Dakar part 4 – Returning home and a food poisoning from hell

Originally posted 2023-06-06
(Link to Dakar part 3 in case you missed it)

On the day of departure our driver came to pick us from the hotel and we start driving. 2 hours later he STILL hasn´t found his way out of Dakar and we are just spinning around in circles. I´m getting all stressed out and feel a migrane coming. I´m using my very expensive swedish internet to try to find directions since the drivers internet connection hasnt been working for the whole trip.

Adja house from the car window while we were trying to find our way out of Dakar

After driving around in more circles and asking all policemen, vendors and people we see in fellow cars – we are STILL in Dakar after 12 o´clock and I´ve had enough. We jump out of the car in the middle of a traffic jam and take a local taxi back to the hotel. Driving in the middle of the day is not nice even if you have a car with AC and I feel that the 9 hour travel is long enough without first spinning circles in Dakar for a couple of hours.

Hotel al baraka

When we arrive hotel Farid is full but they recommend a hotel around the corner – Hotel al Baraka. Lucky for us we get a room there and I book tickets to fly home on the day after.
After that we make the bad choice of going to eat somewhere..

Foodpoisoning at unknown Dibiteria

I looked up a nice restaurant at google maps but when we got there it turned out they only served breakfast. So we turned on the next street and there was a Dibiteria. Unfortunately I don´t remember the name of it but this is what their menu looked like.

Do NOT eat here!

We had some difficulties ordering since the waitress mostly spoke french but I managed to order a chicken shawarma and Buba ordered Lemon Chicken. In hindsight I understand that I shouldnt have eaten that shawarma but the restaurant looked clean and also had other customers eating so I didn´t feel alarmed in any way. After the food we just spent the evening at the hotel.

The next morning I woke up and felt super super tired. Tried to eat some breakfast but didnt really have an apetite. Buba was luckily in good shape so we checked out from hotel Al Baraka and took a taxi to Blaise Diagne International Airport.

At the airport my stomach starts to become weird but I still feel quite “ok” so I figured we should take our flight to Banjul since it only takes 45 minutes.
BAD DECISION. Stomach starts hurting like hell on the plane and I almost fainted when the plane was landing. I will spare you the gruesome details but at that point I was already so weak that they had to drive me around in a wheelchair at the airport.

Protecting you from images of the harsh truth – so here is a nice roof in Blaise Diagne Airport

We drove straight to the hospital where I started projectile vomiting. The staff was very professional and put me in a ventilated room and gave me all kind of injections and iv-liquids.

5 hours later and with a big bag of medicines we finally arrived home in the middle of the night..
So we got a bad ending on an otherwise nice trip. But we will surely return to Dakar again 🙂 Just have to recover a bit..

xoxo/Salla V

Originally posted 2023-06-06