Into Senegal

In December 2025 I took my Old School adventure tour deeper into Africa.

What’s an old school adventure, you say? Basically it’s a trip where I just book an airfare and see what happens.

This time I picked up a cheap flight to Dakar with the Portuguese airline, TAP. 

It meant arriving at 1 a.m., at an airport 62 km from the centre of town. 

But if worse came to worse, I could sleep at the airport. Right?

As it turned out, the Dakar Dem Dikk bus company runs buses from the airport to their inconveniently situated bus station in a part of Dakar no one goes to.

More extraordinarily, they leave promptly on the hour, every hour.

I caught the one at 3 a.m. The driver was already on his third strong coffee and the roads were empty so we got there in no time at all.

Then I got a cheap, beat-up taxi from the DDD station to Gare Routière de Baux Maraichers, the main transport hub in Dakar.

And by 4:25 a.m. I was sitting in a minivan heading to Saint Louis.

All I had to do was wait for other passengers to turn up.

Surprisingly, considering the hour, they did. By 5:25 a.m. the minibus was full and we were off.

And so, my friends, it begins…