The rocks kind of reminded me of a really enjoyable walk my family once took along the edge of Crater Lake...my Dad does a good job of staying calm near edges and large drops. If my sarcasm is not yet detectable, I hope it is by now.
This is Bouna, one of our great staff/teachers/counselors/hike leaders. Before the hike he was having trouble with his foot, so he went to the Kedougou market to buy some hiking shoes. He came back with these jellies, and put us all to shame on the hike. I think he carried only a bottle of water, and his cigarettes - enough to get him through any challenge. He's the one that's going to lead us on a run to the Mauritania border when we visit St. Louis, and apparently no one ever beats him.
The hike was in Etchwar, a Bedik village (the Bedik are one of the many ethnic minorities in Senegal), not far from Kedougou. There are two settlements, Etchwar at the top of the rocks, and Indar at the bottom. (When we split up into our village homestays, four of our group stayed in these two villages).
This is at the top, Etchwar. The red-ish road, slightly visible, is the road we took from Kedougou.
That's not me at the top...but that pose was hard to avoid up here. (It's Alisa, from Bates). It just felt like the natural thing to do with all the villages stretching out below us. We sat around frying on the rocks for a while, singing a little Bob Marley (which is also hard to avoid in Senegal) then walked/slid down.
That's me. Of course in my really well-planned packing for Senegal I didn't pack a good small backpack for mini-voyages, so my track spike bag became a really useful hiking bag. That's what I'm holding in this picture.
Before we made it back to the bottom (to the campement in Indar) for lunch, the kids in the Etchwar village (who had gathered to watch us watch them) sang us a song, in exchange for an Akon song. Somehow we couldn't come up with one, so I think we sang Rihanna or some other great American artist...either way, I'm sure it was painful for them.
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