The next morning, it was time to say goodbye to Doris and the Ford Mustang Mach-E. Together, we experienced many highs and lows (mainly at border crossings) over the last few weeks. You can’t do this kind of expedition with everyone. Very special people are needed who are reliable, don’t take themselves too seriously, and most importantly, stay calm in stressful situations. Otherwise, I can guarantee you that you won’t reach your final destination together 🙂
Since Thomas, the copilot of Doris, had to fly back home from Dakar in a couple of days for personal reasons, Doris’s son flew to Dakar and will drive together with her back to Europe.
In the following image, Silvia and I are showing an important document for future teams: the fiche. It contains all your important personal information, like name, address, passport number, and vehicle data.
You have to hand over a fiche at nearly every checkpoint in Mauretania (and also in some regions in Morocco). Altogether, we needed around 40 fiches on our trip. So print enough of them in advance.
You can download the Pistenkuh.de fiche form here. I’ve used their version on my trip, and it worked perfectly.
Our plan for today was to drive to Dakar. Hans wanted to take some pictures of his Tesla in front of the national monument in Dakar. We weren’t sure if this would work, but at least we wanted to try it. Since this wasn’t that important for me, I decided to leave my car at the Lac Rose and be the copilot of Hans for one day. I expected some interesting (and probably also very chaotic) traffic situations in Dakar, so I equipped his Tesla with two of my cameras, one on the roof and one on the side.
As a copilot, I was also able to shoot a bit more out of the side window to document the environment while Hans was driving.
Again, it was very obvious that Senegal is very different from Mauritania and Morocco. The first part of our drive to Dakar led us through some very small villages, before we finally reached a larger road parallel to the ocean.
Finally, we reached the national monument in Dakar, and Hans was able to park his Tesla for a few minutes in front of the main staircase while I was taking some pictures.
On Google Maps, I found out that a small road leads to the backside of the monument, offering an alternative view. The access to this road is blocked, and it’s normally not possible to drive up there. But Hans convinced the local police officers to let him pass with his Tesla.
This enabled me to shoot some great pictures of his Tesla directly in front of the monument.
You can also visit the inside of the monument. From there, you have a nice view over Dakar.
In the monument is an interesting museum about African culture
There was also a painting of Barack Obama, who is still one of my favorite politicians of all time.
Important mythical figures of African culture were also presented there.
If you are in Dakar, a visit to the monument and also to the museum is highly recommended.
On our way back to the Lac Rose, we followed the recommended route by Google Maps, which wasn’t the best idea.
It led us through some extremely small roads directly into the slums on the outskirts of Dakar. Dozens of kids were blocking our way and even jumping on the Tesla. They damaged the spare tire holder of the Tesla and stole the rear license plate. It was all quite stressful, and due to this, I also stopped taking any pictures. But it should all be recorded on video since the camera was running the whole time. Hans stayed very calm during the whole chaos. Respect!
After this experience, I ignored the Google Maps route and chose the largest possible roads to navigate back to Lac Rose instead. This worked well, and we were able to enjoy the rest of the drive without any further incidents.
Luckily, we were able to repair the damage to the spare tire holder at the hotel, and the missing license plate was substituted with one made out of cardboard, hoping that this wouldn’t lead to any serious problems at the upcoming checkpoints and border crossings.
Later that evening, we had dinner at the Hôtel le Trarza.
Silvia had also prepared some small gifts for us to celebrate our successful arrival at the Lac Rose.
The main goal of our expedition, Lac Rose and Dakar, has been reached. But it’s not the end of our adventure. We have decided to continue to The Gambia to explore another country in Western Africa, and also to do some interesting desert explorations on our way back to Europe. Stay tuned!
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