Michal is the man of the day: when we discussed in the morning if we go to the tough racing stage or do the tarmac-road touring route instead, he only said “I had enough of offroading”. That was so frank and convincing, the decision was made.

Of course I couldn’t resist and still finished some geo-challenges at the beginning and at the end of the stage, but in between we were driving on (potholed, as always in Senegal) sealed roads. The border crossing to Guinea-Bissau was easy compared to the previous ones, although corruption is even worse here, nobody is doing anything without cadeau.

Tonight’s camp is in the small village Canjufa. We were promised some food and a nice African party, but neither of both have become true. There are still hundreds of villagers in the camp, but their main objective is cadeau. There were also some cases of theft. The first impression of Guinea-Bissau is so-so.

But why is Michal the man of the day? The planned dirt track of the racing route in the national park was closed because of a bush fire. The teams had to make a huge detour on very bad rocky tracks and are only reaching the camp now. With our two sick cars this last day would have become anoter driving-all-night Waterloo.

Thanks Michal for your open statement in the morning.

The stage today started as the last one finished, bumpy and dirty tracks connecting small villages. In every village we are stopped by hordes of children asking for cadeau. In rare cases there is a bon jour before, but cadeau is the main topic. The word merci I only heard once today.
Nevertheless the people in Senegal are very friendly. Yesterday we wanted to ask a woman for directions but were not able express our question in a way she could understand. It was very hot, finally she guessed that we might be thirsty and brought us some water to drink. It was a beautiful gesture!

After the bumpy dirt track we entered the tarmac road along the Niokolo Koba national park, which I know from 2011 already. Obviously it was too hot for the animals (40°C and above), we only saw some monkeys.

Tomorrow will be the last real African stage, 350km on more or less existing dirt roads in Bassari land in the south of Senegal. We are a bit scared because the roadbook says the stage cannot be done with 2WD cars, which, translated into normal language means it will be very tough even with the best 4-wheel drives. But the only alternative is going back 300 kms on tarmac, hence we will do our best to finish it as planned.

“Everything is so clean here compared to Mauritania. Even the dust is much cleaner”