The next morning we skipped hiking and went straight into the village to try to get a car back to Pita. We had to wait for several hours, but a car did finally come, and we were able to get to Pita, and from there to take another car to Dalaba.
In Dalaba we found a nice, cheap hotel to stay at - $2 a night per person. There were some European tourists staying there, the first other toubabs we had seen on our trip, so we had a nice time talking with them. Then we biked into town to find dinner. We had roasted corn on the cob – a treat, since it won't be in season in Senegal until September or so – and we also found a woman selling beans, but they weren't as good as the ones in Mali.
By the time we had finished dinner it was already dark, and we still had to bike back across town to our hotel. Of course there were no streetlights, and we hadn't thought to bring flashlights since it was daylight when we left. There was, however, a storm approaching, so there were occasional flashes of lightning to light our way. And my friend Sira apparently can see in the dark, because she zoomed off at full speed back toward the hotel, while I came along slowly behind her, afraid of falling into a hole or making a wrong turn in the pitch dark. So of course we got separated, and with my bad sense of direction, I missed a turn, which I realized when the paved road turned into dirt again. So I spent about an hour wandering through the town in the dark, occasionally stopping and asking people which direction the hotel was in. I wasn't too worried though – I knew I would either make it there eventually, or (probably if it started pouring) I would find somewhere else to spend the night. But eventually I made it back to the hotel, where Sira was amazed to learn that I don't have x-ray laser night vision like she does.
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