Senegal makes me happy

I am a chicken, it turns out, who likes a bit of luxury from time to time, and sometimes gets sick of "adventures". I could have taken the bus from Bamako to Dakar, a 36 hour journey (plus minimum 10% extra for breakdowns) on a bus with seats in the aisles on roads that would be better  described as holes bridged (occasionally) by dirt, through areas the FCO says not to go, arrive at who knows what time ( but probably in the dark, buses only ever arrive places in the dark) into who knows where in a city described in the rough guide as needing "a degree of mental preparation" and then have to find my way, constantly hassled by "guides", with my big backpack to somewhere overpriced and rented by the hour. Alternatively, I could get up leisurely in Bamako, have a nice breakfast with the crazy brits taking motorcyles overland to cape town and back, go to the airport, read my book for a couple of hours whilst I wait for the clean, punctual little aeroplane to take me safely the hour and a half to the organised airport outside the city centre where I can be picked up and taken to a nice hostel in a calm area with enough daylight left to walk the 500m to the beach. So a chicken I may be, but a pretty smart one I think.

The flight was slightly surreal, it was with Kenya airways, so they were speaking English (of a quality rarely acheived outside of Eton - and, I suspect, with a politeness rarely seen in it). But flying between two Francophone countries the majority of the passengers were French speakers, leaving me pretty confused as to what I should be speaking. I am fairly sure I was served my chicken gristle in off-white gloop by the butler from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, with a badge labelling him as "Edwin".

Once satisfactorily installed and chilled out in the lovely little hideaway of Via Via in the small but lively fishing village of Yoff, about half an hour from Dakar on the North of the Cap Vert peninsula, I went for a little explore. There is not the same sense of poverty here as in other parts of West Africa, though I have yet to see what the more rural areas are like, and I'm not for a second suggesting that poverty does not exist here and that people aren't desperate. The shops are in actual buildings that you can enter and are well stocked with display cabinets brimming with patisseries and everything from batteries to body lotion. Fresh fruit is sold in big marketstall type stands arranged colourfully to show off the variety available. This is a stark contrast to previous places where fruit is bought from a pile at the feet of a woman sat on a wooden stool and you either by bananas from her,or oranges from the next woman.

I wandered through the streets (actual roads) past yellow taxis and horsedrawn carts, between pleasant and well-maintained appartment buildings, musing at the difference it makes when its sand beneath your feet not orange dust. The town slopes gently downhill until you can hear the sea, and the main road sneaks away to the side. The sun at 5.30 was still warm, though low enough in the sky to cast an orange glow over everything, and the sea breeze was pleasant to almost chilly. There is an extra hour of sunlight here (which baffled me for a while and caused me to wonder if there was a time difference) and the sunset lasts nearly an hour, not just 5-10 minutes. I knew I was near the beach when I turned the last corner as, unfortunately I could smell it. But that did not prepare me for what I was about to see. Coming around the side of the building I stopped dead. Ahead of me was the sea, to the right, some beachside shacks serving drinks and playing drums, and directly in front of me was a crowd of middle aged men in their underwear, covered in sand... wrestling. I took a moment to take in the scene and noticed that to the left also was a group of about 40 slightly younger men, dressed in football kits, and in a square formation jumping backwards up the slope of the sand with their hands behind their backs.

Beyond them, as the beach opened out, were more young men, jogging, jumping tyres, running around circles, doing push-ups, sit-ups, strange circuit-training type exercises. Three girls in their late teens jogged past at the edge of the water where the sand was hard. A white guy with a surf board wandered around. Some guys jogged along the waterfront, knee-deep, struggling to maintain some speed. It was like the biggest, prettiest, coolest gym ever.

Westward along the stretch of coast, the sun was setting over the onion dome of the Layen mausoleum, and the land stretched round towards the almost covered causeway leading to the small, green, Isle de Yoff.

For the first time in a few weeks, I feel like I can wait to go home.