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Senegal is a great example of modern vibrant, open and progressing west Africa. Tourism has helped fuel their boom but, as with its neighbour The Gambia, it has often been package based holidays around the stunning coast. This type of tourism gives very little positive cultural interaction.
This trip aims to show you modern Senegal in Dakar and then to give this a historic and cultural background with historic Saint Louis and a cruise through some of it’s very different cultures. The Bou El Mogdad has been making the journey from Saint Louis to Podor for over 50 years. In the last decade it was fully refurbished and is now back in action providing an important and much loved communication link along this stretch of the Senegal river. You are taken into the different communities who live along the river and who all benefit greatly from their links with the cruiser.
The cruiser is run by a Senegalese company based in Saint Louis. The company has long established links with the communities visited on the cruise. Hotels used in Dakar and Saint Louis are locally owned and wherever necessary guides and operators and accommodation is taken from the community most local to the operation. Carbon emissions are low as we are using a boat to travel most of the time and any emissions which are incurred are providing an essential service and income to some remote communities. During the cruise we pass through the world’s third most important breeding grounds for migrating birds. You will also be given the opportunity of supporting Senegal’s talented artists by purchasing yourself some art!
Company Ethos:
This company aims to dispel a few myths and to show you a modern, vibrant, open, safe and progressing west Africa and to ensure that your trip has a positive impact on the communities which host you.
Too often tourism in Africa centers around the amazing wildlife and stunning scenery whilst the most vibrant, colourful and fascinating aspect of Africa - its people - pass by the window of the 4x4.
I try to reverse the focus by taking you out into some of the amazing communities which I have befriended over my 20 years of traveling this vast and extraordinary continent. The landscape is merely the background to the colour music, vibrancy and hospitality of the people of west Africa. Throughout the trip food and water is bought en route and as locally as possible.
Before your trip you will be sent my Responsible Travel guidelines, and en route you will be advised about changing cultural sensitivities. This trip minimizes waste by advising clients to follow the African example and recycle everything. You will see how a system that provides no waste disposal produces very little waste. I encourage you not to bring anything that we in the west count as disposable such as razors or wet wipes etc because in Africa they are not disposable.
My company aims to minimize its environmental impact by:
- Only flying one way for my season of tours in west Africa. For my outward journey I drive to Timbuktu – and you may too!
- I do not have an office and my only paper based marketing product is a flyer. I have no brochures and do most of my mailing by email. I have two remote communities in west Africa, Aguelhoc in the Tuareg region of northern Mali and Esu in the Northwest province of Cameroon where I will put 10% of my company profits into educational projects. I am in the process of establishing sustainable scholarships for achieving children to remain in education.
As an alternative to carbon offsetting I offer you the opportunity to support these projects and thereby support some small communities which will be most affected by climate change.
We invite every traveller who books a holiday via us to send in a review. Because we don't run the holidays they're completely independent and unedited... remember to read between the lines though, as two people on the same holiday can have different views!
