Dakar, Senegal
December 8, 2022
Today we are to meet our guide at 9:30 am. I sent him a note and told him we were in port at 9 am and were awaiting immigration. His response was that he was already here and would have a sign with my name on it. When we got off of the ship I saw no such sign. I asked if he was inside or outside the port. No response. We walked the short distance to the port gate and found no one with a sign with my name. I called three times and he finally answered. He was back by the ship. Time wasted.
Our tour for today was Goree, an island off of the coast. This is where most of the slaves that came to the Americas were forced on to ships. The island was first controlled by the Portuguese and then by Dutch, English and French. Those countries fought over control of this island.
Goree had 28 slave houses. In the houses, the slave masters lived upstairs and the slaves were kept in cells on the first floor. The slaves were brought here by different warring tribes in Africa. One tribe would conquer another and then bring the most difficult ones to the slave market and sell them. Slave masters prized big and strong men, children with good teeth and women with large breasts. If a man was considered underweight he would be put in a different cell and fed until he gained weight. In this way, the slave masters maximized profits. Very few, if any slaves were from Senegal. Most slaves came from Nigeria and Angola.
The red structures were built by the Portuguese, the yellow by the Dutch and the white by the French.
The cannons in the pictures below were put there by the French and used in WWII. The only documented instance of usage was mistakenly sinking a British ship. Our guide said these were the guns used in the movie the Guns of Navarrone. I couldn’t find anything to support this.
We toured the island and then took the ferry back to Dakar. Once there we walked over to the market area.
Very crowded and reminiscent of other markets we have seen. The Pullman Hotel seemed like a nice way to finish the tour. We stopped for some refreshments and then walked back to the ship.
We watched the ship leave the port as we enjoyed dinner. Team trivia and discussions of our activities with our other team members. Entertainment was a film on the main stage. We opted to skip.…