Senegal

Why Senegal

Senegal has seven World Heritage properties, more than any of its neighbors, and they are not variations on one theme: two cultural islands, three wild places, a prehistoric landscape shared with the Gambia, and a living cultural landscape in the southeast.

The Casamance, in the south, calls for more care than the rest of the country, as set out in the practical section below.

Goree

Goree is a small island off Dakar, twenty minutes by ferry. From the fifteenth century to the nineteenth it was, in UNESCO’s words, the largest slave-trading center on the African coast. It was held in succession by the Portuguese, the Dutch, the English and the French.

What the inscription singles out is the architecture, and specifically a contrast: grim slave quarters on one side of a wall, the elegant houses of the traders on the other. The two were built together, by the same economy, and they still stand together. The island is now, again in UNESCO’s words, both a reminder of human exploitation and a sanctuary for reconciliation.

Those are two different jobs for one small island, and Goree is read differently by different visitors: as a memorial, as a place of return, as a contested historical record, and as a pretty village with good light. All of those are happening at once on a few hundred meters of street. Ghana’s Cape Coast Castle raises the same question in a different building, and a reader who has been to one will recognize the problem at the other.

The other six

Saint Louis sits on an island at the mouth of the Senegal River and was the colonial capital. The Djoudj sanctuary north of it carries large numbers of migratory birds. Niokolo-Koba is the big southeastern park, the Saloum delta south of Dakar is mangrove and channel and shell mound, and the Bassari, Fula and Bedik cultural landscapes are the newest of the seven.

None of these is a day trip from Goree. Senegal rewards deciding what kind of trip you are taking before you book it.

Food

Thieboudienne is fish, broken rice and tomato cooked together so the rice takes everything up, and it is treated as the national dish. Yassa is onions cooked down to a sauce with lemon and mustard. Mafe is the peanut stew. Meals are commonly eaten from a shared dish, which is worth knowing in advance.

Practical orientation

French is the official language and Wolof is what is spoken. The currency is the CFA franc. Dakar has the international airport, and the Goree ferry runs from the city.

The Casamance region, in the south, calls for more care than the rest of the country because of crime and landmines. Check access locally before planning travel there.

Entry requirements vary by nationality and change. The Ministry of the Interior is the authority on them, and this page is not.

This page states no entry, health or security requirements, and is not advice. Check current entry and health requirements with official sources before you travel.