Furthest from home...

We chickened out or riding the bikes in to town this time and hailed a cab, the driver was a silk pajamaed harlequin and listened to us saying 'Dakar Marina', repeated it, demonstrated boats floating, and then took up to the airport. Everyone we spoke to said that the best visitor attraction in Dakar was the Isle of Goree, reputedly once involved in the slave trade but now a beautiful period village full of resident artists and mostly Senegalese visitors. After checking the customs office really was closed on a Sunday (had a chat with the security guard just in case as the pass avant finished today) we waded through the sea of belt and watch sellers that formed around us with 'no merci's and progressively less sympathetic looks. At first we thought it was another rip when the boat price was three and a half times more for foreigners than locals :/ but the visit was worth it.
What an amazing place! Painted houses either side of narrow streets were planted with flowers and lined with paintings for sale, birds of prey circled overhead, people were playing on the small beach by the pier and drinking outside restaurants. On top of the isle is a huge double barrelled piece of artillery from 1902, installed by the French and decommissioned when they left, leaving the network of posts and tunnels around the top of the rock for the squatting community of artists. In fact there was a buoy the boat rounded before drawing alongside the pier and Brahm, one of the five brothers occupying the gun, told us it was marking a wreck where 600 people died the last time the gun was used in anger. Brahm was a great guy who leapt about talking with enthusiasm about his adopted home while we talked about lifestyles, peace and war, art and Braveheart! I plan on dropping him a postcard from Edinburgh to say thanks for the tour of his home, I hope Brahm @ the Big Gun works as an address!
Monday and there was no escaping it, we had to pack up the flat and get an early start to hit the Doune first thing. It was surprisingly easy to find again and we only got pulled over once, luckily the officer loosing interest and walking off without even asking for papers! The other nice surprise was while sitting in the Place de Independence, surrounded by kids learning how to set KTM tyre pressures, Robin returned to say the customs didn't want a bribe this time! There had been a fixer this time but he did seem to have made the difference.
The bike tyres were passing the halfway wear point and we had been trying to sort out replacements by email but with no luck. A French guy on a 990SM had come and gone but only had the same contact I'd been emailing at Saudequip. At that point as luck would have it a loud quad 'baruped' in to the square and nearly ran over a bollard stopping to talk to us, it was a young guy who wanted to buy the Ktm! This was the second time I'd been asked in Senegal and wasn't the last either, there was demand for big bikes it seemed but a shortage of supply. Max turned out to be an importer who now lived in itay most of the year, except when easing shipments in to Dakar. A few phone calls and we were on the road having our eardrums blown and precision riding testing trying to keep up with the quad through the streets. Unsurprisingly we got pulled but the officer looked at the pass avant and walked off, strange but it wasn't until the next day before we realised why; apparently our fixer had got us put down as family of the ambassador to Guinea, we were visiting dignitaries!
Max's pal Issa had been a mechanic in the Dakar Rally twice before it was lost to South America. His yard was down some small streets and was full of bikes and engines in various states of dismantle, half a dozen guys were working around the place and the street outside was busy with people buying and selling. No luck this time on the tyre even with a few phone calls but Robin noticed a bend on the rack of the DR which Issa had welded up with a brace in no time. I promised to pass on his details for any other visiting riders needing a pit stop!
Issa Minou Motos
776347859, Latitude: 14.676157° Longitude: -17.453499°
We said our goodbyes and Max lead us to a petrol station beside a post office for fuel, stamps and postcards, with a handshake and a cloud of burnt rubber he returned back towards Issa's.
It wasn't long before got in to conversation with a huge guard on a tiny scooter from the prison we hadn't noticed next door. It sounded like a harsh place and he said it was home to three Scots as well, mercenaries with life for murdering a taxi driver while trying to get to the war in Sierra Leone. He was very philosophical about it, he said they'd had plenty of time to think about it too.
The Lac Rosse was next up, a pink salt water lagoon if the sun and humidity are right, traditionally the Dakar Rally had finished beside it. It was a great missed opportunity that at the end of the dusty potholed road there seemed to be nothing but salt works and beachside hotels. No finish mound, no plaque, just trucks. A kid on a horse came past on the shell piste and made it leap in the air, we waved and took photos of ourselves where we thought the chequered flag should have been, jumping about as well.
As the daylight slipped by it was time to get south, our furthest away night from home would be spent along the coast north of Mbour, recommended by a number of people. The sun was just beginning to set when we rolled in to Saly, it looked like a real seaside beach town fuelled by bars and quad bike hire, finding a reasonably priced place to stay was more elusive until the jolly round face of Salif greeted us at the door of Residence Myriam in Ngaparou, shaking us firmly with a mittened hand and grinning from bobble to bobble under his wooly hat. We met the whole crew too, Ali, Camo, Baysha and the guys welcomed us in, fed and watered us and made us part of the family to a soundtrack of Bob Marley and Senegalese Ballack.