Lampoul

The first stop of my spring break was to Lampoul, north of Dakar. We took a taxi set-place there, which is basically an old station wagon that will take you anywhere for cheaper than a regular taxi would. We showed up at the set-place station and it was a super super crowded parking lot where at least 3 people at all times are trying to either sell you something or get you to take their taxi set-place. Once we bargained down the price we waited inside the car as venders stuck their hands through the windows trying to sell us stuff. Some things like peanuts and oranges made sense, but then they started offering things like clocks and baby toys and I don't know they though a group of teenagers in a taxi parking lot are the right costumers for that. 

After our very long and hot journey crammed in the set-place, we arrived at the town of Lampoul, where a hotel employee was supposed to pick us up. He didn't show up at first so we kept calling and the hotel kept saying "he'll be there soon" or "he should be there already." After an hour and a half someone showed up in a Toyota pickup truck and started to make a phone call. My phone started ringing so we realized this was the guy, but when we asked about Lodge de Lampoul, he said "no this is camp de lampoul." So then we showed him the printed sheet and he said that that was his phone number, but he doesn't work at lodge de lampoul. I have no idea to this day if lodge de lampoul even exists but we ended up just going to a completely different camp site than we expected. But no complaints because it was really really nice and super pretty! 

This is our off-road adventure

This is the camp site. There's really not much more too it other than a bar/restaurant (also in a tent). Other than that it's just sand for miles.

This is our room in the tent.

We even had our own personal tent bathroom

And we got to ride camels in the sunset! They are really much taller than you'd think and when the camel stands up and sits down you feel like your gonna fall off. Afterwards that night we ate dinner with the hotel employees and also a ton of french tourists. The frenchies were nice but I liked the fact that we were staying here for 4 months cause it separated us from the tourists. They might speak better french then us but we were the only ones who knew Wolof! 

After dinner we walked outside of the tent to one of the starriest skies I have ever seen in my life. From the pictures you can tell that there were absolutely no clouds that day, so being in the middle of the desert there was not really any light pollution so you can see the milky way and everything.

This was a special jam we had for breakfast. The baobab tree is a symbolic tree in Senegal and they are everywhere, especially near the desert. They are used to make jelly and also a really good fruit juice I like here called Monkey Bread.

And finally before leaving we got to go sand dune surfing! It's pretty anti-climatic. You jump on the board and then just slowly inch down, and if you try standing up the board just sinks into the sand. But then fun part was rolling down the hill and running down the hill. I had sand in my hair/clothes for days though.