Camp fires and oysters
The Siné-Salum is a vast saltwater fossil river in West Africa, so vast that it can be navigated by boats. And we sailed on it with two other boats, mainly, and a 3rd one a little way. We all like camp fires.
With the three boats, we organized a barbecue at midday on the beach with a Senegalese called Ambroise, who collected oysters for us that grow on the roots of mangrove trees. Or rather, he cut off the whole roots! Then we put them on the fire, and we ate the grilled oysters directly out of their shells. A real treat!
All mangroves have oysters on the roots 
You pile the roots with the oysters on top of your wood pile 
Ambroise showed us how to grill the oysters 
Our anchorage and our dinghies on the beach 
Daddy checking 
You wait for 10 minutes, then the oysters are grilled 
You take a knife to open the oysters and then you eat them just like that 
Or you squeeze a little bit of lemon on them, but that’s not necessary 
The sunset behind our campfire
Hyenas’ eyes
Another evening, we anchored in front of a mini beach close to a poor village. We’d heard that we could see hyenas, so we went ashore with the dinghy and made our first camp fire in Africa. A little after dark, the fire was not very stong anymore. That’s when we heard hyenas laughing, and when we shone a flashlight, we could see their eyes shining in the night. I thought it was cooooooooool! My mum a little less so… it seems she doesn’t like hyenas. So we packed up and went back to the boat.
The next morning, the other two boats joined us and we told them what we’d seen, so it was off for another camp fire. However, this one came to nothing, no doubt due to the wind direction coming from somewhere other than the day before. But in the end, with or without hyenas, we had a great evening together.
The little gap in the mangroves alowed us to get on shore 
Where we came with the dinghy 
Behind the mangroves, a vast plain of salty, dry mud 
Where are the hyenas? 
We went to find wood, me on a Baobab tree 
And we used dry grass and cow dung to light the fire 
Magestic Baobabs 
We had a really nice evening 
And Illika was very beautiful in this setting 
The second evening was with our friends
Great report Oliver, well done.
More please!!
XX
I’ll try to do more…
Brilliant Oliver! What were the oysters like?
If you catch a hyena, do you know how to eat it?…
… From the inside after they have eaten you!
…or, one put’s it on a board, take a knife, chop the hyena into pieces, then eat it raw with some barbecue sauce.