My final day in Dakar, Senegal was a good one. There is something nice about when you have done the things on your list for a city and then can just freely explore with no expectations and see where it takes you. That was my day. (Truthfully, I did spent about half of the next day in Dakar before flying out, but I didn’t do anything noteworthy.)
I went out before breakfast to get a covid test. It was cheap and relatively efficient, but I got to the clinic very early before there was a big queue.
Nose freshly swabbed, I had breakfast at the hotel and hit the market. I browsed around and haggled over some west African wax print fabric with the ‘speed bird’ print on it, which was destined to be cushion covers in my office back home. A lot of fabric prints have meanings in different countries in West Africa. The ‘speed bird’ print means various things in different countries, including ‘money comes and money goes’ or something like ‘when the hunter learns to shoot straight, the bird learns to fly without stopping’. That was fun. So many interesting patterns to browse through.
I also bought a painting. I haven’t been buying much in my travels recently. (My home décor is minimalist, and my office is already bursting with odds and ends from my travels.) But in Dakar they had these paintings that are done on the underside of glass and I thought they were quite unique, so I bought a portrait of a regal-looking, older African woman in orange clothes.
I decided I hadn’t had enough markets apparently, so I left the arts and crafts market and went headlong into the more local market, past the shops and stalls selling clothing, fabric, and household items, past the colorful buses, until the market became more of a labyrinth of tarps and tents, with outdoor cooking, and, well, really just a lot more poverty. I didn’t take pictures of that part of the market, because, while very interesting, I really stuck out and didn’t want to seem like a gawker.
Around the edge of that part of the market was the Dakar Grand Mosque, which is quite attractive and has a 67 m tall minaret. I might have been more taken with it, but it is very much in the style of the mosque I had just visited in Casablanca days earlier, but smaller, so appreciated was diminished a little.
From there I walked to the Musée des Civilisations Noires, which is a very modern museum (opened in 2018) designed to celebrate Africa’s contributions to the world. It is pretty great. There are some detailed displays on the origin of man and African technical and scientific achievements, but the best part was on the upper floors where there was an excellent mix of (primarily west) African traditional masks and works of art with modern art. It was so good. All they are lacking is a café.
After that I walked rather aimlessly, stopping for a bite to eat and a cigar at a rather posh Lebanese restaurant, and then discovered that there was a decently stocked Cuban cigar store just around the corner from my hotel. I was not out of cigars, but still picked up a few. (I can’t visit a cigar store and not get something.)
On my way back to the hotel for what I felt was a well-deserved nap, I say that there was a concert happening that night at the Institut Français. I bought a ticket. It was the Medicine Man Orchestra. The concert took place at a great outdoor stage – a proper stage and seating, but outside, under the stars with bats and birds overhead. The Medicine Man Orchestra was a little difficult to describe. On their website they say: “Medicine Man Orchestra (MMO) is a time adventure, swinging between ages, dimensions, cognitive or cartographic geographies. It is a show that takes you to the limits of multiple realities. Advanced audio-visual technologies provide the gift to carry you away as in West Africa, beside venerable griots, as in the fancy european clubs of avant-garde electronic music.” That is kind of apt, actually. There was electronic music, mixed with more traditional music, particularly percussion. There was dance. There were video projections of computer-created landscapes and designs. It was cool. And well attended.
I had a cigar and a juice at the café there and then headed back to my hotel. It was late – for me anyway. I had plans to go to bed. I was leaving the next day. On my way back though, I walked past a doorway that had excellent jazz pouring out. Live jazz. I paid cover charge of about $2 and went in. An unremarkable room, but with a jazz quartet playing, people, eating, drinking, and smoking. Everyone was a bit dressed up and having a good time. I stayed for a while and had a small cigar and a couple of virgin mojitos.
What else could you want for your last day? It was wonderful, and wrapping it up with a couple of spontaneous concerts was perfect. It was a great end to a great trip that took me to Mauritania and Senegal (two new to me countries) with short stays in Paris and Casablanca. I flew out, already day dreaming about where I would go next.
