Senegal Culture History and Nature 12 Days/11 Nights

Day 1 Airport – Dakar (1hour drive )

On arrival, meet with our esteemed guide who will help you finish all the formalities and transfer you to the place of accommodation. Check-in to the hotel and have an orientation about the safari with your guide

Place of accommodation: Hotel Farid 3* or similar

Meal Plan: Dinner and breakfast

Day 2 Goree Island & Dakar City Tour

After breakfast, your trip begins with transfer to the port harbor to catch to board a ferry to Goree Island. Spend your time exploring the quiet streets lined with colonial-era buildings. Your guide will show you one of the most famous buildings which mark the history of Goree. See the “Door of No Return,” where millions passed on their way to slavery. Before heading back to Dakar you will have lunch at the island, sila back for a city tour of Dakar. The first place of the visit will be independence place passing through the presidential palace and the main cathedral. Follow by a drive to the seafront toward soumbedioune market and the “mosque of Divinity”. The tour to Dakar will show you the contrasts between upscale residential areas and other popular neighborhoods. You will not leave Dakar without a visit to the popular hotspots like Kermel, Tilene Market, Renaissance Monument, not forgetting Africa’s most modern Museum, the Museum of African Civilization a massive four-story complex which fulfilled the dreams of Senegal’s first president Leopold Sedar Senghor.

Place of accommodation: Hotel Farid 3* or similar

Meal Plan: Dinner and breakfast

Day 3 Dakar – Pink Lake – Lompoul desert

After breakfast, leave Dakar for a drive to the Pink Lake the drive is around 1.5 hours , an important center for salt collection. On arrival, observe how salt diggers harvest the salt from the Lake and women pile it up. Lunch at own expenses which after that you will drive for 3hours to Lompoul desert. At your details upon, board a 4WD to the middle of the desert. Enjoy a great experience of the Lompoul desert as you will have dinner watching traditional ballet performing Jembe drums involving singing and dancing around the campfire enjoying the constellations. There will be the possibility of a camel ride. This will be a lifetime

experience.

Place of accommodation: Camp du Desert or Ecolodge of Lompoul

Meal Plan: Dinner and breakfast

Day 4 Lompoul desert – Saint Louis

Wake up for a 2-hour drive to the old city of Saint Louis, the former capital of Senegal. your guide will help you navigate the old buildings and explore ancient artifacts, providing expert and insightful commentary throughout. Then, get to see the famous Faidherbe Bridge, which links the island of the city of SaintLouis in Senegal to the African mainland. Other standout sights are the unique architecture of the French colonial period, a visit to the fishermen’s colony, and an optional ride through the streets in a horse-drawn carriage. After traveling through the city for 4 hours, you’ll be dropped off back at your hotel in an air-conditioned vehicle.

Place of accommodation: Cap Saint Louis Hotel 3* or similar

Meal Plan: Dinner and breakfast

Day 5 Saint Louis – Touba(3hrs) – Kaolack( 2hours)

After breakfast you’ll will departs the Saint Louis and drive for 3hhours to the holy city of Touba. Visit one of the largest and most Magnificent Mosque in all of West Africa, the Grand Mosque. Your guide will help you understand Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba the founder of Mouridism and the history of Touba. Later drive for 2 hours to Kaolack with stops at Fulani and Wolof villages. Upon arrival at Kaolack, visit the local market before checking to your hotel for the overnight and dinner.

Place of accommodation: Relais de Kaolack Hotel 3* or similar

Meal Plan: Dinner and breakfast

Day 06 Kaolack – Wassu – Georgetown

Early morning, the route through the dense savannah with mounds of mounds to Tambacounda, a bush crossing town and a major railway stop before Mali. From there, you will embark on a scenic drive towards Georgetown, taking the south bank road up to Soma. driving on the South Bank Road up to Soma then cross the Senegambia bridge to the North. Drive to a stop at Wassu stone circles, where you can marvel at the ancient stone formations and learn about their historical significance. As the afternoon approaches, you will cross over to Georgetown by ferry. Once you arrive, you will have an evening session to explore the old slave houses in Georgetown. This will be a unique and powerful experience as you learn about the dark history of slavery in the area and see firsthand the living conditions of the enslaved people who once called these houses home. It will be an evening of learning and reflection that will leave a lasting impression on you.

Place of accommodation: Janjanbury Lodge or Baobolong Camp

Meal Plan: Dinner and breakfast

Day 07 Georgetown – Juffureh

After breakfast we drive to juffereh, we will reach Jufureh, the land of Alex Haley’s “Roots movie”. From Albreda on the main land which gained fame in the period of slavery as a result of its Flag Pole, which many believed would guarantee freedom to anyone who touched it after escaping from nearby James Island reached after 20 min by boat Observe the ruins of Kunta Kinteh Island a place of lust between French, English, Portuguese and Dutch in the middle of Gambia River Sail back to the village of Jufureh to where the ancestry of “Kunta Kinteh” of Roots fame was traced. The restored original home of the Kinteh clan still occupied by the Kinteh family can be visited.

Place of accommodation: Kunta Kinteh Roots Camp or similar

Meal Plan: Dinner and breakfast

Day 8Juffureh – Banjul – Serrekunda

After breakfast drive toward Bara the border at the West and sailing by a ferry to reach our hotel in Banjul.

Place of accommodation: Cape Point Hotel 3* or similar

Meal Plan: Dinner and breakfast

Day 09 Banjul and Serrekunda City Tour

Start from the National Museum, showing the history of The Gambia including the tracing the mix of African Culture and European colonialism. We then take a short drive through Banjul to “see the sights,” stopping to visit Albert market with much hustle and bustle, where anything from live chicken and vegetables to herbs and false hair can be bought. Or in the afternoon, visit Serekunda the most densely populated town in The Gambia; here you can see displays of “Tie & Dye” and the beautiful Batik cottons.Back to the hotel and overnight

Place of accommodation: Cape Point Hotel 3* or similar

Meal Plan: Dinner and breakfast

Place of accommodation: Senegambia Beach Hotel

Meal Plan: Dinner and breakfast

Day 10 Banjul– Toubacouta (4hours Drive)

Today, we continue our journey north, with many stops to enjoy attractions along the way. We’ll cross back the ferry toward Toubacouta with many stops on the road. Upon arrival if we have time, you can visit the village of Sipo before going to your hotel.

Place of accommodation: Keur Saloum

Meal Plan: Dinner and breakfast

Day 11Toubacouta - Simal or Ndangane

Upon arrival in Sipo or Ndangane, Visit of the Saloum island. You will embark on motorized canoes for a small cruise through the labyrinth of Saloum River. This cruise will lead you up to the National Park of the Delta of Saloum, a paradise of birds and declared world heritage. Initiation to the hand line fishing. Return in the hotel for the lunch (not included). In the afternoon, we can make a pedestrian stroll through the bush and in a village in which the population was animistic and still doing animistic practices of their ancestors. Dinner and night in the hotel

Place of accommodation: Pelican de Saloum Hotel 3* or Simal Hotel Camp

Meal Plan: Dinner and breakfast

Day 12Saloum – Joal Fadiouth – Dakar ( 2hours drive )

After breakfast, transfer to Mbour. On the road, we shall visit the biggest baobab tree of Senegal that was also the cemetery of Griot tribe. We’ll stop in Joal, childhood city of the former Senegalese president, Léopold Sédar Senghor. Moreover, a visit to his house of childhood is proposed to you before continuing to the Shellfish Island, Fadiouth. By a wooden bridge, you will reach this animistic village of Catholic adoption with its attics on piles and its cemetery of shells. After visit we can take lunch in a typical restaurant next to the river and the bridge. Drive back to Dakar at the airport to catch your next flight

Meal Plan: Dinner and breakfast