ready to leave for this unprecedented Christmas trip... in fact it's the first time we're going somewhere warm during the holidays and the idea particularly tickles our imagination.

After dinner the grandparents arrive to pick us up, with the camper, to accompany us to Verona and thus soften the early wake-up needed to present ourselves by 5:00 the next morning, at the airport, at the Alpitour desk, to collect our boarding documents. We set off at 21:09, in a festive atmosphere, brightened by the Christmas lights shining in every house, and a quarter of an hour later we take the A14 motorway at Faenza. There isn't much traffic and at 22:05, having passed Bologna, we enter the A1 only to leave it twenty minutes later when, right after Modena, we start following the Brennero motorway. We cross the Po, near Mantua, five minutes before 23:00 and, chatting, we soon reach Verona... We leave the motorway and, following the signs, at 23:35 we stop in the parking lot facing Valerio Catullo airport, so as to sleep a few hours before taking flight toward Africa.

At 4:10 the alarm goes off and, still sleepy, we get ready to enter the airport. We say goodbye to the grandparents, whom we'll see again here in a week, and present ourselves punctually at our tour operator's desk: the flight is on time, but an additional stopover is scheduled at Cap Skirring, in southern Senegal, and we'll arrive in Dakar almost two hours later than planned... an inconvenience that is, all things considered, bearable. We check in our suitcases and, after passing through the metal detector without any problems, we wait at gate number 1, through which we board the Boeing 737 of the charter company Neos, while the skies over Verona are beginning to dawn. At 7:26, slightly delayed, flight NO5822 takes off, banking immediately toward the southwest... We leave behind Lake Garda and the Po, fly over the Apennines and reach the Tyrrhenian Sea near La Spezia...

then a sea of clouds over the Mediterranean and we see land again by now in southern Spain. We cross the Strait of Gibraltar in the blink of an eye and reach Morocco... We thus venture into the great African continent to fly over the immense and bewildering expanses of the Sahara Desert... a desert we also observe along the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, when we pass over the coasts of Mauritania. We are now in sight of the finish line and we spot Senegal: we leave beneath us the enormous urban sprawl of Dakar, with the nearby Lac Retba clearly visible, and continue southward. We round the mouth of the Gambia River, along whose banks the tiny state of the same name unfolds, and begin our descent toward Cap Skirring and Casamance, the southernmost region of Senegal, by now at the borders with Guinea-Bissau.

I set the hands of my watch back one hour compared to Italy and at 12:26 local time we touch down at the small African airport: more than half the passengers get off and forty minutes later we take off again heading for Dakar, where we land, without any problems, at 13:38... Beyond the windows of our plane, outside the Leopold Sedar Senghor International Airport (the first historic president of the Republic) stretches the capital of Senegal, with over two million inhabitants: almost 20% of the population of the entire nation, which, spread over 196,000 square kilometers, is the westernmost in the African continent and was, until 1960, a French colony in every respect. We collect our luggage safe and sound, pass through customs and go out into the open air, where we find a pleasant temperature... in fact it's warm but not too much.

We are directed onto the tour operator's coach and around 15:00 we set off toward the hotel, which is about eighty kilometers away and, they say, it will take us almost three hours!... Indeed, the traffic in Dakar, an African metropolis, is hellish and we move with difficulty, constantly in a queue along the road... Immediately we are struck by the dilapidated vehicles circulating and by everything around us: everywhere there is market (especially of sheep, given the imminent recurrence of Tabaski, the Muslim holiday that involves their traditional consumption), everywhere there is chaos... everyone goes slowly, no one is in a hurry and the road separating us from our hotel is far longer than the actual geographic distance.

With well-deserved patience we leave behind the Senegalese capital and, following southward the ribbon of asphalt, which runs constantly far from the coastline, we encounter the first characteristic baobabs and shortly after 17:00 (ahead of schedule!) we reach the locality of Saly, at the center of the so-called Petit Cote (one of the most important tourist areas of the country), at the Royal Saly hotel, which will host us for the entire duration of our stay. After a welcome cocktail we are assigned room number 707, which we reach immediately, and once we've settled our things we put on our beachwear to run straight to the beach: the sea isn't great, but we already knew that, the temperature instead is a dream, considering it's Christmas, and the decorations scattered here and there in the village (beautiful and well-kept) have a strange effect...

much stranger than the numerous Senegalese vendors who assail us along the shoreline, in fact we've gotten used to it and it feels like being in the middle of August on the Romagna Riviera. We wait for the sun to set over the ocean and then go to our room only to come out again almost immediately, so as to go to the 19:00 briefing to get information about the excursions to do during the week... We're not the village type and I already have a good program in mind... At dinner we make friends with a family from Treviso (Marco and Paola, with two children: Francesca and Nicola, who is a couple of years older than Federico): we chat for a long time and then, around 22:00, tired after the interminable day, we retire to "our apartments"... and from tomorrow... Senegal, here we come!

A leisurely wake-up: there's no excursion scheduled for the morning. We go to breakfast at 9:00 and then we occupy a beach umbrella, on the village beach, in the company of Marco and Paola. Right after, I go to the Alpitour desk to book all the excursions for the week, including a Quad ride (the classic four-wheeled motorcycles) for the afternoon. This morning a bothersome wind is blowing and when I return I can't lie on the lounger even for a second, also because I'm itching to see what's around me... So I set off along the beach south of the Royal Saly, and immediately I'm enticed by an endless stream of vendors (vulgarly speaking, the classic "vu-cumprà")...

there's no denying it: commerce is an inclination written into the DNA of these people! In the company of a particularly sociable Senegalese man I stroll, chatting about this and that, as far as the very central beach of Saly, where all the brightly colored fishing boats (the Pirogue) are pulled ashore, and there I am dragged, without wanting to, into a little shop of wooden sculptures... so I find myself involved in a negotiation for the purchase of a statuette!... Nothing wrong with that: everything seems authentic and by playing along with the bargaining game I even end up buying it... only I don't have any money with me, so once back at the Royal Saly, in the company of my enticer friend, I pay the agreed price, and then go, in the company of Marco, to take some nice photos of the place, which turns out to be quite characteristic as well.

Back at the hotel again, after exhausting assaults by the most varied vendors, we treat ourselves to a brief swim (chilling!) in the ocean... to refresh ourselves, since the wind has stopped and now the heat is no joke! We go to lunch and then to the room to get ready for the Quad ride... Federico is super excited about the new experience awaiting him and is bursting with joy... We accompany Sabrina to the beach, because she won't be coming with us "tough men," and then we head by minibus to the starting point of the motorcycle excursion. After a brief briefing and having put on our helmets we set off: Federico in front and me behind driving... we cover a few hundred meters and I ask the little one if he wants to try holding the handlebars...

he doesn't need to be asked twice and, practically, he'll never let go of them again! We wander in the Senegalese plain crossing villages of miserable huts, with many children running around in the street, and we travel through desolate expanses dotted with enormous and monumental baobabs. We stop to see a large termite mound, which rises like a skyscraper in the flat surrounding landscape, and then before the great trees: they are somewhat the symbol of the country and characterize, with their grandeur and majesty, the entire magnificent landscape... we only regret that Sabrina isn't with us to enjoy the spectacle. Federico has a whale of a time racing along the dusty tracks and I too, I won't hide it, feel immense pleasure in doing so, so, after more than three hours, we return highly satisfied first to the base and then to the hotel.

Very dirty and almost the same color as the earth we return to Sabrina while the sun is setting over the ocean: we spend a few more moments on the beach and then go take an essential shower, before going to dinner in the company of our friends from Treviso... The evening passes pleasantly, first chatting and then watching the entertaining show put on by the animation staff, after which we immediately retire to our room to rest, given the early wake-up awaiting us tomorrow morning to take part in the first real excursion of the trip.

The alarm goes off shortly before 6:30, while beyond the window of our room it's still dark, and a bit sleepy we get ready for the first excursion to discover Senegal. We go out in shorts and t-shirt into the open air on what can be described, for now, as the most incredible Christmas Eve of our lives... We have breakfast and at 7:30 sharp we board the coach that will take us to the country's best-known place: its capital Dakar. Along the way, accompanied by Omar, our guide, we also encounter the presidential motorcade, which is proceeding swiftly southward for a rally ahead of the imminent political elections, and after almost two hours of exhausting African road we reach the outskirts of the capital, which, founded in 1857, is the oldest "European" city in West Africa.

The first stop is at an atelier that produces interesting paintings made with colored sands: a little tourist trap in which we are inevitably ensnared... We thus purchase a modest souvenir (at an incredibly fixed price) and then set off again toward the center of Dakar. We go to see all the most important institutional buildings and stop in front of the presidential one, the "White House," as they like to call it here too, with a guard in full dress uniform in front of the massive entrance gate... We then reach the old station: a colorful and characteristic building with a clear colonial imprint, beside which there is a small and filthy market, which we visit quickly before heading toward the port and then toward boarding for Gorée Island.

Shortly after noon we set sail from the Dakar pier and begin to cross the narrow stretch of sea that separates us from a small sliver of Africa sadly famous in the history of humanity, for from here departed a good part of the black slaves bound for the Americas. Twenty minutes after departure we disembark at Gorée: a handkerchief of land on which today no more than a thousand people live, just a sixth of those who populated it in the 18th century, when the place was fiercely contested between the English and the French. As soon as we set foot on the island we notice the characteristic buildings overlooking the small harbor that still recall the colonial era, then, given the now late hour, we go to lunch in a restaurant in the center.

At 14:30, back on the street, we go to visit the Maison des Esclaves, the house of slaves: the only building, dating back to 1786, that survived among those once destined for the horrible trade in human beings... Here the "pieces of ebony," as they used to be called, were piled up in small cells and once examined they were assigned a price, as with animals, before being shipped to the New World. In absolute silence we listen to the chilling speech of the custodian, who illustrates all the deplorable phases of the slave trade, and then we wander a bit through those dark rooms and observe the unsettling door through which men and women climbed onto the ships that would take them away forever from their land...

The Maison des Esclaves, however, is too small to have been alone the fulcrum of such deportation, and on this scholars agree, but it is nonetheless a symbol and a warning that such things may never happen again! We visit the entire characteristic island, listed by Unesco as a world heritage site, always harassed by nerve-racking yet folkloric vendors, up to its highest point, where the military fortifications are located and from where one would enjoy a beautiful panorama of the city of Dakar, if it weren't for today's dense haze. At 16:30 we are thus back on the pier and then in the main square of the settlement at whose center there is, despite the Muslim majority, a bare but meaningful Christmas tree, and there we wait for the ferry to return to the mainland.

Disembarked again in Dakar we immediately board the coach and undertake the long road back, so, just after 19:00, we proudly regain the Royal Saly... What has just ended was, in fact, a beautiful and interesting excursion. We run to our room and half an hour later we are at the edge of the pool to watch the party prepared for the children on the occasion of Christmas, characterized by the unlikely yet original arrival of the traditional Santa (dark-skinned and with a thick white beard) from the sea, in a pirogue... Followed by the stupendous Christmas Eve dinner, enjoyed in an extraordinary setting. After a beautiful evening we thus go to sleep enthusiastic... for now it's a wonderful vacation and we hope it stays that way until the end...

Merry Christmas from Senegal... despite the local muezzin intoning his singsong prayer to Allah at the first light of dawn... we can't believe it: while the holidays evoke sleighs and snowmen for us, we go out in shorts and t-shirts to have breakfast, in view of the imminent daily excursion. We leave on time, by coach, again toward Dakar, but several kilometers before the capital we turn right, toward the interior of the country, to stop almost immediately, at the roadside, to observe a small group of monkeys probably come out of a nearby reserve. Along the way we also observe a village of the nomadic Peul ethnic group, who still live in huts, with walls and roof of straw, then, at mid-morning, we reach Thies, the second city of Senegal, to visit its great market. We get off the coach and in the company of the guide we venture into the labyrinth of a real Senegalese market...

fascinating, despite the decay and the stench, which in some areas is almost unbearable for us, but the colors and the raw situations dominate and we conclude the brief exploration with a trail of children hunting for "bon-bon" and little coins. Back on our vehicle we resume the itinerary and almost at noon we arrive, just north of Dakar, on the shores of Lac Retba, or Pink Lake: a curious body of water formed in the last century, after a long period of drought, where the sea once reached, in fact its characteristic is that it is salty and contains microorganisms that, by secreting iron oxide, give it a, indeed, pinkish coloration... and it really is colored!... especially in this time of year, which coincides with the dry season. They have us climb onto a four-wheel-drive truck and with it we set off to follow the lake's perimeter counterclockwise...

First of all we see men and women at work, with archaic methods, extracting salt from the bottom of the lake basin which is then marketed throughout the country, then we reach, on the northern shores, a Peul village and there we get off our vehicle to visit it. The village chief's son "casually" awaits us on the spot and, with great affability, shows us the very modest huts in which they live and the women engaged in the most varied daily tasks, while all around us numerous and beautiful children swarm, in search of a simple candy... All of it, in part, it's useless to hide it, is clearly staged, but today, now in 2007, several situations are still very real! Back on the truck we tackle the white expanse of dunes, universally known as the last stretch of the famous Paris-Dakar rally race...

In just over three weeks (on January 19) the off-road vehicles and motorcycles starring in the event will indeed speed through here. Besides being famous the place is also very beautiful and the candid piles of sand create intriguing scenarios with a Saharan flavor... Particularly thrilling is, finally, the ride along the ocean shore, on the drivable water's edge, with the great sea waves on one side and the inevitable dunes on the other.

Having regained the shores of Lac Retba we go to lunch in a restaurant a short distance from the salt collection areas and then, in the early afternoon, we reach the shores of the lake, where there is a sort of equipped beach and there we take the most incredible swim I can remember, due to the approximately three hundred grams of sodium chloride dissolved in every liter of fluid, which make Lac Retba the second most salty lake in the world after the Dead Sea and you float there without moving a finger, indeed, keeping hands and feet completely out of the water's surface!... It's an extraordinary sensation, even if short-lived, and in the end a Senegalese man, for a small reward, washes us from head to toe throwing buckets of fresh and freezing water on us...

With this last experience the excursion is now drawing to a close and after doing some shopping in a nearby small market we get back on the coach and head toward the Royal Saly, where we arrive around 18:00. Once back on the ground, first of all we run to the beach to watch the sunset and then to the room to get ready for dinner... The ensuing evening passes pleasantly in the company of our friends and in this way we conclude another beautiful day with a thoroughly African flavor.

The alarm goes off as usual at an early hour, in fact this morning too there is an excursion scheduled, though short, of just half a day, to the Bandia Nature Reserve, located fifteen kilometers north of Saly and created in 1990 for the purpose of hosting in semi-freedom, given the great extension of the park, wild animals otherwise absent in this area of the country. After breakfast the appointment is at the hotel exit, where the 6x6 off-road truck awaits us to accompany us on the visit... Unfortunately, however, among the participants in the trip there are already some dropouts due to the most classic of tropical ailments and for now we can only be thankful not to be among the "chosen ones"... Shortly after 9:00 we hit the road and soon reach the entrance of the reserve... Just time to get the tickets and right after we venture along the 24 kilometers of tracks that cross it.

Even though the place was created specifically for tourists it doesn't resemble a safari zoo at all, in fact the animals are practically free, though mostly introduced from faraway South Africa, and survive almost exclusively by their own means... The environment, that yes, is original and we wander among gigantic baobabs in search of the park's inhabitants, whom one has no absolute certainty of encountering. First of all we come across a pair of warthogs, then we see some impalas and right after the long-limbed giraffe, to photograph which they even have us get off our vehicle... There are also ostriches and some monkeys, as well as the massive buffaloes and the colossal rhinoceroses.

At a certain point we stop, along the way, near an enormous baobab in whose hollow trunk there are some remains of human bones: according to ancient animist tradition the "griots" (the storytellers), besides preserving the memory of the history of the ancestors, also possess great esoteric powers and cannot be buried because their strength could cause the drought of the land, for this reason they are placed inside some of the great hollow trees, which consequently take on a very strong sacred status for the local communities. Only very recently has the Senegalese state imposed a ban, for health reasons, on this ancient practice, but the population, strong in its beliefs, tends mostly to move the remains to more sheltered trees.

After the stop we head toward the exit and then toward the visitor center where, to finish, we observe the large land tortoises and, in a nearby pond, some crocodiles... It was, all in all, a nice experience, especially for Federico, and we want to consider it somewhat as a taste, while waiting to do, sooner or later, a real safari... in Kenya, Tanzania or South Africa... who knows... Meanwhile, on the way back to Saly, along the highway, we get quite a scare when, during an overtaking, a tire bursts on the old truck we were pulling alongside... just a big bang, but the adrenaline for a moment shot sky-high! We arrive at the hotel just in time for lunch and right after we go to the beach: a bit of chatting with friends, a stroll along the shoreline in search of shells, some healthy relaxation and evening falls...

Back calmly in our room later we go to dinner, then spend the evening with an unprecedented Christmas tombola on the beach, under the stars, after which, now tired, we drag ourselves to bed, putting an end also to this pleasant day.

The alarm goes off when it's still dark outside because the usual excursion is on the schedule and from some points of view all this can seem like work, but that's how we are: we like to see the place where we are in depth... Sure, it's not easy to get out of bed but this morning Federico is struggling more than usual, plus his cheeks are flushed and already last night he said he had a sore throat... A bad omen is immediately born in us: we take his temperature and, indeed, he has almost 38!!! Darn...!!! Besides the sorrow for his condition, the excursion is irremediably canceled... but Sabrina insists that at least I go. We have breakfast in silence and then I set off, backpack on my shoulders, with enthusiasm equal to zero, toward the meeting point for departure...

I climb with my head bowed onto the 6x6 truck, which shortly after sets off, and after a hundred meters I already miss the little rascal and my morale is at rock bottom. We race southward, pass the chaotic city of Mbour and after a handful of kilometers we turn toward the interior following a track among the baobabs... We thus reach a remote village where we stop to buy provisions that we will then donate to a sort of "adoptive village," which is located in the middle of the savanna, and during the brief stop we are assailed by children popping up from every direction. Having resumed the itinerary we arrive, in the middle of nowhere, at the locality of Nguenienie, where a very crowded market is held...

The setting is extraordinary, with the most varied goods piled up everywhere and then with the shouts and the intense smells, but above all with the Senegalese women wearing brightly colored traditional dresses and many of them with babies miraculously balanced on their backs... We wander for a while on foot, far and wide through the market, in an astounding explosion of colors... and the more beautiful what surrounds me is, the more I miss Sabrina and Federico. In fact, a thought hammers in my mind: how is the little one doing?... With some nagging worry I conclude a few "deals" and then get back on the truck with which, shortly after, we venture into the middle of the savanna to reach our "adoptive village." Following rough tracks we arrive near some large trees, around which a fence develops, scattered inside with a few poor huts...

Immediately the children come toward us and then, from the wretched surrounding fields, the women, who balance baskets and jars on their heads with great ease. In short our arrival turns into a party and to the rhythm of drums we stay for a while wandering in the tiny village trying to understand how a group of human beings can survive with so little, making do for a day with what wouldn't be enough for us for an hour. It's an extraordinary sensation to stay for a few moments with these people and when we leave them behind, while they wave goodbye with their arms, we almost get a lump in our throat because, despite everything, they are good and full of dignity... a virtue we also find shortly later when, along the route, we meet some women gathering peanuts and, rejoicing, they offer us handfuls of them: a gesture generous beyond measure.

Continuing to wander through the savanna, with our bow always pointed south, we arrive on the shores of the Saloum River, the third watercourse of Senegal, near the settlement of Ndangane, by now just north of Gambia, and there we stop, parking the vehicle inside a tourist village. Having boarded a pirogue we venture into the mouth of the river, among vast mangrove forests, in search of birdlife, but it's a small disappointment because in over an hour we see only a few sparse pelicans and not even too close... perhaps it's not the right season... and back at the base we transfer ourselves ruefully to lunch in a place on the banks of the Saloum. In the afternoon, after a quick foray to a small market overflowing with nagging Senegalese vendors, we go back to churning out kilometers in the savanna...

We thus arrive before "his majesty," the largest baobab in the nation, with a circumference of 23 meters and a diameter of 7!... It's truly imposing and one by one, slipping through a narrow opening in the trunk, we even go inside it, which can hold about twenty people. Having taken the obligatory photos we resume the march and, having regained the coastal paved road, shortly after, we arrive in the settlement of Joal, where we stop at the fish market and in the stretch of coastline where all the pirogues returning from the daily fishing trip beach... There aren't many people and the highlight of the day must already have passed, but in an intense smell we nonetheless visit the place, not beautiful, but rich in colors and interesting from many points of view.

It's now evening and we head toward the Royal Saly, so after an encounter along the road with a famished group of monkeys, who particularly appreciated our peanuts, received as a gift during the morning, we finally reach the hotel... and I say finally because, anguished, I immediately rush to the room to see how the little one is doing: a little while ago he had almost forty of fever!... We administer an antipyretic and the temperature drops... we go to dinner, the hours pass and it doesn't rise again... So, hopeful, we go to sleep trusting in the "miracle" during the night... What a shame: today's would have been truly a beautiful experience if lived all three together...

After a somewhat troubled night, not because of Federico who seems to be doing better, but because of a small flood in the bathroom and the bursting of our boiler, located outside the room, with the Senegalese technical assistance provided at the frantic pace of a sloth, we get up around 9:00 a bit tired (and to think that, according to the schedule, this was supposed to be our night of rest, after the repeated excursions) and go to breakfast, with Federico who seems truly miraculously healed... not that he's skipping right and left, but the fever hasn't returned.

Having observed the schedules of return flights to Italy displayed at the Alpitour desk, which are all confirmed as per the schedule, we settle at the edge of the ocean in the company of our friends from Treviso and spend the morning pleasantly, going over the colorful local market and getting involved in some inevitable bargaining... We then oversee the enormous amount of work done by some hotel attendants who, six of them, managed to plant, in the space of about an hour, a beach umbrella with a straw roof, confirming the frantic pace, mentioned above, typical of the sloth... Past midday we go to lunch and subsequently, with the team reassembled thanks to Federico's surprising condition, we don't miss out on the daily excursion.

By coach we reach, having passed Mbour, the town of Joal and from there, following a long wooden pedestrian bridge, the village of Fadiout, on the island of the same name, one of the main tourist attractions of the Petit Cote... The place is also known as Shell Island, in fact all the streets are covered with the residues of centuries of mollusk consumption. Accompanied by a local guide we visit the characteristic settlement, which unlike the rest of Senegal is majority Catholic, and on an adjoining islet the highly original cemetery (the only one in the country where Christians and Muslims are buried, almost side by side), immersed in a mystical environment, dotted with baobabs and entirely of shells, piled up to create the simple tombs that fill, with their crosses, almost entirely the quiet hill by the sea.

After a brief contemplative pause we return to the island of the living, while splendid children scamper around us, to whom giving a candy or a simple ballpoint pen is enough to fill them with joy, and having retraced the long wooden bridge we regain dry land... It was an extremely interesting visit, there's no denying it, a shame only about the sun, absent this afternoon. Now in the evening, having climbed back on the coach, we set off again toward Saly, where we arrive around 19:00... We immediately run to the room to take a quick shower (cold, because the boiler hasn't been repaired yet... but with the pace they have who knows when they'll do it...) and then we begin to repack the suitcases, in view of tomorrow's departure.

Later we go to consume the last dinner of this beautiful vacation in Senegalese land and then, after a long chat over a coffee, we go to rest, since we won't be able to do the same tomorrow evening, with arrival in Italy expected late at night.

It's departure day and we get up calmly: we put on long pants and sneakers and go to breakfast... We then go to say goodbye to the ocean, before returning to the room to close the suitcases. At 10:00 sharp we are outside the room and we wait, with all the others, for the scheduled departure time. Sabrina soaks up the last warm African sunrays and then, after a quick snack, at 11:30, we present ourselves at the hotel exit to board the coach that will take us to the airport. Slightly behind schedule we leave behind, with some regret, the Royal Saly, which allowed us to spend an unforgettable Christmas. We go to pick up other tourists from various hotels in the area and, now on the road outside the tourist resort, we are reached by a car that makes us turn back because it seems a person has been left at the Royal Saly...

We reverse course to reach the hotel again and realize that it was all a big mix-up... meanwhile, however, we have lost almost an hour. The coach's air conditioning isn't working properly and we suffer great heat on the road to Dakar, plus the traffic is heavy and it takes us more than two and a half hours, so we console ourselves by looking through the glass at the most varied glimpses of life of the Senegalese people, who are in ferment for the imminent Tabaski holiday. Having arrived at the airport very late we check everything in quickly and in a hurry and soon we find ourselves sitting inside the Boeing 737 of the Neos company which, identified as flight NO5823, at 16:05 (almost half an hour early!) lifts off the ground heading for Verona: "au revoir Senegal"...

We climb in altitude while beneath us the houses of the great African metropolis flow by, we then venture into the Sahara Desert passing first over Mauritania and then over southern Morocco, with the sun descending inexorably toward the west, setting the sky ablaze beyond the window. Now in darkness we fly over Algeria and enter the Mediterranean... we pass between the Balearics and Sardinia and see again the Italian coasts of the Ligurian Riviera di Ponente, then we begin the descent toward Verona, where, the captain announces, a temperature of minus one degree awaits us!... and we already get the shivers. We land without problems at 22:22 at Valerio Catullo airport. We collect our luggage safe and sound, say goodbye to the friends of this trip and, having gone out into the open air, we find the grandparents waiting for us, who have come to pick us up with the ever-present camper.

We immediately take the A22 motorway southward and, chatting about how much beautiful we have seen in Senegal, at 23:20 we are at Mantua, so shortly after, while we are entering the A1 at Modena, midnight strikes and it is...

Continuing to talk about this and that, and about what happened in Italy during our absence, we also reach Bologna and start following the A14. Everything goes smoothly, given the time and the pre-holiday day, so shortly before 1:00 we exit the motorway at Faenza and a handful of minutes later, at 1:12, we happily conclude the trip in front of our own gate... A special trip, in several respects: it was for us the first Christmas spent outside Italy and Europe, moreover in the warm, it was also for us the first trip to black Africa, but certainly not an extreme trip... Senegal, however, was able to offer us already crude situations and environments typical of this great continent and in our ego we like to consider this country somewhat as the "Gateway to Africa"... that Africa that sooner or later we would like to have the pleasure of visiting.