On the road with a 1995 Pajero

Day: 08
Location: Dakar, Senegal
Weather: Overcast, but hot
Health: Perfect, but Rob is tired
Accomodation: Hotel du Marche
Price, room: 13K CFA
Price, petrol: 561 CFA / lt
Shower: yes
Morale: 9
Total spend: 64K CFA
Song of the day: "Come along" Titiyo

GB: Despite a calmer airport than when we arrived, we got there a but late to find Rob flanked by 3 tall Senegalese guys who were noisily attempting to provide diverse and numerous services... With Rob's arrival our main journey is about to begin. We picked up the 4x4 as well. Better price than expected, and no kilometrage. Rob has Momo on his way back to facilitate the language and baksheesh issues. We will depart tomorrow morning early but tonight is dedicated to partying.

AW: The big fact of the day: we are now cruising in a 1995 Mitsubishi Pajero.- 350,710 Km on the odometer, which has stopped recording, so no way to know. Also no way for the rental guy to charge a per kilometer, or verify that we didn't just go to Saint Louis "as planned" during the negotiations. In addition to the odometer, a few other things are busted: the tacometer, speedometer, clock, radio (stolen), 4WD (we suspect), rear left window, taillights, front left headlight, and a bunch of gizmos that appear to be designed for interplanetary travel.

GB: But the car drives well, and can hold its ow n in the sand. And Momo, who is coming along on this trip, brought his personal boombox along. Got some batteries and off we go. In case we didn't mention it before, Adam got us a small FM transmitter which connects to the IPod. It then takes whateve the IPod is playing, and broadcasts it on the frequency chosen. If you connect a radio within a 2 meter radius to the same frequency, you can now listen to your IPod on a car radio. Needless to say when we first set this up and connected the Peugeot radio the jaws of the guys renting us the car dropped. Hence our determination to get a working radio for this car as well. We first went to a hip hop concert we heard about from a girl we met at the embassy of Guinea: Afrika Keur. However it was a bit disappointing since most artists were lip synching, and while they had set up turntables, they wouldn't let me up there since the DJ of Lafouine (major French rapper) had set things as he wanted them for his set. A friend of mine, Zoe, have is the contact info of a friend from her time in Senegal. We called him and met up with him after the hip hop concert. He took us to a cool laid back bar with a live band. We then went to a boite (club) which had a live band as well, and Mamodou showed us how to dance. We fit in like only 3 white guys in an all black club can. Dakar will be behind is tomorrow and the road to Bissau (our next big stop) begins...

Morale gets a 9 today, for all those reasons combined.

Tomorrow we are off to Tambacounda and maybe Velingara to meet the family of Mamodou, a friend of a friend in NY. Awesome guy, amazing when it comes to chatting up women, advocating work as an ethic, and with whom we are considering opening a club in Velingara. Need to do some market sizing first though...