Our holiday started officially 16-Dec when we started out at 4 a.m. for CDG airport for the flight to Senegal! Paris á Dakar! The same destination as the famous road rally that Kelly wrote about, but ours was par avion. We were handed a lovely travel bag from Jet Tours and then squeezed onto a charter plane with a lot of other Club Med-like bound visitors.
Domaine de Naining reminded me of the family style camp in Dirty Dancing. All the staff were soooo chipper and friendly, and they even tried to speak english, occasionally. We met a man whose daughter lives in Cincinnati, several people who have relatives in the states, and Dauoda, who has studied about as much American trivia as there is to know. He randomly quotes movies and songs, I think without knowing what he is saying.
Okay, so after a 6 hour flight, we all mounted a luxury bus to the resort for
what was supposed to be about an hour trip. But, on a Saturday afternoon, it lasted over 3 hours. There are apparently only two roads that go across Dakar to Naining, and they were bumper to bumper with buses, horse carts, bicycles, pedestrians, and every version of vehicle in between. We were moving at a snail's pace, and we were hot and exhausted! It was about 75 degrees and the sun shone brightly.
We eventually arrived and were greeted with refreshing fruit juice and a magnificent buffet meal, then we were shown to our huts.
So after our meal, we headed to the room to exchange travelwear for beachwear, and hoofed it all of 300 feet to the beach. Hee hee, it was a grueling hike. The water was cold, but fun, and we were ready to explore Africa. We signed up for the week's activities, showered and dressed for dinner and then went looking for the other side of the resort where dinner and a show had been promised. The first night's extravaganza was hysterical, despite our exhaustion. The "team" of entertainers for the resort put on a dance spectacle that featured music from the US. There was square dancing and horn blowing and blues playing and even a second line. We felt right at home.
