Excursão - Dakar 360 °

Great overview of the city of Senegal Dakar. Interesting history and culture here. Working hard on Education so as to improve the country.

We expected a pick up at the port and instead discovered after multiple phone calls that the car was located outside the port in the Taxi section so this caused us to be 30 minutes late. Then the English speaking "guide" really just told the taxi driver where to go. She didn't even greet us or give us her name until we pressed her to engage with us. No historical or cultural information was provided...no water...no discussions. This tour was really just and expensive taxi ride.

The tour guide wasn’t trained to be a tour guide. He didn’t have an itinerary for the tour. We had to tell him where to go. He knew little about the town and/or country (Senegal). We paid over three hundred US Dollars for the tour. It was a total disappointment. He was a nice guy. It’ll fair to us to refund most of what we paid for. Otherwise, Viator’s reputation is at stake. We have used Viator previously and were very pleased with it. We have signed up with Viator, other tours at Cape Town Africa.

We had a delightful day with Wolimata as our guide and Bouka, our driver. Although we didn't get to do certain things due to traffic (not at all the fault of the guide or company), they were more than accommodating in making alternative plans.

EXCELLENT tour guide (Mustafa) and driver! They made sure that we saw all the import sites and were very accommodating to all of our requests. They answered all questions and are such lovely people. Lots of laughter and fun in Dakar!!

Unlike many other tours, both Mamalou and our driver were very aware of our priorities, including all the advertised sights plus pointing out the significance of this day being their president's inauguration. It was impressive to see the honor guard, band and security of this special day. Mamalou unexpectedly arranged for a ride to the top of the tall reissance Memorial tower, providing a great view of the city from the top of the man;s head. It was a treat to laugh with both Mamalou and the driver as we toured Dakar.

My tour guide and driver picked me up at our arranged location. I was running a little late and they waited patiently for me. I think any city tour of Dakar city is admittedly short - we stopped at the statue, the mosque and a cathedral for photos. The great thing was along the way my guide shared so many interesting historical and cultural facts about the city and Senegal that I would not otherwise learn on my own. It was wonderful! After about an hour around the city we drove 45 minutes to pink lake. Due to the natural course of the climate the water is not currently pink but we took a walk in the water and it felt great on my feet. We also had a 4WD sand dune bashing style ride (see photo) that took us from pink lake to the nearby beach. It was a Saturday so many local schools had taken their students there as an excursion so i knew i was experiencing something special. And special it was, while on the beach we ran into a local fisherman throwing his net from the sand, we stopped (at my request) and helped him pick up some of the fish he caught before they escaped back to the sea. There was an option to take a small boat out unto the pink lake and an option to ride ATVs in the sand vs the 4WD doon bashing. Those may require an additional fee but overall i thought this experience was a great value for my money and best of all the tour started at 2PM vs. 8AM.