Banjul, The Gambia: Streets and Buildings

This is the entrance into the crafts market.  Over one hundred shops filled with shirts, dresses, wood carvings, jewelry, leather work and fabric!  I'll admit it, within ten minutes of walking inside, I'd spent my entire allowance for this stop.  The rest of these are just some random shots I took while traveling to and from the hotels.

Next stop:  Cape Verde!

Banjul, The Gambia: Signs, signs, everywhere a sign...

No witty comments for this one.  These can speak for themselves.

Banjul, The Gambia

In Banjul, we were dropped off near a few of the hotels.  This worked out for the money exchange as the hotels would exchange our dollars for local currency.

We decided to forgo the tours and just have our own little walking tour.

We didn't see much during our travels, but we did come back to the hotel to find the locals were relatively friendly.

The peacock did seem a little standoffish.
The thing you cannot see in these pictures is how just inhumanely hot it was.  The weather was reported as 88F, feels like 111F.  That can't really be articulated.  Really.

Dakar, Senegal... Cosmic Bowling

Near the end of our stay, someone decided we really needed to go bowling.

Not just any bowling, but cosmic bowling!

We had a great time. 

Dakar, Senegal... Food and Shopping

All across the city there are little street shops where you can buy all the little things you don't need but think you do.  Wraps, baskets, bags, all manner of other touristy things.  I'll admit that I did come back with more than I should have.

Clear across town, there is a huge mall, complete with a food court and stores with much more expensive stuff.  I'll admit it, I'm frugal.  I didn't really shop at the mall.

A couple times, we at at the Argentinian steak house.  I wish I remembered the name of it.  Heck, now that I'm a few months past the trip, I'm not even sure it was Argentinian.

Best beef dishes I had the entire time I was in Africa.  The potatoes were pretty good, too.

The desserts there were also to die for.  This is a picture of the sampler, which included chocolate lava cake, a crepe and some other stuff I've forgotten the names of.  Besides, it was in French, or Argentinian, and my French is still horrible.

Dakar, Senegal... Round Two

I had the opportunity to stay in Dakar for almost two weeks.  While there, I got to see some sights, work with some fine members of the Senegalese Navy and sample more than a few of the local restaurants.

Let's start with Logon I, a fine, seafood restaurant where you eat over the water with the sound of the surf as the soundtrack.

The food was wonderful, I just feel a little bad that I didn't think to take any pictures of the dishes.

I also failed to get more pictures of the inside of the restaurant.  To say it took the fishing life to the extreme would be an understatement.  The bar is made of a fishing boat, the bar stools are all fighting chairs, the counterweights for the doors are deep-sea fishing lures.  Definitely a great stop.

Freetown, Sierra Leone

I have never been anywhere with this many people in so little space. 

Traffic was miserable everywhere we went.

The hills surround Freetown, with the buildings climbing the hillsides.