Day 17

Monday, January 22, 2018

Today I woke up at 6:00 to eat breakfast and to catch the 9:00 ferry. We loaded the bus and drove to the port. The port and border crossing was hectic as usual. There were crazy salespeople and the men carrying our luggage were all fighting with each other. We crossed on the ferry but our bus was not there when we arrived. We sat in a restaurant until our bus came. We drove to the border and handed our passports over to the chief so that he could take them to security. This worked last time when traveling from Senegal into The Gambia but would not work traveling from The Gambia into Senegal. They wanted to see us in person while stamping our passports. This took a lot of extra time and was a stressful process.

We soon arrived at the lion reservation! I have been waiting for this moment all trip. It was $60 per person to walk with the lions. I thought that the price was outrageous. Anyways, we all had to carry wooden staffs into the lion area. The lions respect and do not harm those carrying a wooden staff. The reservation had four adult lions and four younger lions. We saw two female, adult lions. I was surprised to hear that lions sleep 20 hours a day. They also eat every four days and are fed donkey meet. The lions were laying down, so we were able to go behind them and get pictures. You must always be behind the lion. If you are in front, you are seen as an enemy of prey. There were at least five workers trying to get the lions to walk so that we could take walking pictures, but they just wanted to lay down in the shade. I was thankful enough to get a walking picture with them.

Buba nicknamed me the Lion King because I would not stop bugging him about when we were going to see the lions. He always pushed me to the front of the line and begged the workers to give me special treatment. He wanted me to pet one of the lions but the workers said that they would get fired if that happened. They explained that if they let one person pet a lion, they would then post that picture on social media. People would see that picture and then everyone would want to pet a lion. The workers told us that no one from the public has touched a lion in two years. As they are saying this, Buba is playing with the lion’s tail. Buba told the workers that it was my birthday (which it wasn’t) and asked them what they can do special for me. He kept pestering the workers to let me pet the lion. The workers finally gave in, made everyone walk away so that no one could take pictures, and they let me pet the tail. I felt a bit embarrassed and I hated breaking the rules but it was a fun experience. One of the workers gave Buba some lion tail hairs and Buba gave them to me. This was one of my favorite parts of the trip.

We had a five hour bus ride to go back to Pink Lake in Senegal. We stopped once to fill up gas, so I decided to go to the bathroom. I went into the stall and ran out immediately. There must have been 100 flies swarming around. Buba thought it was hilarious but I did not. Around 9:00 pm, we arrived at Pink Lake. Apparently, all the rooms were full so the girls stayed at Chez Salim hotel and the boys had to go to another hotel nearby. This was just inconvenient. Tomorrow, we have to move back to Chez Salim once people move out. I am happy this trip is coming to an end. It is chaotic.



Goodnight from Senegal,



Andy




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