We spent our last couple days in the Casamance on the Ile de Carabane. Looking at these pictures, you can pretty much gather what our experience was like. Quiet and relaxing. There is not a lot to do there, which was just fine with us. We wandererd around the island (it’s located in the Casamance River a few miles before it reaches the Atlantic Ocean), made a sand castle on the beach, made conversation, ate good food.

This abandoned church served the French and Portugeuse colonists way back when.

Our hotel, the Hotel Carabane. We were the only guests there on our first night (we arrived by pirogue under the moonlight — fabulous).

One of the hotel’s pirogues.

We contracted with a guy named Issa (in the back of the pirogue) to take us to a small island where there were supposedly many birds.

We didn’t’ see that many. But that didn’t seem to matter, as the boat ride through the quiet mangroves was serene.

Issa surprised us and broke out the fishing rods. We fished for about an hour. All I caught was one catfish (which we threw back in). Abraham, however, caught these two fish (with a little help from Issa). We gave them to Issa’s family for dinner.

I got to pull up the anchor.

Sunset on our way back to the hotel as our trip to the Casamance and Guinea Bissau winds to a close.

This will be my last posting in Senegal. This Sunday, three days from now, we leave Dakar after having spent three months here. Abraham has gathered a lot of information during his stay here, and his task now is to make sense of it all.

Senegal has been an amazing experience. I’m very grateful for having had the chance to experience life in West Africa, to meet some amazing people, to see some spectacular places. I’m also happy that I could share this with Abraham, an experience we will always remember. Finally, I’m glad I found a way to share the experience with family, friends and anyone else who happened upon this blog. I hope this blog has given you at least a glimpse of a part of the world you may not have known much about.

Our travels, however, are not quite over. This Sunday we fly to Togo, and will spend 3 1/2 weeks in Ghana, Togo and Benin. It will give us a chance to see a different part of West Africa and to get a broader view of the region. Abraham is part Ghanaian and has family in Ghana that he has not seen in many years, so it will be a very important trip for him. Ghana is supposed to be the “friendliest” country in W. Africa — I guess we’ll have to see for ourselves.

I may not be able to post pictures while I am over there, but I will try to keep you updated on this site. We return to the U.S. on January 17, and at that time I should be able to share the pics.