Layover in Dakar Africa July 2nd

Our layover in Dakar gave us a taste of the Africa that I hope we won’t see too much of. We landed there at 4:00am their time. Dakar is a coastal town and as we approached the field you could see the waves breaking on the shore. The airport is right along the edge of the city. A very low tech airport. We landed then turned around on the same runway and taxied back to the center where we turned off and approached our stand. No “jetways” at this airport, passengers and baggage are bused to the plane. Some passengers deplaned, a crew change occurred as the flight is too long for one crew to man. Interesting enough the airport security enters the airplane and searches everything. You have to identify your luggage, they spot check passports, and they even took the cushions off our seats and felt around under them. I’m not sure what the purpose of that exercise was but it went on for about a half an hour. Once cleared about 10 additional passengers got on board. Now imagine this, it’s 4:00am and where’re sitting on the tarmac with the front doors wide open and the cabin lights on full power, well we could see the bugs infiltrating the airplane from the dark night.
Finally we’re loaded back up and ready to go. Dawn is just breaking as we taxi to the runway. Very flat and dry region. Not far from the runway you could see buildings, mostly low flat masonry buildings. As we took off we flew directly over the city, Dakar is a very small city. What amazed me was that only 20% of the city appeared to be paved, the balance was a sandy color earth streets between the buildings. I asked one of the flight attendants, who just got on, and he confirmed that not all the roads were paved. A lot of the buildings appeared to only have screens in the windows. Certainly a reminder of what this continent deals with everyday.
Shortly after takeoff they announced that they are required by South African law to spray insecticide in the cabin for any plane coming from Dakar before being allowed to land in SOuth Africa. Not to worry though, the World Health Origination approves this insecticide for use around humans and food. Not a pleasant experience or smell for that matter. Oh well we are off and South Africa lies only 8 more hours away.