Senegal: Arrival

Brevity for Humpy
If someone isn't trying to make money off you here, it's because they haven't met you yet. "Je ne compredes pas, vous parlez anglais?" will get you by and a packet of cigarettes makes it easier.

I don't know if arriving in a totally foreign country at 2am is ever going to be comfortable or a cakewalk but in theory I had this more or less covered. Standing at the back of the line for customs I studied everyone else and deduced that it was all simple enough and not really unlike any other border crossing.

The mistake I had already made was assuming that the rest of the white people who were in all likelihood Frenchmen, would partake in a similar process of entry. However, the French, most of the EU and a host of other countries not including Australia have a bit of a sweetheart visa agreement with Senegal enabling easy transit. I already knew this but at 2am it's possible to take momentary leave of your senses and memory.

While they stopped short of a full dental examination to crosscheck my record, their thorough perusal of my passport and a deeply irritating game of 20 French questions pushed me into surly territory fairly quickly. Getting through eventually, I collected my luggage (now lonesome on the conveyor belt) and began looking for the driver that I had arranged to take me to La Brazzerade, the hotel I'd be staying at.

Of course, he was nowhere to be found.

At about this point an African in a beige uniform took one of my bags saying "taxi" and I gave in. At that moment, someone else picked my other bag up, the first guy had disappeared and we had walked to the departure terminal where we sat and waited, for what I wasn't totally sure.

To fill time in, the guy I was sitting with began asking for dollars as he'd "helped me". I said I didn't ask for help. He didn't stop asking. Geneva once told me, "Cam, silence is golden but duct tape is silver." Well GG, $2 is cheaper still.

The thing I've come to learn about African taxi drivers is that they all know exactly where they're going until their beaten to shit car starts. He stops and asks for directions a few times, gets lost a few times more and half an hour later into a ten minute drive (it's now 3am) we arrive at La Brazzerade.

He had the temerity to ask for twice our agreed price and were his English any better he may have worked out exactly what my thoughts of him and his execution of his duties were.