Goree Island

The main tourist spot in Dakar is Goree Island. This island was the main port for exporting slaves in the 1800's. Slaves were brought here and held until they could be loaded onto ships headed for England, the U.S. and other countries. The slaves were kept in very crowded conditions, and family members were separated from each other according to age and sex.
Today the island is beautiful, clean, and well-kept. There are pretty flowers and plants. It is a place that the native Senegalese like to come on weekends or holidays.

Following are photos of the port of Dakar and the ferry that took us to the island.

The following two photos are the views as we approached Goree Island.

Next is a photo of one of the very friendly women on the ferry. She welcomed us to Senegal and to Goree Island, and she wanted to make sure that she knew our names and that we knew her name. Later we found out why so many of the women were friendly to us----they wanted us to spend money at their shops on Goree! They would call out to us as we passed their shops and say, "Remember me! Come and shop!" Later one of the locals told us that no Senegalese person is friendly without an ulterior motive!

Following are some of the pretty scenes on the island.

The next photo is a row of baobab trees. These must be younger trees than the ones in earlier photos, as they have much smaller trunks.

Jane, Ron, Tidiane, Sharron

This woman is washing clothes. (There are about 1000 people who live on the island.)

This little girl liked having her photo made.

We ate lunch at the following outdoor restaurant. It was a very popular spot.

This man cooked the meat outside on a grill. We had fish that was really good.



These are pictures of the slave house.

This is the entrance to the room for the infants.

There is a narrow hallway with a door from which the slaves left on the ships. It is called "the door of no return".

While we were at Goree we passed by a Catholic wedding. We had to step to the door to get a photo!

These two Muslim girls were waiting outside. They could not go into the Catholic ceremony. We understood that they had been hired for the reception. They have on interesting hats!

The following is a video of the singing at the wedding.