Varela has two large, sweeping beaches separated by some cliffs. The beach stretching south from town is where the fishing activity is and where we saw more people (but still not that many!). These boys were curious about our presence. The loved looking at their pictures on our digital camera screen.

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Abraham and I just got back from St Louis last night, and absolutely loved the place. It’s located on a small, 2 kilometer-long island in the Senegal River between Senegal’s mainland and a peninsula. It was the original capital of French West Africa, and the first capital of Senegal and Mauritania. After 1956, however, it lost those distinctions and went into slow decline. As a result, it’s original, colonial architecture has been preserved.
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St Louis is very close to Senegal’s border with Mauritania. One afternoon we rode our rented bikes to where we judged the border to be. Locals pointed us in the right direction and confirmed that this was the actual border. As this was not an official crossing, you would never know it was the border between two nations.
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