Merry Christmas from Senegal

Its hard to believe that its Christmas just a couple of days away whilst here the sun has been shining and the crazy life of a Senegalese fishing town goes on around me. I've been here a week now and it's going to be very hard to leave indeed.


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I have been made to feel very welcome amongst a crew of guys from Guinea Conakry who live together here in a small ecampermant on the beach just out of town. We've been Playing lots of music together and feasting on fine west african cooking involving mounds of rice and plenty of fish, I love it, and it's exactly where i wanted to be. But there is still a few hundred more kilometers to go befor i arrive in The Gambia and soon it will be time to hit the road again.

That one above is my christmas card to you.
Yes yes yes, to white sandy beaches and midwinter sun just a cycle ride away...

One of the high points of this week was a day in a pirogue out on the water casting the fishing nets and catching the most delicious fresh fish for that nights dinner. It was a little dream of mine whilst cycling here to go out in the boats and it was indeed a dream come true and a blissful day out fishing. I'm seriously thinking of a career change.

 

 

The fishing pirogues are some how so iconic for this part of the atlantic coast just like the dhows of East Africa and form the centre of activities in town. I hope to have the opportunity to spend many more days out with the fisherman and messing about in boats over the next month on the west coast.

So i would just like to wish every one a very merry Christmas and festive season where ever you may be. I hope that you enjoy your holidays and get a chance to connect with you're fanilly and loved ones. Who knows where i'll be but for sure it will be some where in Africa, just as i'd hoped.

Much love to one and all.

Ed

Down by the Sea Side

After my first month of cycling across France and then the Camino to Santiago I decided to rest up in Vigo at Pablo´s house. I had only had 2 days off from cycling untill then and it was great just to hang out in one place and meet a whole bunch of sound folk and be spoilt by Pablo´s kind Galician hosptilaity so a massive thankyou to you for everything P.

It was great to play a bit of capoeira again and meet up with a small but perfectly formed crew of Angoleiros there and mess around doing our thing.

The Galician coast is a beautiful rugged coast line with little islands and gorgeous bays and there were plenty of beautiful sunsets across the Atalntic. Infact it seems that we are having an unusualy hot hot autumn and every where i go people tell me that the weather patterns have completely changed over the last few years..... climatre change is happening for sure!

I do also need to big up a fantastic little bar in Vigo called the Charlatana bar run by a great English woman called Fleur who has spent many years wondering the globe but now settled down here to run the bar and be the hostess with the mostess. We spent many a happy evening drinking in her place and felt very welcomed by the vibe there.

Leaving Vigo i decided to take the coastal route and have now spent the last couple of days on the coast road heading south. Its so good to be by the sea again and have little time lounging on a beach. I took a little ferry boat across the river at the border with Portugal and entered only my third country of the journey but with a whole new language and different way of being. It´s good to be speaking portuguese again although all my languages are now mixed up into a strange melange of Spanish, Portuguese and French but poeple seem to understand some of what i ramble on about.

After a couple of days i´ve made it to Porto which is a beautiful city on the Beach at the inlet of the River Douro. It reminds me so much of Brazil but I guess it is really the other way round that Brazil very much takes after Portugal. I bet this place kicks off in the weekend but I´m not hanging around to find out but going to follow the river east heading inland into rural Poirtugal and slowly back towards Spain.

Oh yes and most importantly i gave my bike a make over in Vigo. As much as i loved the pink plastic flowers i had been given on my departure from Lex and Daisy it was time for a new look. The comments of ´les belle fleur´ or ... ´the women in my country have baskets like that´ will be no more. My beautiful, and i must say incredibly reliable, Thorn Sherpa now proudly sports the red gold and green of Africa!