Today we had a bus tour of the city of Dakar, a place made famous in western countries, by the Paris-Dakar rally. But sadly for a petrol head like myself we saw almost nothing that reflected the days of the rally. Why the "almost" ? Like all the previous places we have visited on this trip Dakar has uncountable hordes of motorcycles but all with small engines and designed as city transport. But in Dakar I caught glimpses of a small number of high powered rally style bikes, the rider of one of these even pulled a wheelie in a crowded street while crossing an intersection; just for the benefit of us tourists you understand.

The scenic highlights of the day were The Massalikoul Great Mosque, Monument of African Renaissance, The Divinity Mosque and the picturesque city coastline.

On a slightly less positive note the city traffic was the worst we have experienced on this trip and arguably on a par with Mongolia. The pushie drivers were blocking intersections and making traffic lights totally ineffective. It seemed to Nina and I that these guys had the same driving instructors as the Mongolian drivers we have experienced.

Back at the ship as we discussed the traffic with the guys that service our room, who are from India. They told us a story about how Police in the city of Mumbai went about punishing impatient drivers who started honking for the traffic to move before their light had actually turned green. Read about it here. They attached noise meters to the lights and if drivers honked too much and the noise level went above 85db the timer on the traffic light would reset and the red light would start counting again. How ingenious!

One final comment. Note the photo of the abandoned car covered in dust and random trash. This seemed a perfect mascot for the cities general handling of trash.