La Gare Routière

#Apologies for the imperect spelling and grammar - it's a French keyboard and I'm still getting used to it!#

Before we left Dakar we thought we`d go out, to sample the "bustling" nightlife. That said, we`d forgotten the map and didn`t fancy wandering about Dakar at night-time. We went to a popular bar called Just4u and got in so early that we didn`t have to pay the entrance fee! Tried two Senegal beers; Gazelle (a pint bottle of lager, very refreshing at 4%) and Flag (stronger percentage in a 330ml bottle)

There was a Sengalese band sound checking (two drummers, two guitars, four brass, a keyboqrdist qnd a singer) before an Aussie lady came on stage with her band and started singing some relaxed jazz! It was nice but we'd prefered to have heard more of the African band, as they were a lot more ubeat. The singer was good, but she made us all pretty tired, so we left about midnight.

The following morning we left for la gare routière (bus station) about 8am. What a place - hundreds of vehicles, mainly sept places (seven-seater Peugeouts or Renaults) and mini-vans (that squashed between 20 and 35 passengers in for a ride of unparralled uncomfortableness) all lined up in a parking lot, with hundreds more drivers and "fixers" wandering about drumming up business.

As soon as we got out about twenty people began dragging us in all sorts of directions. It was unorganised chaos. Eventually we bartered in French - I say we, but Dree took the reigns for ths one - and got an okay deal for the three of us to St Louis in the north. Over here the bags count as a separate cost, but we`d luckily covered that. However, we did pay the fixer 2000 CFA (€3), which we shouldn`t have - future journeys we have just spoken directly to the driver, in French I`ll have you know!

When you sit inside the metal oven, waiting on the bus to fill up with other passengers, your bags are thrown onto the roof and people come to the doors and windows peddling everything including watches, bags of water (suspect), hard boiled eggs, radios, sunglasses, bread, shorts, biscuits and a whole other host of useless items. Then the van jolts around the car park, usually with a push start, fills up at the sole petrol pump (see aforementioned chaos).

And with that we were on our way to St Louis, and an apparent four-hour journey...