Weekend in and around Dakar
What a match. Two missed penalties. Another one not given. 120 minutes fight. And an own goal by Tunisia decided that Senegal will play in the Africa Cup final on Friday against Algeria.
But lets start at the beginning.
After successfully finishing week one by finalizing our statement of work (we will create a dictionary-like overview for the KPIs used at CTIC and suggest them a data model that can cover their needs for tracking and reporting the essential KPIs) we started into the evening having dinner at an old lighthouse. From there you can overlook the city and see the beautiful sunset (in case you have no clouds like we did).
On Saturday morning we started then our trip to the turtle village, where they have plenty of different kinds of turtles — aged between a few days to over 85 years. Some of them will also be released into wildlife if they are between 25–30 years old.
Afterwards we went to the Pink Lake. Although there was no cloud on the sky, the weather seemed not to be perfect — so that the lake did not look that pink, but rather grey-ish. Before some of us tried floating in the lake (as it is very salty you can easily float on the lake — similar to the dead sea), we took a tour with a modified truck around the lake, have seen the huge mountains of salt the local people got out of the lake, went over some dunes and had a stop at the sea side.
After lunch and enjoying the sun for a bit, we went back home to Dakar. Our hotel has it’s own Jazz Club and in the evening we had the chance to join a Fusion Jazz concert of a local band.
Sunday morning we got to the ferry that took us to the former slave trade island Goree. Our guide showed us how people were kept and treated and explained where they were traded to and for how much. It was shocking to see the slave house and stand in the cells. Seeing the door of no return, through which slaves got aboard the boats towards America.
On top of the peak, there is also still a big canon from WWII, that protected Dakar.
After processing and digesting all those impressions, we headed back to the mainland where we joined locals and Expats at a fan zone watching the match. As mentioned above — it was intense and nothing for people with heart problems. Now the whole country prepares for Friday evening. You can see even more flags and people proudly wearing the white or green Senegal Jerseys on the street.
One more last time, the whole nation will cheer on their Lions, to win the Cup. ALLEZ LES LIONS!
