Far-flung escapes
For the first time in over a decade, there’s a new direct route from London to Dakar, opening up this west African country to British travellers like Bobbie Edsor
Stepping off the plane in Dakar, it’s not the usual holidaymaker’s warm rush of air that hits me; it’s the drums. Meeting us are musicians, dancers, women handing out bracelets and what appears to be a human-sized stack of grass. This turns out to be the Kumpo, a folklore figure dressed in palm leaves whose role it is to encourage hospitality and community. It does its job well because I’m given a warm welcome everywhere I go.
Senegal has only recently entered the British tourism market, hence the dancing, gift-laden reception. Boarding the inaugural TUI flight from Gatwick to Dakar, I find myself sitting next to a half-English, half-Senegalese couple who are thrilled about the new route (you could only fly here via Paris previously). I tell them this is my first trip to Africa and they help me learn a few words of Wolof, the local language, during our six-hour flight.
My first impressions as I travel south to the beach resort of Pointe Saréne are of an impossibly wide and completely flat landscape. The only things of any height are the vast, bulbous baobab trees. One of the official symbols of Senegal, the baobab’s size and resilience leaves it unchallenged by the harsh dry season (October to May), during which rain rarely falls for seven months. It’s the baobab tree that also lends its name to my home for the week. The Riu Baobab is a shiny new 500-room all-inclusive hotel that unfolds across the beach, its balconies overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and its spa, pools and water slides mere footsteps from the sugary sand. One of TUI’s selected partners, it only opened last winter and offers watersports, such as kayaking and paddleboarding.
With its long coastline, freshwater deltas, forests and savanna grasslands, Senegal’s landscape is hugely biodiverse. There are almost 700 species of birds alone, including those that travel to Senegal during Europe’s freezing winters (much like myself and the other tourists who have escaped a drizzly November in search of sunnier climes).
On a boat trip along the Saloum Delta, a mass of water spanning 190,000 acres, we keep our eyes peeled for flamingos and goliath herons – but I find myself mesmerised by the ‘burping’ oysters that cling to the mangrove roots instead. As we float along in our brightly painted traditional canoe (known as a pirogue), our driver cuts the engine and we bob in silence. All I can hear is the oysters releasing bubbles that pop on the surface as gently as clicking knitting needles.
This is just one of a number of d
