After another wonderful breakfast at Jamm I set out for an early morning walk to the Tourist Office where I was to meet my guide for the day's trip to the national park Djoudj. It was Senegal pedestrian rush hour with people walking to work and many schoolchildren of all ages walking to school. About a block away from Jamm was the closest thing to Starbucks I was to find in Saint-Louis; a sort of battered red metal cart with a large Nescafe sign on the corner. As I had already had what I am sure was superior coffee and had a long day ahead of me with what I anticipated to be few "rest stops" I passed on the walk-through coffee stand. When I arrived at the tourist office my private English speaking guide was there. There was also another couple from France who were going to do the same trip with a French guide. It occurred to me that if we all went together, we would all save money, so I decided to forego the English guide and hope for the best in French. I got some of my money refunded and then we all got into a small van.

The first hour or so of the drive was on the main road north out of Saint Louis which was a decent two lane road. Then we turned off onto the road to the national park which was a dirt road. The landscape was arid, and there wasn't much to see. About 15 minutes down the dirt road we came upon a river and suddenly the scenery changed. It was green around the river and there were birds flying in the brush and the reeds. We made one quick stop (nothing really there) and I used it as a photo-op and then we continued onto the place to board the boats at the lake. We passed some pumbaas (remember The Lion King) or warthogs. Pumbaa is not an African word for anything, but the guide called then There was a family of about 5 next to the road. A short distance after we parked. There were a number of vans and tourist vehicles and a fair number of other tourists. There was a dock and people were lined up to get into wooden motorboats. Our little group of three with our guide ended up in a boat of Polish tourists with a loud Polish speaking guide. I was sitting next to a 14 year old boy who spoke very little English, but we did communicate to establish that he was Polish. Many of the people smoked and it struck me as a group how poor their dental hygiene was. I haven't seen that traveling for a long time.

Djoudj is the third largest ornitholoigcal or bird sanctuary in the world. It is a wetland of 16,000 ha, comprising a large lake surrounded by streams, ponds and backwaters. It forms a living but fragile sanctuary for some 1.5 million birds, such as the white pelican, the purple heron, the African spoonbill, the great egret and the cormorant.It is located in the delta of the Senegal River, near Senegal's border with Mauritania. The park supports 3 million waterfowl, and is one of the main West African sanctuaries for Palaearctic migrants. It is one of the first fresh water sources they reach after crossing 200 km of the Sahara. From September to April, an estimated 3 million migrants pass through, including garganey, shoveler, ruff, pintail and black-tailed godwit. Thousands of flamingo nest there regularly as well as 5,000 white pelican, white-faced tree duck, fulvus tree duck, spur-winged goose, purple heron, night heron, various egrets, spoonbill, African darter, common cormorant and Sudan bustard. Mammals include warthog and West African manatee, and several species of crocodile and gazelle have been successfully reintroduced into the area.

Our boat set out on the lake. Initially there were just a few birds flying around, but then we came to the most amazing site with hundreds of large pelicans swimming and flying all around us. The boat ride was about an hour and a half. Most of the birds were pelicans, but there were quite a few others - herons, egrets, and cormorans to name a few. Out in the lake was a large rock island covered with pelicans, a most amazing sight. I found the experience awesome. It was a great change to be out appreciating the beauty of nature, and the sight of all of these birds was spectacular.

We came back to shore and disembarked. Just next to the dock by the side of the road was a large snale coiled up under a bush. We got sort of a close look and then climbed back into the van for the ride back. We stopped about ten minutes later at a small fisherman's cabin and our guide chatted with the fishermen. Then back into the van and a short while later we stopped at a hotel ( I it was the hotel for the park). The other couple got out there to meet some friends; I continued on with the guide back to Saint-Louis.

I went back to Jamm to refresh and then set out to find some lunch. A man approached me, told me he was a guide. I told him I was hungry, so he walked me up the street a couple of blocks and showed me a restaurant to go to. It was small, with brightly painted murals on the walls. I had a fish and rice dish which was tasty and then I set out to walk around. Amazingly, the same "guide" appeared. I asked him he would give me a walking tour of Saint-Louis. I thought a formal walk around the town would be a good way to learn about what I had been looking at. We set out and walked north on the island, the direction I had not walked the day before and saw the Art Center and the Great Mosque. We then headed back. He seemed very interested in how the architecture fit in with the history and pointed out how you could tell by looking at the style of windows whether the building was a French or Portugese colonial building. I thought that was interesting, but once he shared that information with me, then he decided to make that the key focus of the tour - looking at the windows and determining if the building was French or Portugese. Finally I had to tell him, using my best French that I understood about the windows and could we talk about something else. So we did get back into the history of Saint Louis.

"Founded as a French colonial settlement in the 17th century, Saint-Louis was urbanised in the mid-19th century. It was the capital of Senegal from 1872 to 1957 and played an important cultural and economic role in the whole of West Africa. The location of the town on an island at the mouth of the Senegal River, its regular town plan, the system of quays, and the characteristic colonial architecture give Saint-Louis its distinctive appearance and identity.

As the first French chartered company on the Atlantic coast of African in 1659, the Island of Saint-Louis became the hub for European traders travelling up the river year round in search of slaves but also gum arabic, gold, leather and other products. From 1854 to 1865 Saint-Louis was urbanized. It was nominated the capital of Senegal in 1872 and reached its apogee in 1895 when it was nominated the capital of West Africa.In this period Saint-Louis became the leading urban centre in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as the centre for the diffusion of cultural and artistic activities. The first museum of the industry, ethnography, and history of West Africa was opened in Saint-Louis on 15 March 1864. In this period the schools and other public institutions and services, as well as the first Senegalese military battalion, and a Muslim court of justice, were established. The little oceanic city was the political capital of the colony and French West Africa (FWA) up until 1902, and capital of Senegal and Mauritania up until 1957, before falling into decline due to the transfer of the capital to Dakar.

The historic city of Saint-Louis exercised considerable influence in the parts of Africa under French dominion, and even further afield, in terms of architecture and also as regards education, culture, craftsmanship and services. In this respect, it was the first laboratory of this new, different society comprising a cultural mix and hybridisation, a crucible of development and diffusion of cultural syntheses and a call for citizenship for all of FWA, thus contributing to the birth of a new humanism."

As we neared the end of the two hour walk, we passed the hospital. I asked him if we could go in, and we did. We found our way to the pediatric unit. He found a nurse to answer some questions. It was about 5 PM and all of the doctors had left for the day. There were about six different rooms for pediatrics. The first one we went into had no patients; the nurse said that was good because that was the room for malnutrition. The other rooms were either for infections or divided by age groups. Each room had about 8-10 beds. Parents were in the room and, often on the beds, with the children. Other parents were praying on prayer mats in the hall. I saw only one child with an IV line who was receiving a blood transfusion. I was able to speak with one boy about 10 year old and his mother. He told me had bad pain in the region of his hip and was in and out of the hospital. Per his mother, in when they had money, out when they did not. He told me he had a lot of pain and did get medicine to help make it go away. I could not determine what was wrong with him. When I asked the nurse what some of the diagnoses were for the children in the hospital, she could not tell me and said I would have to ask a doctor. So that was the hospital visit.

The tour ended, back to Jamm for a rest, 8 PM aperitifs, and a lovely dinner there.