Dakar

Shipping out from Agadir, it was a two day trip around the hump of Africa to Senegal, in West Africa The area called West Africa (a United Nations designated geographical region) actually starts below Morocco and Western Sahara at Mauritania and goes around the underside of the hump to Nigeria where the continent continues southward. Here are found a litter of tiny, emerging (some not yet emerging, but rather, barely germinating) countries, which were, at one time, French, British and/or German colonies.

Our first stop in West Africa was in Dakar, Senegal.

This was my third time there - once again, the first time was with Semester at Sea, the other was on the Pacific Princess 4 years ago (with Ruth too!). Even within the past 4 years, the changes have been remarkable.

Senegal was a French colony which became independent in the early 60s and merged with other French colonies forming the Mali Republic, which then fell apart, as did various other combinations of ex-French colonies.

They finally settled on the current arrangement, with the Gambia (our next port) being a teeny, narrow country wedged down the middle of Senegal - almost dividing it in half. Dakar, the capital, is a major West African city - a port, a banking, and a commercial center of about 2 million people.

Since Dakar has evolved into a modern town, and lost a lot of its inherent charm and character, we decided to head out to the countryside and the villages north of the city and go up to an amazing place called Lake Retba, or the Pink Lake.