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Senegal
SENEGAL’S CONFLUENCE OF FRENCH, MUSLIM, AND AFRICAN cultures means dining on croissants in the morning, lamb kebabs grilled over hot coals on the sidewalk in the afternoon, thick stews eaten with your fingertips in the evening, and fresh seafood drenched in lime juice and sprinkled with peanuts at any time of the day or night. Sprawled along the tip of the rocky Cap-Vert peninsula, capital city Dakar offers nearly year-round sunshine and is a good (albeit chaotic) base for exploring the rest of the vibrant nation. Just beware of price gouging: you must haggle for everything here.
• Thanks to pop star Youssou N’Dour, Senegalese music has gained international fame for its kinetic combination of West African drums and electric guitar riffs. Catching a live show is a must, if possible, at the legendary Thiossane in Dakar, which N’Dour owns and where he often makes special appearances when in town. Saint Louis hosts a jazz festival each May that lures tens of thousands of spectators, as does Goree Island. Drum and dance classes also abound, and Marie Basse Wiles—a famous dancer who emigrated to New York—leads annual tours of students here to study with the masters.
• If Dakar proves overwhelming, take refuge in Toubab Diallo, a fishing village overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Spend a few days in the Sobo-Bade, a hotel built of local stone and decorated with shells from the beach below. After an afternoon of drumming and batik classes, wash down curry with bottomless cups of bissap, or hibiscus flower tea, in its café.
• Twenty miles east of Dakar is an aptly named lake: the plankton in Lac Rose (Pink Lake) literally makes it shimmer pink. It is also so heavily salinized, you practically float to its surface. In January, Lac Rose is the ending point of the world’s most dangerous off-road motorsport event, the Dakar Rally, in which five hundred or so motor vehicles race to get here from Portugal (via the Sahara Desert) in just sixteen days. Join in the festivities afterward.
• No woman should leave Senegal without a belly bracelet or two. Made of shells, beads, or leather, they are a traditional Senegalese accessory that, according to artisan Krista Claudene-Retto, were sometimes worn as blessings against evil. Men wore them above their biceps and around their waist; babies, on their ankle; and women, around their lower belly. Today, the larger, thicker beads that click are worn during community celebrations, while the more delicate ones are worn by women beneath their clothing as a quiet homage to the feminine. “Beware of men who try to break your bracelet,” Krista warns. “They say in Senegal that he’s the one you’ll marry!”