Adventures with Angela: Lompoul Desert

Monday was a complete splurge and the most expensive part of the trip: On the recommendation of a colleague, I found a tour company that would take us to Lac Rose, AKA Pink Lake or Lake Retba, and then to the Lompoul Desert where we had a tent reserved for the night! The reason why it was so expensive was because instead of driving on the inland roads from Lac Rose to Lompoul, we drove along the beach, just out of the water.

We had to hang around Lac Rose until about 3:30pm to wait for the tide to go down enough for us to be able to drive along the coast. Leaving Lac Rose, we went directly to the coast and started driving on the beach. The part we were driving up was pretty deserted, mostly because of the time of day and of how hot it was. Our driver Moustapha told us that it would be a lot more crowded in about 2 hours when the temperature went down and people got finished with work. That part of the coast had the perfect, multi-layered surf that you see in the movies, so it was a beautiful drive just watching the surf. Apparently driving up the beach is very strategic because you can’t drive on the deep, dry sand because it’s just too hard, but you can’t drive on too wet of sand, so the perfect spot is where the high tide was recently. Moustapha said it was like driving in the snow and we were constantly dodging the incoming surf, staying just outside the water’s reach. At one point we almost tipped over because he tried to avoid the surf and an eagle at the same time, losing control and sliding, which was very exciting. He apologized for scaring us, but we told him that both Angela and I have ridden in cars driven by our brothers, so it was no big deal, ha ha!

Eventually we got to one of the major fishing villages on the coast, which forced us to get out and walk because there were people and boats everywhere, so a car can’t get through. Moustapha told us to get out to walk and that he’d meet us on the other side of the fishing village. It was very crowded and there were a ton of huge, colorful pirogues for fishing. We met Moustapha on the other side and kept going up the beach, until he stopped and said something was wrong with the car. We found out that the cable for the accelerator had snapped. We told Moustapha we didn’t mind just walking up the mostly empty beach while he made the repairs, so Angela and I continued on foot, enjoying walking in the sunshine watching the surf. It only took him about 30 minutes to fix the cable and then he picked us up to continue our journey up the beach. Another 30 minutes or so later we got to a spot where it wasn’t passable with the car because the tide hadn’t gone down enough. We left the beach and continued up to Lompoul on normal roads, but we had thoroughly enjoyed our trip up the beach.

Right as we were pulling into the Lompoul Village, which is the village near the Lompoul Desert, I got a call from the Ecolodge asking where we were and what time we’d be there. Excellent timing! The Ecolodge truck that would be used to transport us out to the desert was already there waiting for us, so we thanked Moustapha and climbed into the back of the pickup. The Lompoul Desert resembles the Sahara, with its orange sand dunes, except that it’s only 18 square kilometers. When we arrived, they showed us to our beautiful tent modeled after the tents used by the nomadic people of the desert, and told us dinner festivities started at 8pm. We decided to change into warmer clothes because we knew the temperature usually drops at night in the desert, but it was about 7pm at that time and I didn’t want to miss the sunset, so we rushed out to climb up the hill and watch the sun go down.

I had heard that the sunset amongst the dunes was amazing. Unfortunately it was pretty hazy, so it wasn’t actually very good. Once it went down, we decided to try our hand at sand sledding before the last of the light disappeared. It’s a lot harder than it seems! We tried a couple of times, but the problem is that every time you sled down, you have to climb back up the sand dunes, which is really tiring! It was getting pretty dark at that point, so we decided to try again in the morning. We also planned to go on a camel ride through the dunes in the morning, so I was looking forward to the next day.

We climbed up the dunes to where the meals are served, took a seat around the mat where the musicians perform, and ordered a glass of wine. We knew that dinner was pretty far off, since it’s supposed to start at 8pm and it was almost 8… that’s African time! But the music started and the other guests started to gather, so we enjoyed the ambiance. Then the dancers came out, trying to get people up and dancing. There was a very enthusiastic older French gentleman who started things off, then of course Angela and I joined them, along with, eventually, many of the other guests.

We did some dances where people went in and out of the middle doing solo dances, and some group dancing. Towards the end we did some more dance-off types, and Angela got into a dance-off with the older French gentleman, and then with the resident African dancer. She held her own and everyone was very impressed. I tried to use some of the Bèlè dancing I’d learned in Martinique, but it was very hard because they had put a woven mat down on top of the sand, which made it extremely hard to do that type of dancing. A good, but generic, dinner followed the dancing, and then we went to bed because I wasn’t feeling well and didn’t want to get sicker by staying up outside in the cold (even though it would have been nice to participate in the after-dinner campfire).

The next morning we got up and had breakfast before trying our hand again at sand sledding. We realized that we needed to go to the really high, steep part of the sand dunes to get going at all! We also figured out that we needed to lean back so that the front of the wooden sled didn’t go into the sand. We felt we were fairly successful, although it was nothing compared to how fast the little kids got going… I think their light weight helped them out a lot. We wanted to go on our camel ride, but they had been taken out by another group, so we lounged in the hammocks until they got back.

I’m so glad that we went on a camel ride here because I was pretty disappointed with my camel ride experience at Lac Rose on my birthday. The camel there weren’t treated super well, but the Lompoul camels were a different story. Angela and I were the only two on this ride, so I was able to ask questions our guide questions about them. Apparently these camels are bought young, and trained to be ridden by the people here in Lompoul by the age of 7 years old. They are kept for most of their life, giving rides to tourists a few times a day and generally hanging out in the shade of the trees. They were well trained (no kicking or hitting like at Lac Rose), in good health, and looked generally happy. Our short ride through the sand dunes was very cool and I’m glad we did it!

After our camel ride, we just hung out in the hammocks in the shade until lunch time, enjoying being on vacation! We had lunch, said goodbye to the desert, and headed to our next destination: Saint Louis! That’s the subject of my next blog post J