Mille francs là
The adventurous flight from Dakar to Cap Skirring, Senegal
I need to get to Casamance, the southernmost province of Senegal. From Dakar, there are two options. If you have time and romantic soul, you board the ship that runs every two weeks and takes 15 hours. Otherwise you fly to Casamance’s only airport, Cap Skirring.
On a Monday morning, I am at Dakar Airport. I booked the ticket to Cap Skirring but… I am not even sure. The Transair confirmation email contains no ticket and no boarding card. It says I should check in online, but there is no link. At the airport I find two dozen passengers, mostly Europeans, with the same doubts. The information desk girl directs us to Transair counter. It is closed. We wait for an hour, no one comes. The flight is soon. Someone notices Transair employees at another end of hallway, so people rush there and form a fuzzy line. Europeans quickly adopt the African standard: the young Germans form a competitive line, and we begin to quarrel. Both lines are short-lived, because an officer tells us all to run back to where we came from, so we run back across the hallway, and then another man tells us to run back again, so we do. Finally, the check-in somehow starts.
The man asks me the ticket, which I don’t have. I start explaining. He says I’m not on the list. I look at his list and my name is there. This helps, he acknowledges, and I get my boarding card.
He tells me to go left to the international departures. A man at the international departures does not let me in and directs me to domestic departures, right. I walk 500 meters across the hall again, only to find that domestic departures are permanently closed. I walk back to international departures to negotiate. The man disappeared. Another man is there, and he lets me in.
I move to luggage control. “There is a lighter in your luggage sir” says the officer who operates the scanner. “No there isn’t” I respond. They take everything out of my baggage, check every item and scan everything again separately. “No problem sir”, the lighter was apparently not found, they let me pack. I put the objects back inside and I notice the lighter. It is there.
We move to the gates. My gate is 202. But there are only six gates at the airport: 101, 1, 2 ,102, 1 and 2 (yes, let me repeat: there are two gates number 1 and two gates number 2, one gate 101 and one gate 102). But there is no gate 202. Maybe they made a mistake, meaning 102? so I walk to gate 102 and there I find many other Cap Skirring passengers who followed the same logic. After a while an officer comes and lights the screen: flight to Istanbul. This is not our flight! Half of the waiting room jumps out of their seats. A tumult starts. Someone yells: our gate is downstairs! We rush downstairs like a heard of sheep and find the gate.
We board the plane. In my seat 16B I found a Senegalese girl. She tells me: people here don’t respect seat numbers. So I sit nearby at 15B. Soon, a Dutchman waves his 15B ticket near my nose and tries to kick me out, but I defend my position. I observe what happens next. Several skirmishes start. The blacks sit where they want and cause extreme consternation among the whites. It is hilarious to watch. In the end, everyone ends up sitting somewhere, but the process takes very long. In the end, we take off with 90-minute delay. The reasons for delay seem quite trivial.
The flight is short and pleasant.
I land and see a message from the hotel owner who tells me to take taxi. But the airport is small, the hotel is walking distance and I feel like walking. I politely refuse: “Merci, je vais marcher”. She answers immediately: “Ce n’est pas possible” [this is not possible]. I realize she wants to earn extra. I do not like it. I walk out from the airport, ignoring all the taxi drivers. Soon, one of them recognizes me and follows me in his car. It is the taxi sent by the owner. He asks 3,000 (shared taxi costs 200). I refuse, but he is super insistent. Finally, I agree for 1,000 since he came… we arrive to the hotel and he greets the owner. He does not say hey, please welcome your new guest. He says with disgust: “Mille francs là” [Here is 1,000 francs]
Welcome to Cap Skirring, Casamance.
