Journey Impressions: Dakar

Dakar: Population approx. 2.65 million (2013)
Senegal: Population approx. 14.06 million
Population growth (2010-2015): 2,9%
People per km²: 74
Gross national income per person in 2014: 1,050 USD


12 January 2018, Dakar:

After landing on the different airfield in Dakar, we were happy to get to Hotel Terrou-bi after 45 minutes in a taxi. We also managed to get reception to give Kurt and me a room on the same corridor. It was of course well into the night and we were only able to see the lit-up pools. But we were much more interested in going to bed and catching up on some sleep. The next morning after breakfast, the world looked wonderful. We thought about taking a dip in the pool a few times but decided to treat ourselves to a cappuccino instead.

Then we passed by the hotel’s mirrored walls and discovered that we could in fact clone the crew! The question is however, how do we clone the plane? 

Kurt and his love of animals meant that he had a four-legged animal in his camera lens. The geckos were bolting up and down the palm trees here. But we weren’t there just for fun, but had to start thinking about the flight plan and further preparations for Brazil. Detailed phone calls with Mr Müller and other people were required to look meticulously into why cylinder head 2 was showing excess temperature levels. In the end, Mr Müller’s tip was that Kurt and I should return to the airfield the next day to have the problem investigated on site. Once we’d clarified these issues to our satisfaction, we organised a taxi and driver with the staff at the reception. We wanted this driver to speak very good English. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case and I was pleased that Kurt’s French was enough to make a bit of conversation now and again. The driver made a somewhat taciturn impression on me as he drove us through Dakar. But we did manage to see a few things. One of them was the fish market, not far from the hotel. Kurt was a little disillusioned when he saw it, because fresh fish in Dakar isn’t what you’d expect at home, it was slightly smoked from the burning sun.

The taxi drove through the city to bustling neighbourhoods and we repeatedly saw the little urban buses. The visit to a cultural centre proved to be a minor disaster. It was more of a scrapyard, but we did manage to see a painting of Obama after he had left office.

At midday on 14 January 2018, one of our handling agents called Momar met us at reception. He was a very smart young man from the aviation industry and said he would take us two pilots to the airfield with a driver, so that we could make a thorough check on Marie a day before flying to Brazil. We were easily able to pass through the barriers at the airfield - passport control etc. – and were suddenly at Marie’s side.

We opened one side of the engine cover and looked at cylinder 2 and its temperature sensor. As Mr Müller thought, there were no defects and it had to be a malfunction by the sensor. We also took this opportunity to check oil consumption, which at two litres was actually rather on the low side for the whole leg from Gran Canaria. Once we’d filled the plane up with oil, we asked the tower if we could test the plane out and taxied around the parking area. We wanted to check the sensors and the way Marie’s engine was running. We also wanted to see whether Marie struggled when taxiing with almost 500 litres in the passenger area at the back. We completed these tests successfully and also entered the flight plan to Natal into the Garmin 1000. 

We thanked the tower, finished what we were doing and handling agent Momar drove us back to the main building and after a three-hour drive through Dakar, we were back in the hotel. Now we wanted to have something to eat and retire to bed as early as possible. We were going to be picked up on the morning of 15 January by our handling agent at 5 a.m.

Bye for now.