Senegal

When we previously planned our West Africa trip, we wanted to visit the countries of The Gambia, Sierra Leon, and Guinea. However, Kieran did a bit more research while in Bolivia and learned that it’s $300 - $400 in visa costs and we’re only staying for 4 days at each location. We decided it would be more affordable to stay in Senegal for the full time.

Slight catch, we booked a direct flight from Guinea to Tunisia so we hopped on a local plane to make our flight. Thus began a wild 48 hour travel day.

1) We arrived to Dakar airport 2 hours early and the ticket counter told us to wait for our tickets. We watch as a huge line forms with trolleys of checked baggage. The line was slow so we sat and wait. There are four people left so we hop in line. The ticket counter man saw us and was like “Wait, you guys are going to Guinea right?” We continue to wait and the counter man comes up, says to sit down with him on the bench, and then he under hands our plane tickets to Kieran and nods his head. After we get to the gate, we realized the flight was overweight with the baggage so the last four people in line were not going to make that flight. The counter man had handed us the last two tickets discreetly. First time showing up 2 hours earlier has actually made a difference.

2) Guinea has a transit visa which is $50 but their website did not work and wouldn’t let us pay for the application. We show up, get some big Cillian Murphy sass face from the border man, and are brought to the head police commissioner for the airport to pay for our visas with USD from our emergency stash (shout out to coworker Mark Siyluy whose money gift got us into Guinea).

3) Mary booked a temporary spot in Guinea in case anything went wrong. The apartment was without water, power, and in an underdeveloped neighborhood. We used buckets of water to wash our dishes and the toilets. We had no cell service via our Verizon and international SIM card.

4) We get to the airport early to avoid the checkin fiasco from Dakar. Desperate for any form of entertainment, Mary caved in and agreed to relearn cribbage, her least favorite card game. We played for hours and enjoyed some airport beer and wine. Shout out to Becca and Jonah’s wedding favor: card deck with with Kaya printed on the case.

5) Finally we hop on the red eye flight to Tunisia and they put us in the exit row which couldn’t lean back. Luckily we had the middle seat to ourselves to stretch out. The flight ended up stopping back in Dakar and then we arrived in Tunisia at 5am.

It was a wild, stressful, tired, and steaming hot 24 hours, but very happy for the small moments and Guinness Beer.

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