Then came Friday. Maybe it was just bad luck, or maybe it was fate punishing me for my travel complacency, but whatever it was, it struck hard. It started when we left Les Collines de Niassam after breakfast, giving ourselves a generous six hours between our departure from the lodge and our scheduled flight from Dakar to Nairobi.

Our taxi, a 1985 Peugeot 505 station wagon that had more miles on it than I have in my frequent flier account, made me a little nervous when it pulled up to the lodge. The staff assured us that they knew the driver and that there was nothing to worry about, so we piled in for a bumpy ride through the bush to get back to the main road to Dakar.

We reached the road and were making good time when suddenly traffic slowed to a snail’s pace. Actually, it slowed to a cyclist’s pace, as we were stuck behind some kind of bike race. The police escort that was riding next to the peloton wouldn’t let any cars, trucks, or motorcycles pass the cyclists, so we were forced to move at a glacial roll through the hot, dry dust.

Our driver, who was a bit impatient, decided for some reason that that moment would be an opportune one to take the beat up old car off-roading. He pulled off the asphalt and onto an old set of tire tracks that ran through the bushes alongside the highway. Off we went, careening through the bush and bottoming out at every dip in the dirt.

Needless to say, the ancient Peugeot did not take to the experience as well as our driver did. Before we even came close to catching up with the cyclists, the car slowed to a halt and then unceremoniously died.

At first I didn’t worry. My boyfriend knows a thing or two about cars (I’m sure I’ve made fun of him more than once in this blog for his restoration of a giant, gas-guzzling 1972 Chevy Blazer), so I figured he would have the problem solved in minutes.

As I sat in the taxi posting on Facebook about the breakdown, my non-Francophone boyfriend spoke in his best FIGS (his made-up language of French, Italian, German and Spanish) to try to convey to the driver that he thought the problem was with the fuel pump. Needless to say, “El problema mit le petroli pump” didn’t make sense to the driver.

When I realized that things weren’t going well, I got out of the car and attempted to translate. It was a futile effort; the driver was convinced that the problem was electrical, and the wires were all duct taped together so it was impossible to tell what, if anything, was loose.

After it became apparent that the Peugeot was not coming back to life, we asked the driver to call another taxi for us. He wouldn’t do it. We pulled our bags out of the trunk and decided to try hitchhiking. Not the safest idea, I know, but as we were in the middle of nowhere and Les Collines de Niassam wasn’t picking up the phone, we didn’t have many other options.

The first car that pulled over was a small hatchback with two men in the front. As I explained to them our situation, our driver ran up and demanded that we pay him the full fare before we left with anyone else. We laughed. No way.

The driver leaned into the car and talked to the two men in what was presumably Wolof. After a few minutes he turned to me and told me that I should give him all of the money and then the men would drive us to the Dakar airport for free. Sketchy.

We declined the offer, at which point one of the men pulled out a piece of paper with a peeling laminated cover. “Police!” he yelled. We took the paper out of his hand as our taxi driver joined him in trying to convince us that he was a law enforcement officer. We laughed. Sure, buddy, and I’m the first female Pope.

The men drove off and we tried again to hail anything that passed by. A mini-bus pulled over next. The driver got out and I explained to him in French what was going on. Again, our original taxi driver insisted that I pay him all of the money for the fare before we left.

After several minutes of watching me argue with the driver, my boyfriend was finally able to reach the hotel on his phone. He handed the phone to me and I told the director of the hotel what was going on. He sided with the taxi driver. Trust me, he assured me, the driver is a good guy. Just give him the money and he’ll find you a taxi to take you the rest of the way to the airport. Right. He’ll find us a couple of sketchy dudes that will drive us for ‘free’ into the bush and murder us.

By this time a group of women from the mini-bus had alighted and were talking and waving animatedly. We figured they were tired of waiting and were urging the driver to leave us and resume the journey.

Instead, they walked up to us and stared to mediate. They told us that it would be okay to give the original driver half of the money and the bus driver the other half. But the taxi driver persisted in demanding that we give him all of the money. The women finally agreed, and told us that if we gave him the money he would then give a cut to the bus driver to take us to Dakar airport.

Reluctantly, we parted with the CFA and watched as our unscrupulous taxi driver took the bus driver aside and cut what I would guess was a very bad deal with him.

Not wanting to waste any more time, we left the taxi driver to tend to his broken-down car and got into the bus for the journey to Dakar. We weren’t sure what to expect from the experience. The bus had several rows of bench seats and about seven people in it. The women that had helped us were quick to tell us how lucky we were that we were picked up by them and how we would have ended up getting killed by anyone else that stopped for us.

One by one the other passengers got off the bus at their final destinations. By the time we got to Rufisque on the outskirts of Dakar, we were the only ones left besides the driver, who introduced himself as Baba, and his helper, who was named Shah.

We chugged slowly through the Dakar traffic, stopping completely at one point as the call to prayer sounded over the city. Thousands of men formed neat rows along the dirt roadsides to pray in unison. It was a pretty amazing sight to see, and a nice break to take our minds off our harrowing journey.

We reached the Dakar airport with time to spare before our flight, and thanked Baba and Shah profusely for picking us up. Our flight check-in went smoothly, and soon we found ourselves in the air en route to Nairobi. Then came the next break down, this one involving our plane from Senegal. To be continued…

We sat by the pool at Le Meridien in Dakar from 10am until almost 2pm, reading books and sipping café au lait. I have to admit that I had a hard time with it. Being type A++, I wanted to be on the move, exploring more of Dakar.

However, I was also exhausted and running low on energy, and knew that I needed to take some time to rest if I wanted to keep up the pace of the first half of the trip.

Once we were sufficiently rested, we found ourselves a taxi at the hotel and went into the city center. On the way from Les Almadies in the northwest to the ferry port in the southeast, we drove all along the coast of Dakar. The huge surfing waves, rows of whitewashed mission-style houses with terracotta tiled roofs, and stunning cliffs made me feel like I was in San Diego. Dakar’s beautiful coastline and peaceful aura were pleasantly surprising for a city that my guidebook described as having open sewers and being inadvisable to walk around.

We reached the ferry port after thirty minutes and boarded the boat for the short hop to the famous Ile de Goree. The island is known for being both the first French settlement in the Dakar area and for its unfortunate involvement in the historical slave trade.

We alighted at the pier on Goree and found ourselves in a peaceful car-free town full of leafy trees and beautiful colonial buildings. For the next two hours we walked all over the island, exploring everything from the small streets to the castle, the artisan markets, and the museums (which, incidentally were all open despite everyone having told us that they were always closed on Mondays).

The rich red and yellow hues of the buildings and the bright bougainvillea that climbed their walls were stunning. Wrought iron balconies and brass lion-shaped door knockers added rich detail to the scene, as did the contrast of the snow white goats bleating softly against the backdrop of the sea.

At one point we heard a noise coming from some bushes on the edge of the cliff by the castle. I thought it was a bird at first, but my boyfriend recognized it as the cry of a cat. We braced ourselves on a tree and leaned over the edge to discover two newborn kittens. They couldn’t have been more than a week old.

The pair was smaller than my outstretched hand and their tiny squinting eyes and not-yet-developed ears were absolutely adorable. We tried several times to get them to look up for a photo, but they were preoccupied with crying for their mother. I hope she eventually came back.

We left the Ile de Goree in the beautiful yellow light of the early evening and headed back to the mainland. After a quick stop for tea at Cafe de Rome in the city center, we drove north to an Ethiopian restaurant called Lalibela. My boyfriend had read good reviews online and we couldn’t wait to try it.

We weren’t disappointed. The outdoor roof terrace was all pillows and lanterns, with wrought iron furniture and large swaths of bright fabric overhead. The chicken with ginger and spices was amazing, as were the side dishes of lentils and cabbage. Not surprisingly, I ate way past the point of satiety.

After an early night, we woke up the next morning and ventured back into horrendous traffic on the way to the outskirts of Dakar. We were headed to Le Village des tortues, or Turtle Village.

The village was a sanctuary for turtles, complete with a breeding program and a nature conservation scheme. Since my boyfriend’s favorite animal is the turtle, we couldn’t resist the chance to visit.

Le Village des Tortues did not disappoint. Despite being in Dakar, it felt like it was a million miles away from civilization. The tree-lined sanctuary had a sweet perfume-like scent that was a welcome relief from the exhaust fumes we had inhaled in the city, and the turtles were plentiful and active.

The sanctuary was well-run and had information about both the turtles and the other wildlife in the enclosure. We first walked by the adult pens, where there were a few huge turtles that weighed 90 kilos. In each pen there was a dog that seemed to have adopted the turtles, watching over them from the edge of the fence. We couldn’t figure out if the canines were trained to do so or if they just took a special liking to their shelled companions.

Next we came to the juvenile pens where the 3-10 year old turtles lived. There we found some biologists weighing and measuring the turtles. We watched for awhile as they took the dimensions of one turtle and then tied a rope around its shell before hanging it from a scale to check its weight.

After they finished, the biologists turned to acknowledge us and held out the turtle. Smiling, we took turns holding it and posing for photos. It was much heavier than it looked!

The final stop at the turtle village was the nursery where the baby turtles—some no bigger than the palm of my hand—were munching on tiny chunks of green beans. With their minuscule shells and miniature bodies, they were the cutest of all of the critters we saw at the village.

Our circuit complete, we got back into the taxi and drove a short distance to Lac Rose, or Pink Lake. The lake is called Lac Rose because in direct sunlight it turns a beautiful pink color.

When we arrived, the lake was orange. Strange. We took off our sunglasses to get a better look, and the lake promptly turned brown. A local explained to us that because of the high winds that day, the lake would not be pink. So much for that. We put our sunglasses back on and settled for an orange lake instead.

Wading our way through souvenir stalls and extremely persistent touts selling everything from pirogue rides to ATV tours, we went through a small clearing to the beachfront restaurant of the Palal Hotel. There we tucked into a meal of Poulet Yassa, which we can’t get enough of. We decided we need to learn how to cook it when we get back to London.

After lunch we walked around a bit more before getting back in the taxi for the two hour drive to Palmarin. The seaside town is located on the Petite Cote, which runs from Dakar in the north to The Gambia in the south.

While we won’t be back in Dakar again except to catch our flight back to Nairobi, I can’t help but wish we had had a little bit more time to get to know the Senegalese capital. Maybe my morning of relaxing by the pool on Monday wasn’t the best use of my time. Or maybe I’ll just treat it as an excuse to plan another trip to Dakar.

The second stark contrast came when we arrived at our hotel, Le Meridien President. Housed in a tall tower and bearing the stamp of a corporate American chain, it was a far cry from the bohemian Sleeping Camel in Bamako. While we had the good fortune to be upgraded to a suite thanks to my boyfriend’s Starwood Platinum status, it didn’t have the local touch we enjoyed so much in Mali.

The manager of Le Meridien took us up the elevator to the fourth floor, where he walked us down the hall and stopped in front of an alcove. When I saw that the room had three sets of doors, I knew we had been given a large suite. But it wasn’t until he opened the first set that I realized just how large it was. Embarrassingly large.

First came the dining room table that sat eight, then came the living room area with several sofas and a TV. Following that was the master bedroom, the first bathroom, the second bathroom, and the mini bar room. Yes, even the mini bar had its own room.

We settled in with a plate of complimentary cookies, then quickly started to feel dwarfed by the room. Leaving the hotel, we walked down the street to La Pointe des Almadies, the western-most point in Africa.

We made our way through the swarm of touts selling everything from artwork to jewelery, then walked down to the small beach which was flanked on one side by restaurants and on the other by a jumble of souvenir shops.

Our first impression of the beach was a memorable one. To the right side was a man fishing on a rock, sitting dangerously close to a giant pink pelican. We started to watch the pair, and quickly discovered that the bird was the man’s pet.

For five minutes, we watched in awe as the pelican, which was twice the size of the man, angled its beak between the man’s hands to pry out the fish he was using for bait. At one point the bird got so agitated that it jumped up onto the man’s back and sat for a few minutes prodding at the man’s arms with its two-foot long beak. It was pretty amazing.

The man eventually got up, picked up the bird, and tossed it lightly onto the roof of a market stall. The bird, who had clipped wings, stood on the roof trying to figure out how to get down. It was not pleased. A friend of the man’s came by, and the pelican took its revenge by clamping the friend’s head between the long halves of its beak, eliciting a girlish shriek from the victim but no help from the master.

When we had been sufficiently entertained by the man and his pelican, we wandered along the beach, which was full of large, beautiful shells. Further down we noticed large bags of the shells, which were presumably collected from the beach for sale or use elsewhere.

We then headed back to Le Meridien and found the hotel’s beach. It was larger than the one at the Pointe, and we walked down the jetty and along the rocky shore, admiring the immensity of the waves that were pounding their way onto the sand.

Darkness fell and we escaped the hotel’s buffet restaurant by heading back to the Pointe des Almadies for dinner. We enjoyed crab farcis and scallops while fighting off swarms of mosquitoes, then headed back to our palatial room to get some sleep before our trip to Saint-Louis the following morning.

Saint-Louis is one of the northern-most cities in Senegal. Just a few kilometers from the border with Mauritania, the city is the former colonial capital of Senegal and—as our noses would shortly learn—an important fishing city.

The four hour drive from Dakar to Saint-Louis passed fairly uneventfully. The traffic getting out of Dakar was bad despite the fact that we were told that leaving at 8am would allow us to escape it. Once we were out of the city, it was a long, flat journey through colorful villages, small towns, and vast stretches of land filled with bulbous baobab trees.

We arrived in Saint-Louis just after noon, and checked into our lodging, the Hotel Mermoz. Located four kilometers down a peninsular beach from the center of the city, the hotel was a sandy oasis of peace.

We had a quick lunch of crab sandwiches and croque monsieurs on the beach, then started walking up to the city. The first stretch was picturesque; huge colorful fishing pirogues lined the beach while goats trawled the coastal garbage deposits for food. Children ran out from the dusty streets on the opposite side to say bonjour and watch the foreigners stroll by.

As we progressed, the odor of dead fish grew from a faint annoyance to a nausea-inducing stench. We had reached the commercial fish market, the economic heart of Saint-Louis.

There the number of pirogues multiplied a hundredfold and everywhere there were tables with drying sardines, iced baskets full of silvery fish, and lorries leaking streams of bloody water into the streets. There were calèches, or horse-drawn carts, piled high with baskets for the haul, and men and women with crates of fish balanced on the tops of their heads.

We weaved our way through the crowds of people in brightly colored clothing, and sloshed through the black sludge and fish heads that carpeted the street. Despite the smell and the obstacles in our way, we found the market a fascinating place to observe.

Eventually we made our way through the bustle and into the city center, crossing the bridge to the heart of the 18th century colonial town.

Suddenly we realized that we had no idea what there was to see there. Stopping by a hotel, we got a bottle of water and started to consult the Internet. Unfortunately, everything we read about Saint-Louis lamented the lack of anything interesting to do.

We decided to wander around, visiting the historic Hotel de la Poste and the Governor’s Palace (which was disappointingly hidden behind a large tree), and walking through the streets to admire the French colonial buildings in their multicolored splendor.

When we had finished exploring Saint-Louis, we walked back to the hotel along the beach in order to avoid the fish market. The first stretch was chock full of discarded fish heads, grazing goats, giant cockroaches, stray cats and dogs, boys playing soccer, and bundles of green fishing nets. The back of the market was awash in thick black smoke punctuated by the occasional colorful dress of the female workers.

The beach finally broke out into a wide stretch of white sand that reminded me of what most beaches must have looked like before the days of mega-resorts. We had the natural beauty of the thin peninsula almost entirely to ourselves as we meandered back to the hotel.

Our evening was spent on a leisurely dinner of Poulet Yassa, a delicious local dish of chicken in a sauce of onions and lemon. The restaurant at Hotel Mermoz definitely served up some of the best food we had eaten on our trip.

The next morning was another early one. We were out of our room at 8am and on our way up to the Parc national des oiseaux du Djoudj, or Djoudj National Bird Sanctuary. Located just south of the border with Mauritania, the park was famous for its migrating white pelican population and came highly recommended by a friend of mine that used to live in Dakar.

After an hour or so of driving down a mix of paved and dirt roads, we arrived at the park. There was large lake there that was full of the cousins of the pelican we saw on the beach in Dakar. Swimming in big groups and diving simultaneously, they entertained us for quite awhile as their full yellow beaks shivered with the movements of the large fish within.

We stood on the banks for awhile, watching the pelicans and the other waterfowl catching their breakfast. We were also visited by a passing band of warthogs, complete with a gaggle of adorable babies. As if that wasn’t enough, we also spotted two giant pythons hiding in the grass.

When our boat arrived, we set off on a 14 kilometer river safari through bird country. We spotted herons, spoonbills, cormorants, egrets, fish eagles, and a myriad of other bird species. When we reached the end of the route, we saw several crocodiles, some prehistoric reptiles, and a seven foot long snake on the bank of the river.

We returned to Hotel Mermoz in Saint-Louis around 2pm, hungry and covered in a thick layer of dust. We tucked into some excellent sandwiches at the beach bar, and discovered several translucent crabs and two giant tortoises.

After lunch we relocated to the pool to relax before the drive back to Dakar, which took five long hours and left us exhausted. We arrived back at Le Meridien, washed the dust and grime off ourselves, and headed downstairs for dinner. The hotel restaurant was serving a special Valentine’s Day menu, which we promptly discarded in favor of two portions of Poulet Yassa and a beer.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to sleep in for the first time in a few days. Rested and re-energized, we’ll start exploring more of the bustling city of Dakar.