Wind Scattered, Part III: Boat

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Dakar was a glimpse into Paradise.

We woke with the noontime sun on our faces through the curtains, still wrapped in the sweet haze of sleep long overdue.  We stood up and left behind hot dusty roadsides and twilight arguments with cabdrivers.

The city of Dakar has two particular and wonderful characteristics - first, it flirts with Western levels

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of technology and modernity while still retaining its West African flavor; second, it sits on a peninsula jutting out into the magnificent Atlantic, surrounded by sandy beached islands and cooled by sea breezes.  We criss-crossed the streets passing new Mercedes and typical rust buckets, street vendors selling meat brochettes, flooding the air with umami.  The streets widened and descended as we came up on the shoreline, opening onto a wide open view of the ocean before us, eyeline broken only by the large concrete shack where tickets were being sold to the Isle de Goree.

The ferry to the island offered to fare classes - tourist and African.  With the combination of my Fulani negotiating and Andrews Guinea soccer jersey (Guinea wasn't the most popular tourist destination, even back before Ebola), we secured the locals price, and set sail aboard the HMS Beer (no kidding!) for an island fortress.

photo by Kevin Roche

Goree gained notoriety as a launching point for slave ships headed eastward, pregnant with human cargo.  Our feet traced idle curves along the scattered stones of walls and ramparts left standing from the original fortress.  On the second level, the vista was dominated by the chronological dissonance of a gigantic anti-aircraft gun built to deter the Luftwaffe hulking up among the crumbling mortar.  One woman followed us on a half-mile stroll around most of the island, hellbent on selling us some beads.  We sat on the perfect beach, and in the shadow of the ruins we took turns swimming out - far out, farther out than I'd ever been, and as a I

photo by Andrew Barisser

struggled back my mind projected the World Map, reinforcing the terrifying truth that nothing lay between me and the wide open World Ocean.

One boat ride back to the mainland and a quick terrestrial scurry later, and we waited for another The Queen of Beers, and offering the best vantage yet on the sun as it dipped below the waves.

boat, now on the northern side of the peninsula.  Sated with history, we were now after pure indulgence on the Isle de N'Gor.  No paid passage on a twenty meter boat; we were paddled out in a dinghy by one man, watching the mainland bob away one doleful sway at a time.  On the other side of the water, a jungle paradise awaited, conveniently encapsulated on a tiny island.  Most of it was a small stand of trees scattered over some boulders, offering a collection of angles on the swelling blue all around.  Nested in the crags was a bar serving double-pint bottles of Castel,

We could have stayed forever.  But we couldn't.  There was another boat ride waiting, the last little dinghy headed back to the city, taking us away from the falling dark and back toward the electric hum of civilization.