Day 2 - Welcome to RIU Baobab

October 22, 2023

Day 2:

We sleep until 9 a.m., have breakfast at the huge buffet in the main restaurant and then look for a place at the activity pool.

The hotel is huge! We already knew this from reviews and pictures, but when you walk around the facility yourself, you realize how huge it is.

We would have liked to stay in the "Club Aldiana", which was based here for many decades just 3 km north, but unfortunately closed its doors forever a few years ago and can now not escape "deterioration". A pity. That would have had a little more African "flair" and my husband basically spent his childhood there - every weekend for 4 years.

The night was okay, I actually slept well, except for the booming bass tonight, which didn't bother anyone except me. Today there's water aerobics (the daughter is trying it out), water polo (the husband is joining in) and I'm going to the water park with my son, where he's testing out a slide.

The good thing here: there are no people occupying loungers!!!

There are tons of loungers available at all pools at any time of day.

On the beach anyway, it's so huge, there are loads of loungers. Even at lunchtime in the front row of the beach! Where can you find something like that??? That is really cool!

However, the stand is not pretty at first glance. Although an employee does his best to pull and collect all the plastic waste from the water, the beach remains dirty and is full of smelly brown algae, which is also spread like a carpet in the water for the first few meters.

Ok, nobody can do anything about that - just nature. Algae come and go (hopefully), but I'm puny...

You can't look at the bottom, I'm now used to the crystal clear water of Curacao from my summer vacation...

No, I don't have to go swimming here...

By the way, the sea has a water temperature of almost 30 degrees...

When we get back to the pool I'm sweating wet. It's terribly hot, so off to the pool.

It should be a little cooler - the temperature should be similar to the sea 🥵🫣😅

Lunch is in the main restaurant, as the snack bar only serves fast food (and not really anything vegetarian).

In the afternoon we drink (iced) coffee and play bingo (unsuccessfully). The prize is a bottle of champagne - we can drink champagne at the bar. 😂Also, the winner has to dance. Good thing I didn't have bingo. hehe. 😂

The shell necklace for the runner-up would have been nice though...

In the late afternoon we sit on a lounger on the beach right by the sea. There is a wind blowing, you can endure it here. Tomorrow we're going to Dakar.

This morning we booked the trip for tomorrow through a local guide called “Manifique”. It can be found at the local market to the left of the hotel beach, where many local families sell their souvenirs or offer tour guide services.

Security guards patrol the hotel beach itself so that the all-inclusive guests are not “disturbed”.

Some local women with colorful clothes and goods on their heads walk along the beach to the market. Everyone is nice and polite, greeting us and inviting us to the market.

In any case, we don't feel unsafe here on the hotel beach.

After showering in the evening, we go to the Italian restaurant. It's nice to sit, but that's about it. Food wasn't a big hit. Hardly any veggie items and what was empty remained empty. We then went next door to the buffet restaurant for dessert (especially the delicious chocolate fountain).

Let's see how the Japanese will do on Tuesday. For me, he will definitely end up in the buffet restaurant - as a "non-fish eater" 😂

On the show stage we played a "Musical Kahoot", an interactive quiz where you dial in using a code on your cell phone/tablet and then answer questions. It's very funny. However, I'm too slow and end up only 13th out of 35, even though I knew everything. Well, here too there was a bottle of champagne as a prize and you could also dance 🤣🙈😅

The evening show (Senegalese drum show) is loud but well done.

With a “Goodnight” Cuba Libre we go to bed at 10 p.m. after the show. The alarm goes off at 6:15 tomorrow morning... then we're off to Dakar!

Childhood memories await...