Last week, we were telling you about part of our stay in the beautiful and diverse Dakar. We have already drove South, from Dakar to Djilor, and settled for a few weeks in this wonderful region of the Sine Saloum. Welcome to La Source aux Lamantins where water and earth make one unity, where culture is extremely rich and where it feels so good to be.
Let’s go to Djilor
After we made few kilometers in the North of Dakar for our instructive day in the fields, we are this time hitting South. It is with Pape Ndiaye that we are leaving for the Sine Saloum, passing through the Petite Cote, where the famous Saly is, sadly known for its mass tourism, here devastating. The road is beautiful from Dakar to Djilor, and it is always really nice to discover new landscapes.
We let you judge for yourself:
From Dakar to Djilor, we speak Wolof!
On the road, Pape helps us to enrich our poor Wolof vocabulary. And so we learned how to count (well, some basis…); pretty useful for bargain (waxale in Wolof). It is funny, they count with 5 / 50 / 500. Thus, 1 500 will be 3 times 500. 500 is temer, 3 is niet, so 1 500 is … niettemer, well done :)!
We also know the first uselful words in a conversation: nagadef? mengiferek! (how are you? I’m good); dieuredief (thank you); notoudou (what is your name?); mengitoudou (my name is…); nodeke (where are you from?); mengideke (I am from…); …
But here we are, in Sine Saloum, and most of the people speaks… Serere! It is not nagadef anymore but nafio; not dieuredief but fiangor;…
Mollycoddled!
It now has been 5 days that we are discovering the surroundings and enjoying this beautiful place of La Source aux Lamentins. Anne-Catherine, owner of the place, has placed us into the hands of Djibi, who is an extraordinary and passionate guide. He is telling us about the history, the plants, the people. It is passionating. We also visited some potential HopHosts:
- L’écolodge de Simal and its traditional huts with external bathrooms,
- Les Collines de Niassam with its luxurious treehouses
- Souimanga Lodge with its wonderful bird named bedrooms,
- Le Miam Miam, restaurant with a beautiful botanical garden.
- …
As many facilities that will soon have their pages on Hopineo’s website.
If you were asking yourself where to spend you next holidays, don’t searh anymore. Djilor and its surroundigs have everything you will need.
We also discover new good practices, for an always more responsible tourism! I think we already said this, but this HopTour West Africa still sounds really enriching.
First HopTrip #Swap!
But La Source aux Lamantins, it is also our first HopTrip #Swap! And it seems that the program will also be rich. Here are the main issues we will work on with Anne-Catherine and her team during the coming weeks:
- How to promote La Source aux Lamantins and the “Djilor” destination?
- What marketing tools (internal and external) ?
- Optimizing the quality approach.
And… We will have some surprises for you as well!
To conclude, because this article is beginning to be a little bit long, we can’t wait to tell you all about the first regional tourism forum that will happen here next week, with the local actors but also the tourism minister, the culture minister, and other regional or national representatives.
We leave you with some pictures …
