Mbour Centre

Central Mbour is two institutions three hundred metres apart: the fish landing and the market. The landing wakes up around three, when the first pirogues come through the surf; by five there are two hundred boats on the sand, men in the water carrying crates of sardinella and grouper, women buyers purchasing by the heap, and refrigerated lorries leaving for Dakar before dark. It is loud, wet, in no way arranged for visitors, and it is the best show on the Petite Côte.

The central market never stops: vegetables, mangoes in season, hibiscus, dried okra, smoked fish from the Tefess smokehouses, fabric, cobblers, hardware. Around it the bus station sends shared cars to Dakar, Kaolack and Joal all day, and the whole makes a dense town centre where you look right twice before crossing.

The quarter is residential and commercial rather than seaside: the beach lies to the south, wide and barely built up, ten minutes away on foot. Prices — lodging, meals, taxis — are those of an ordinary Senegalese town, meaning half of Saly's, six kilometres up the road.

What you gain by sleeping here: the bank, the duty pharmacy, the mechanic, a market every day, and daily contact with people who do not live off tourism. What you give up: quiet, and a sea view.

Two things you notice before anything else. First the smell: the smokehouses in the fishing quarters dry and smoke fish all day, and when the wind comes off the sea it carries a kilometre — you get used to it in two days, but you want to know before booking a room on the quay side. Then the noise: the bus station starts sounding its horns at six. In exchange you are ten minutes on foot from one of the biggest markets on the coast, and twenty from a wide, empty beach.