Places on the fringe have always attracted me. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't pass on a high rise hotel over looking a squeaky clean beach at Waikiki! It's just that, there's something about the places on the fringe that exhilarate me; there's an edginess to the Mexico Cities, the Kievs, the Jakartas, and the Jeddahs. I'm enthralled with the places that instill in me a very real sense that I may not make it out of this place tomorrow.And don't get me wrong, this perspective has nothing to do with adventure in the conventional, Men's Journal sense. When I travel, I'm not looking to ride Elephants or Skydive, Zip-line or Jet Ski. But I don't mind eating bugs, drinking home made liquor in the home where it's made, or following a vague invitation down a dark alley. I get a thrill from suddenly realizing that I'm sitting in some halogen lit kitchen with people I barely know shooting that home-made liquor or drinking there crazy-ass Tea that gives you a high to make up for there being no liquor in the country and eating sausage made from the intestines you helped clean the shit from that morning. I like the smell of rotting fish on a port so crowded with merchants that it's impossible not to think of humanity as swarms of insects. I get a sense of satisfaction from seeing a herd of bulls meandering along an otherwise empty beach, crashing with surf that is rough and cold and teeming with Great Whites. The small island of St. Louis, lumbering in the cold and tumultuous Atlantic, a stones throw from the coast of Senegal, provided the edginess I was looking for. As an old French outpost and trading port, St. Louis has the look and feel of a forgotten pirate town. Colonial buildings complete with petite balconies flanked by dilapidated storm shutters line the streets of the city center. St. Louis is a moped town, and its small size makes this mode of transportation ideal. In a matter of minutes one can buzz through the swarms in the city center, across the backwater and out along the corniche, where Palm frawn-thatched shacks speckle the dunes overlooking the ferocious breakers.
St. Louis is a bizarre confluence of West African and French cultures. In the space of an hour, I was able to enjoy good coffee and Croissants slathered with butter and jam and also pick through LPs in an old shop dedicated to West African giants like Omar Penne and the Mauritanian, Baaba Maal. A procession of broken down vehicles passes stately colonial buildings pocked and faded by the sea air.
There's something about former colonies that reminds me of the tenacity of culture and how deeply traditions run. No matter how a place has been shaped by colonists, the marrow of the place is always there--on the edges, in the spices of the food, and, most importantly, in the people themselves. And it lives on no matter who claims power to hold power over its home.
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