It was a long 550km stage today from Dakar to Niokolo Koba national park. The road was tarmac all the way to the NP entrance, but in some places with such huge potholes, it was worse than offroad driving. Imagine 20-30cm deep holes covering the whole width of the road and trucks, cars, buses, donkeys, goats, bycicles trying to go around them in creative ways.

We have changed our minds about Senegal and Senegalese people today. The farther you are from the coast, the more friendly the people are, there is no harrassing and aggressive begging for cadeau here.

The national park we are in tonight is Senegal’s biggest with more than 900,000 hectares and lots of gazelles, monkeys, hippos, and crocodiles. Our guide Musa told us there are even lions and elephants, but “so few, you would have to stay for 2 years to spot them”. I tend to belive even two years would not be enough since the number of lions and elephants is zero, but this is my personal view only. We will see tomorrow, we are going on an animal watching trip at 7am.