Emilie’s journey with TransAfrica to Senegal and Guinea Bissau. Emilie tells us about her experience in Africa with our team.
Everything in Africa is amplified: Will I be able to make it physically, who are the operators who offer the trip, will they be reliable, will they be able to guarantee me technical support, the transfers, the opportunity to get to know the area as a traveller, communication , are they serious, do they actually know the places, where am I going to sleep?
Emilie’s journey with TransAfrica: Senegal & Guinea Bissau
An experience beyond all expectations! Of course everyone has their way to experience a travel, their way of seeing places, landscapes and people. This trip allows you to really observe Dakar populated by fishermen, from the top of the terrace upon awakening from the first overnight stay, unknown trees waiting for the African opening times of the museum. A well-stocked bookshop in a ruined, ex-francophone Saint Louis that let you experience all its African independence as you walk through it with a buggy, overwhelmed by colours, faces, leisure, pride, smells, pirogues, animals, status and life .
You don’t have time to settle back in the city and this time you take a ferry to the south, efficient on time and with an excellent dinner on board, after seeing how time has recovered peace on the island of deportation. Again your waterway and Tapis, a Dijola angel, accompanies you among mangroves on the Casamance river, you can stair at the tree huts, while laboriously sinking your feet in the sand of the banks to reach them (they are not quicksand, they simply wrap your feet around, forcing you to pry them off unnecessary shoes).
I know you are wondering in disbelief that it is impossible that nothing has bothered me!
He leathery and proud like the violinist crabs that crowd the banks of the canals, together with his son; pride and future, to teach an art, that of survival. Like the huge turtles that with slow determination we found in a full moon, intent on digging and laying eggs with a delicate shell. While in the opposite direction other very young people with fragile carapace, lively and fast with an atavistic instinct conquered the water, leaving alternate directions of march, guided by mysteries of the cosmos.
The surprise that Africa offers in our travels
You never settle because TransAfrica wakes you up with new surprises that exceed the expectation of the program. The latter included the visit of the hippos after a walk punctured by the reeds that use you as a transfer to scatter their seeds elsewhere, immersed up to the neck in the spaces that you could not imagine because they need to be walked. But it does not end there, because while you catch your breath on the captain’s pirogue, you reach the other surprise that awaits you on an apparent magnificent and deserted beach. Forgive me, I can’t tell you (otherwise I’ll spoil the surprise)! But, I’ll talk to you about it so we can compare to your return! To understand your point of view, your experience, my hyperbole or, simply, our different experiences during this trip to try.
You do not notice it but you are ready for the return flight, fully satisfied, especially with the discreet presence of your companion, the services maintained, the presence and the ability to support and relaunch small unexpected events … such as the commitment of the head of the village animist or the ceremonial during the official visit to the king of the village who improvised me delegated by the Papal States. Or again, the wait of the village chief, a splendid fisherman with a unicorn, point of contact towards the earth, to swirl and animate the marsh algae of the magnificent sacred costume.
An experience to be lived even starting alone with that bulky baggage of fears that lightens in the company of this operator and his local staff who never bore you, tire, never disturb, always available and reliable. I repeat, exceeding all expectations, even as primary as sleeping and eating: excellent as the gazelle stew, in place of a forgotten packed lunch, in the back shop of Guinea with the multicolor parrot that went up and down undisturbed and educated by the wooden staircase of the home.
Thanks to Francisca, the guide I wish you to meet, choosing this trip.
Emilie
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