North to Saint-Louis in a Peugot banger

Day: 03
Location: Saint-Louis, Senegal
Weather: beautiful
Kilometers: 250
Hours: 4
Health: Adam a une diarrhee
Accomodation: Auberge de Jeuness L'Atlantide
Price, room: 11K CFA
Price, petrol: 732 CFA / lt
Moral: 8
Song of the day: Take Me Out, Franz Ferdinand
Shower: yes
Total spend: 63K CFA

GB: We are driving a 1987 Peugeot 305. The car is missing its left rear view mirror, as well as a triangle (used to signal accidents on the road). Both of which we are fine without but which seem to spark the desire of African soldiers and police to extract bribes from us.

It took us three hours to make it from the Hotel du Marche to Yoff. We had been to the embassy of Guinea in the morning, need to pick up our passports on Thursday. Then walked for a full hour in Dakar heat and took a minibus to Yoff.

After twenty minutes waiting, the bus departs, but after two stops the guy working the door must have been worried about his cut because he stopped the bus for a full 45 minutes to fill it further. At that time, Adam felt like he was dying but of course it turned out to be a routine maladie.

When we finally reached the surf shop, it was closed - our moral reached a new low. But a call from Momo (recent contact made in Yoff) gave us a chance to recover with our new car. And here we are, in St Louis, after a 4hr drive in heat and sand, darkness and villages, and across Gustave Eiffel's Pont Faidherbe, which shares a look and structure with the tower.

AW: We got the car for 15K CFA per day sans kilometrage. They told is the car was 11 years old, but we could see that it was 20 from the registration. In the end, our middleman, momo, had it in his head that he was to be the chauffer, or at least the chaperone in order to protect the car, but we booted him out and zoomed away into an unbelievable traffic jam 1K down the road.

Our first bribe was skillfully done. Given the egregious lack of a triangle (nevermind the driver's seatbelt wrapped around the e brake, the smashed windshield, or the missing taillights), we would have to pay a stiff 6K CFA fine at some bush league police station who knows where. Or, we could settle immediately in cash for 2K CFA. It didn't take a genius to choose the second option.

We also experienced a few other novelties like sheep in the road, goats in the road, cows in the road, children in the road, and unmarked speedbumps on major highways. That notwithstanding, the road to Saint-Louis was smoother than the Pennsylvania turnpike.