11 Vehicles in 13 Hours: The Joys of Transit in Senegal

And now, introducing . . . thematic blog posts!!! I realized that there was a lot of my daily life that was getting left out of my other blog posts, and I also figured that a catalogue of my weekly activities would soon grow tired, so I’m going to try out a new tactic of exploring an aspect of life in Dakar through each post.

Yesterday, I took a “simple” trip on Sunday to a monastery and then to lunch, returning to Dakar 13 hours later having ridden in 11 different vehicles. Inspired by this experience, today’s post is going to focus on transport!

Taxis are the most omnipresent form of transport in Dakar, almost all of them riddled with dents and missing various components of the interior (such as door handles, locks, entire door panels). The cause of the exterior damage becomes evident the first time your taxi driver bumper cars his way through a traffic circle. When a yellow and black taxi approaches me, I know before I see it since he honks repeatedly at me to see if I need a ride, as if foreigners are not capable of walking anywhere. And it’s probably true that most don’t walk, since taking a taxi to the downtown core will cost about 1500 CFA ($3.75 CDN) leaving from my house, and that’s for a 20 minute ride. And here's a taxi, complete with street vendor in background, who will sell you merchandise while you sit in the taxi. I saw a vendor selling entire fish on the side of the road yesterday. I didn't buy any.

Certainly for travelling after dark taxis are the best bet, but I prefer to try public transit during the day. Within Dakar, there are three main public transit vehicles, all of which are incredibly crowded and none of which follow regular schedules, which can lead to a lot of waiting. The bus is the least intimidating, as each follows a set route as distinguished by the number on the front of the bus (however, there is no map available to coordinate where you’re going with where the bus is going, you have to learn all of this by word of mouth). To take the bus costs 150 CFA, paid to a worker who sits at the middle of the bus and will even provide change! Another common form of transit is the Car Rapide, the brightly painted minibuses with an apprentice who hangs out the back door calling passengers aboard. To determine where the Car Rapide is going there is no labelling, you have to discuss with the apprentice who will then tell you whether to get on and how much your “pass” (Wolof for transit fee) is (usually about 150 CFA). Most Car Rapides follow the length of a street, and any time you want to stop you bang a coin on the ceiling and the driver will stop to let you off. The third type of vehicle is a Tata, which is similar to a Car Rapide, only more modern, painted simple white. The idea is that Tatas will eventually replace the Car Rapides, many of which are in a state of disrepair. Sidenote: many of the Tatas have a giant sticker of 80s-era Madonna on their back window.

Outside of the city, transit is another story. Again, there are no set schedules for transport between cities. So when you need to go somewhere outside of Dakar, you go to the Gare Routier Pompier (as in firefighter), where all of the vehicles sit until they are full of people going to a common destination, at which point they depart. The most luxurious choice is the sept-place or bush taxi. These cars are station wagons with two rows of three seats each and the passenger seat available for seven passengers. Once you find a car going to your destination, you discuss a fare with the driver, and there is usually much bargaining involved. Here's the view from a sept-place:

Minibuses are another option, they hold 14 passengers. We took one on my trip to Toubacouta the other week, and it was rather dusty . . .

Finally, there are Ndiaye Ndiayes, which carry either 35 or 55 passengers in a very small space. It is a large van, with 5 people sitting in each row, literally squished in against each other (the middle seat folds up to allow people to squeeze through to get in and out of the van). The problem with all of these vehicles is that they frequently break down, as happened when I was riding in an Ndiaye Ndiaye on Sunday. When this happens, the passengers have to wait until the driver tries to fix the vehicle, and if they can’t get it going again, the apprentice will transfer you to other Ndiaye Ndiayes with no additional pass required. But given the waiting, travelling in Senegal certainly requires that you be flexible with your schedule. Here's one of the 4 Ndiaye Ndiayes I took on Sunday.

There is one train line that’s functional in Senegal, it leaves Dakar and travels through to Bamako, Mali. However, the train takes 40 hours to do so and is notorious for stopping mid-journey and having other problems. Between some cities there is also boat service available, most notably the ferry service between Dakar and Ziguinchor. Unfortunately, this ferry route may be best known for the disaster in September 2002 when the ferry sank and some 1800 passengers, largely from the Cassamance region, were killed (only 64 survived). Regulations have been much more stringently followed since that incident, and travel on the new boat is much safer.

That lengthy catalogue about sums up the transit situation here (excluding air travel, which is also present, Air Senegal being an airline with an excellent safety record). It’s certainly difficult to get used to the lack of schedules, as I’m someone who likes to be able to plan everything ahead of time. But with clever planning (for example going in a group of 7 to fill a sept-place and thus having control over when to stop for rest breaks etc) travelling here can go relatively smoothly. Well, not literally smoothly due to the condition of the roads which lead many drivers to drive along the side of the road in the dirt instead of on the pothole-scarred pavement. It’s like going on a bonus off-roading safari adventure. Minus the lions.