To Ifaty

The arboretum was really interesting.   Lots of bizarre spiny, pokey plants and trees and interweaving vines that seem to have no beginning or ending.  Not much greenery or leaves in this harsh environment. The guide had lots of interesting information about medicinal uses for the plants.  Our favorite kind is the Pachypodium plant with its distinguishing bulbous shape. 

Taking public transport is not the most fun experience.  It's certainly not the most convenient, comfortable,  or efficient means. It is the cheapest and most rewarding because it gives insight into the daily lives of the people.   The 27 km journey north to Ifaty started by waiting 2 hours on a camion-brousse, which is a large, open-air truckbed with metal benches...more comfortably seating 40.  Ours had 60 plus some standing.  There was a breeze but the sun was hot and flies everywhere.  It may have been in part due to the raw internal organs of some animal piled in a pail on the floorbed.   We thought we were on our way as men pushed the camion-brousse to get it  moving,  but it seemed like a practice run as we made a loop in the lot and stopped to wait at a new spot a block away.

While we waited, we watched pousse-pousse running heavy bags and luggage from town to trucks to be loaded.   As soon as the pousse-pousse was close enough, the sweating driver (with muscular calves) dropped the handles and plopped down in the shade.Then more muscles came to lift the bags up the ladder to the top of the truck.  No need for weight lifting at a gym.  It's a daily job for some.  Young children and women walk around the lot selling samoosas from woven baskets.

The drive took 2 hours because the roads are eroded and sandy. Got stuck once.  But the scenery was interesting and spectacular!  Spiny forests of weird cactus trees with fingerlike extensions reaching into the sky looked frozen in a state of a windstorm next to an endless coastline of blue water and white sand with sun-bleached wooden canoes on the shore. We drove through clusters of tiny fishing villages where the homesteads had small houses made of reeds that looked like a strong gust of wind could flatten.  Children played soccer with rolled plastic for a ball or fetched water.  Women with gray-white clay-like masks to protect their skin from the sun sat and chatted.

Travel for locals off the main road is hard, especially during the rainy season when sandy roads become impassable.

Andrew ate a barbequed lobster-like creature for dinner; Kristin tried it.  Delicious.  Set our tent up on the sand under the stars. It's magical.  I didn't want to close my eyes to sleep.

Today we've been married 5 years!  Spending the day wandering an exotic beach.  We are having an amazing time.

Leaving tomorrow for a 4 day trip up the coast by canoe and camping on the beach.