TRAVELING IN STYLE : EXCELLENT ADVENTURES : A Different Side of Africa : In sunny Senegal, Parisian bakeries and seaside mosques are only a few of the surprises

You have just landed at Yof International Airport near Dakar, the capital of Senegal. You descend onto the tarmac beneath an oddly cinnamon-colored sky (a sign, you’ll later learn, of recent sandstorms in the desert). Eager to escape the soft, sad smell of airline catering, which you have endured for hours, you inhale deeply. And so it is that you first meet Africa as much through your nose as your eyes. Even as the thick, warm air softens your tense, winter-induced posture (Senegal in the summer would be a very bad idea), the smell of a new continent shocks you with a pungent punch of earth, animal, sea and sweat.

Walking toward the airport’s only terminal--a rather menacing cement structure that looks Eastern European Socialist in inspiration (and weirdly so in this tropical setting)--your feeling is, above all, one of intense anticipation. You really have no idea of what to expect.

Now you brace yourself and step inside. Passport control is your first exposure to the indigenous bureaucracy--which is to say, your first experience of Senegalese mayhem. Hordes of people have gotten there before you and are pushing and shouting in the heat under the cobwebbed fans that hang motionless overhead. When you finally reach the passport inspector, he barks at you in French. Even if you have a fair command of that language, it’s likely that your jet-lagged ears will panic, and you will not understand. But ask him to repeat himself--or, if you don’t speak French, tell him that you don’t. Chances are he’ll speak at least enough English to ask you what he needs to know: the purpose of your visit to Senegal.

What you’ll say is “tourism”--and what that means, you’ll soon find out, is something quite extraordinary. Senegal is culturally varied, unexpectedly stylish, full of vivid charms and challenges. Though not the stereotypical Africa of safaris and dense jungles, it is in a sense definitively African--and is perhaps the perfect place to begin a personal exploration of that continent.

LEOPOLD SEDAR SENGHOR, AFRICA’S MOST famous poet and the first president of modern Senegal, called it the “California of Africa”--and indeed it is a vacationer’s paradise, famous for its broad and mostly empty beaches, sunny skies, inexpensive hotels and surprisingly good and varied food. It is also, though, a dynamic contemporary African nation in which the Middle East and the European West blend with ancient indigenous tribal traditions, at least sometimes with great success. And it is a country with special, tragic resonance for Americans: For several hundred years, under the British, French and Dutch, it was the capital of the West African slave trade, the way station through which slaves bound for the Western Hemisphere, Senegalese and otherwise, would pass. More North Americans can probably trace their roots to Senegal than to Holland.

Senegal has been shaped by two cultural influences above all--Islam and France--and you encounter vivid reminders of them both as your taxi or hotel van carries you into Dakar from the airport: There seem to be mosques on nearly every dusty street, and every five or six blocks there is a blue metal cabin selling government-subsidized baguettes--the long French bread loaves that are the staple of the city’s diet. Small, pretty suburbs are full of tree-lined avenues and white-painted Art Deco buildings that could confuse you into thinking that you’re somewhere on the Cote d’Azur. A billboard advertising a popular locally made perfume shows an attractive, well-dressed black couple standing on the Place de la Concorde in Paris, with a tag line in French underneath: “An evening to remember forever.” Another billboard features a rather shaky rendering of a 747 jet, on which all the text is in Arabic except for the name of the airline and one of its destinations, the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah. Almoravides, a confederation of Berber tribes from Morocco, converted the region to Islam in the 11th century, and an estimated 90% of the population is Muslim today. The French first occupied part of Senegal in the 17th Century, consolidating their power in the 19th, and Dakar remained the administrative center of French West Africa until Senegal won its independence in 1959. Although the vast majority of Senegalese belong to the Wolof, Fulani and Serer groups, ancient peoples with a rich, if often tragic, history, and although their attitude toward the French today is ambivalent, French remains the official language here.

Along the roadside, you’ll see ample human evidence, as well, of what a complicated, cosmopolitan city this is. An old man wearing long blue robes, a white embroidered prayer cap and pointed leather prayer slippers waits for one of Dakar’s jitneys--brightly colored little buses with headlights often painted to look like eyes. On one side of the man is a woman wearing a short, tight dress in shiny raspberry. On the other side is another woman, whose bold yellow, orange and green turban matches her long, loose dress. Nearby, a young man in a business suit and reflective sun glasses reads a newspaper, and a flock of children in French-style school uniforms swing their book bags, emblazoned with Disney characters, at one another. Everywhere there are peddlers--Dakar is a city of peddlers--usually selling peanuts, Senegal’s most important crop, but also calendars, matches, newspapers and fruit.

Dakar’s population grew from 80,000 to 300,000 between 1945 and 1960. It more than doubled again by 1974 and reached a million by 1979. Today, it is roughly a million and a half. The heart of the city, the Place de L’Independance, is a large square encircled with high-rise buildings from the 1960s--symbols of the ambitions and aspirations of the then-newly independent country. Today, most of them look blanched and blasted by the tropical sun and sand. The endless drought affecting this part of Africa has left the central fountain dry. And the square is filled with aggressive shoe-shiners and peddlers, pickpockets--and would-be guides who warn you of the pickpockets, while offering to show you just about anything you might want to see.

The city has two main markets: The Marche Kermel and the Marche Sandaga. At the former, interspersed with stands that sell the staples of the Senegalese diet--fish both fresh and dried, chicken, rice, tomatoes, lemons, carrots, onions, eggplants, peppers of all varieties, peanuts, spices and palm and peanut oil--are booths aimed at the tourist trade. These booths are stocked with machine-turned black-dyed “ebony” masks and salad servers. Enjoy the animation and ambiance here, but shop elsewhere for this country’s best buys--bright local fabrics, local musical instruments and shell and silver jewelry. (The Mauritanian silversmiths’ street, off the Avenue Blaise Diagne, has a good selection of silver. The best shopping streets for fabrics and other items are the avenues Victor Hugo and Georges Pompidou.)

The Marche Sandaga is the more authentic market, not aimed at tourists. Many utilitarian items are sold here, including plastic utensils and cheap modern clothing, but there are also good buys on local silver and more traditional kinds of attire. Remember, though, that the first price quoted by the seller is usually at least two-thirds higher than what he or she will finally accept. (And watch out for pickpockets here; the market is notorious for them.)

Between the two markets is the Avenue George Pompidou, with its very grand-looking Art Deco movie theater, its countless shops, pastry shops, cafes and tea salons and its air of shattered post-colonial gentility. You’ll see another side of Dakar life at the train station, which has an attractive decorative tile facade, and looks as though it might have been shipped intact from some small town in Normandy, circa 1935. (It wasn’t.) Try to be here when a long-haul train comes in and the entire station explodes with activity. Other sites of interest in the downtown area include the Assemblee Nationale, the main government building and a good example of independence-era architecture; the Palais de la Republique, the president’s residence--a handsome villa in a park overlooking the ocean, originally occupied by the governor of French West Africa, and Dakar’s Grande Mosquee. The Dakarois are extremely proud of this mosque, a sprawling stone structure that is one of the largest religious monuments in Africa; it was built in 1964 and dedicated by the King of Morocco.

MY FAVORITE HOTELS IN Dakar are the Savana and the N’Gor et Diarama. The Savana is a big, modern place on the edge of the Atlantic. The rooms are generic--they could as easily be in Denver as in Dakar--but the hotel is fully air-conditioned (which is important here), service is excellent and the place is very clean. The Savana’s major drawback is that although there’s a large, attractive pool, it has only the scrappy little beach on a part of the coastline where the water is of dubious quality. The N’Gor et Diarama, located near the airport, about a 15-minute drive from downtown Dakar, is actually two hotels--the comfortable but slightly run-down N’Gor, which is a high-rise with spectacular views of the sea, and the Diarama, a bungalow-style place that’s reminiscent of a high-grade college dormitory. The two hotels share the same beach--a good one, unlike the Savana’s--and pool.

After you’ve wandered around Dakar for several days, long enough to get a feel for the city, you may well want to take a day off to relax. If you’re staying at the N’Gor et Diarama, you can lounge on the beach happily for hours, bestirring yourself only for a simple lunch. (The hotel restaurant does a particularly good version of one of Senegal’s most popular dishes, chicken yassa--chicken marinated with onions and peppers in lemon juice and oil before being grilled and served with rice.) From here, you can stroll to the almost adjacent seaside village of N’Gor, which is typical of the fishing villages of coastal Senegal, and wander its narrow streets feeling a million miles from your posh hotel.

The food in and around Dakar can be surprisingly good--at its best, a combination of first-rate local raw materials and French (or Lebanese or Vietnamese) technique. One of the city’s most pleasant restaurants is Le Lagon, on the Petite Corniche road almost below the Place de L’Independance. Built out on a pier in the sea, Le Lagon is a great favorite of Dakar’s prosperous Lebanese community. All of the fish and seafood dishes here are excellent--and if you like sea urchins, the waiters here will tell you, truthfully, that they haven’t been out of the water for more than half an hour. The menu otherwise is an appealing mixture of Lebanese and classic French dishes. The wine list includes a very good house Cotes-de-Provence--rose being the right wine choice in Senegal, where the climate and the piquancy of the food discourage a good Bordeaux or Chablis.

Two other good restaurants in town are the dining room at the Hotel Croix du Sud and the Hanoi. The Croix du Sud serves acceptable bistro fare and has a lively clientele--veteran expatriate French, Italians and Lebanese, who seem to come here for an unequivocally European experience. There’s something poignant about this studied re-creation of French life in the tropics.

The Hanoi, on the other hand, is not only an intriguing remnant of the once-vast French empire but also a restaurant where the cooking is so good you’ll wish it were just down the block at home. Occupying a pretty, canopied courtyard in the heart of the city, the Hanoi is a simple but immaculate Vietnamese place serving such delicacies as shrimp beignets , deep-fried spring rolls wrapped in lettuce with fresh mint leaves, pork with black mushrooms and a complex soup of chicken, rice noodles, coriander, mushrooms and shrimp.

A sprightly, elegant, late-60ish native of Hanoi named Madame Mahieux--she married a Senegalese and has lived in Dakar for more than 20 years--owns the place, watching over the dining room with an attentive eye. She confesses that she once considered joining her sister in France, but has stayed in Dakar because she finds it so beautiful. “Oh, you don’t see it so much today,” she admits. “The city has changed enormously. It was much more of a small town when I arrived. But Dakar is a subtle city. You have to walk its streets quietly in the afternoon under the shade trees and look at the architecture and then go sit down in a pastry shop for a while. Then you’ll see its beauty. But it’s also a vital African city. I think you’ll find the future of Africa here.”

DRIVING IN SENEGAL can be quite an experience. Roads are generally very good, and since many of the organized bus tours are quite poor (long drives, mediocre lunches, irritating stops at tourist-trap villages), it is a distinct advantage to have your own transportation to be able to plan your own itinerary. You are, however, likely to encounter situations that will stretch your patience to its limits.

One night, for instance, as a photographer and I were returning to our hotel after dinner in downtown Dakar, a taxi suddenly passed us, slammed to a halt and deposited two policemen in the middle of the road in front of us. They waved us to a stop, and the younger and lower-ranking of the two started raging at us in rapid-fire French. We understood him only well enough to divine that he wanted us to accompany him to the Dakar Central Police Station--not a prospect we found particularly amusing. When he calmed down for a moment, I asked to speak to the elder officer, who had receded into the shadows. He came forward and explained that we’d run a red light. I doubted that we had and asked him which light we had run. Reluctantly, he explained that there had once been a traffic light at the intersection we’d just crossed, and that even if it was no longer there, he was obliged to enforce the law as if it had been. Eventually, he let us go--but I hate to imagine what would have happened if we hadn’t spoken French.

If you remain undaunted, though, and decide to rent a car, the rewards are many. An hour or so before sunset one afternoon, for instance, you might continue past the N’Gor et Diarama to Camberene and Yof, not usual stops on the tourist circuit. Coming off the highway that passes the airport, turn down the access road to Camberene (it’s not clearly marked but it’s before the Muslim cemetery) and head toward the ocean. Camberene is a dusty, dun-colored, modern-style overflow town, and this makes your first sight of its mosque even more striking. In the deepening light at the end of the day, the small marble building glows white at the foot of a huge beach of honey-colored sand, against a backdrop of dusky blue sky. It’s probably one of the most dramatically situated religious monuments in the world, and you will almost certainly want to see it up close. Remove your shoes first, because the entire beach is considered holy ground--and be advised that unless you’re a Muslim you won’t be allowed in the mosque itself. But you can sit on the beach as long as you like. Strong breezes come in off the ocean, and the play of light between ocean and sky illuminates a succession of details on the mosque as the darkness comes. I found this place so beautiful, so peaceful and so different from anything I had ever imagined that I was drawn back several times before I left Dakar.

Yof, just up the beach from the mosque at Camberene--a long but pleasant walk--is equally compelling but for different reasons. Yof is another fishing village, and just before sundown, the waterfront turns electric as the day’s catch comes in. The rough surf just offshore bristles with the brightly painted dugouts from which the fishing is done. The beach is thronged with fishermen in oilskin suits unloading their boats, women packing and hacking up the fish, donkey-cart drivers piling boxes of the catch aboard in preparation for their deliveries, children and old men and women performing smaller chores like mending nets or scaling fish. There’s palpable tension in the air--Was the day’s catch good? How are the prices? Did everyone get in safely?--but the people are good-natured and glad to have you watch, as long as you don’t get in the way.

You can’t get to the Ile de Goree by car, but it’s an absolute must to visit. A small tropical island about a 30-minute ferry ride from the city, the Ile de Goree occupies an important, if sad, place in African and American history: One of the first French settlements in Africa, the island was for centuries the most important slaving center on the West African coast. As you approach the island, the sea ripples with fish, and your first reaction may be relief at getting away from the noise and crowds in Dakar. As you disembark, the little port seems soft and almost festive, its waterfront lined with cafes behind rows of palm trees. The colonial-era streets are lined with old pastel villas, with bougainvillea tracing deep pink blazes over their white-washed walls. But there’s something disturbing in the atmosphere, something sinister. Everyone knows what happened here.

The so-called House of Slaves is an 18th-Century villa with an elegant curved double staircase leading to spacious rooms with a beautiful view of the sea. Downstairs, though, are the tiny, pitch-black, airless cells in which slaves about to be sent off to the Americas were held. Those who became ill--and epidemics repeatedly ravaged the island--were ushered through the “door of no return,” a narrow portal in the thick stone walls that opens directly onto the sea. Ironically, Goree was a racially mixed society, and after the abolition of the slave trade in the mid-19th Century, Goreeans and French co-founded Dakar.

SAINT LOUIS, A PORT city on the border of Senegal and Mauritania, was another slave collection point and the first French settlement on the African continent. Although it’s often described in French guidebooks as “the New Orleans of West Africa,” there isn’t much more than an occasional sagging wrought-iron balcony to justify that claim. Beyond that, it’s a poor, run-down city that seems to be struggling to invent a future for itself. In any case, it’s a three-hour drive from Dakar through the brutally sunbaked Senegalese countryside.

Very much worth a visit, on the other hand, is the southernmost province of Senegal, La Casamance, 150 miles or so south of Dakar across Gambia--which juts into Senegal from the sea like a knife blade. It is possible to drive there from the capital, but it will take at least eight hours--and possibly more, depending on the moods of the many Gambian customs officials and police you’d have to tangle with en route. (You could easily spend $100, not necessarily officially, easing your way through.) It’s far better to fly from Dakar to Cap Skirring and rent a car there.

With its miles of empty sand beaches, a generally rain-free winter climate, and surroundings of flowering story-book jungle, the coast of La Casamance has become one of the most popular resort areas in Africa--and is a well-known vacation “secret” among hedonistic Parisians. The hotels are good--stay at the Savana, related to the one in Dakar--even if the rather antic nature of the organized fun the French like on their holidays might not be to everyone’s taste. (On the other hand, there is something undeniably amusing about watching a man in a clown suit conduct an after-lunch session of Twenty Questions en francais in 95-degree heat.)

Ziguinchor, a clamorous peanut-processing and rice-milling port, is the capital of La Casamance, and it’s a good place to wander and shop. The crafts center here is touristy, but there are excellent buys on gold and silver jewelry and leather goods. Ziguinchor is also the point of departure for pirogue (dugout) trips on the Casamance River. Get to town early one day, park near the Hotel Aubert and walk down to the riverbank to negotiate a day on the river with one of the piroguiers . Two people should expect to pay the equivalent of about $35. The river is wide and its banks are lined with mangrove swamps, filled with brilliantly colored birds--especially flamingos and pelicans. Threading his way through the islands that fill the river delta, the piroguier will inevitably take you on to the village of Affiniam on the north bank of the river--but you should also ask to visit Djilapao to see the house of Jean Badji.

Djilapao is a small village of rice farmers and fishermen who live in clay houses with roofs of thatched rice-straw. Most of the interiors are simple--but not Jean Badji’s. A prolific, though untrained, artist, he has filled the walls of his house with polychrome clay reliefs, and his talent is as genuine as his imagination is whimsical. In one room, there is a scene of topless women with pink skin--” les touristes ,” he explains--while in another, a tableau depicts a fisherman on the river with a cross-section of the water underneath, from which the fish watch his attempts to catch them. Shy, gracious and always ready to welcome visitors, Badji explains that he changes the reliefs from time to time, and that they keep him busy during the long rainy seasons.

The residents of Affiniam are no less hospitable. I arrived there one evening as the village was preparing for a night of celebration, fueled by homemade palm wine. At the village hall, the women were busily cooking stews in big pots over fires, while the men sat under a baobab tree behind the kitchen telling stories and waiting for sundown. At first merely pleased to learn that I wasn’t French--the French expropriated much of this region’s rice crop during World War II and exiled the much-loved local Queen Alinsitoue--they were then amazed to find that I was American. There was some conversation about New York--where Senegalese peddlers have become a fixture of street life--and then they wanted to know what President Reagan was doing now that he has left the White House. When I found myself having difficulty explaining the idea of honorariums--it must have been the palm wine--the conversation turned to Rocky and Rambo.

I was invited to stay on for the evening’s festivities, but regretfully declined, returning to Cap Skirring for what was to be my last night in Senegal. Later, back at my hotel, I strolled past a line of newly sunburned French tourists scrambling for crab claws at the supper buffet and walked out to a rise overlooking the beach. Starring down at the surf, I couldn’t help thinking that, over the hibiscus-covered fences, not more than 25 miles away, a whole village was dancing, drinking palm wine and probably discussing “Rocky II.” This, I thought, was Senegal.

GUIDEBOOK: SEEING SENEGAL

Getting there: Air Afrique flies nonstop from New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport to Dakar on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The Wednesday flight, departing at 10 p.m. and arriving at 10:10 the next morning, is preferable for travelers connecting from Southern California. The Saturday flight departs at 12:35 p.m., necessitating an overnight stay in New York (or a “red-eye” flight from Los Angeles), and arrives in Dakar at the inconvenient hour of 12:45 a.m. Air France has nonstop flights from Paris to Dakar on Thursdays and Saturdays, and Air Afrique flies from Paris to Dakar every day but Tuesday--but none of its flights are nonstops. Flight time to Dakar from New York, incidentally, is only an hour and 20 minutes longer than from Paris.

Accommodations: Hotel N’Gor et Diarama, Route de N’Gor, Dakar, 011-221-23-10-05. Hotel Savana, Pointe Bernard, Petite Corniche, Dakar, 011-221-23-56-36, U.S. reservations, (212) 719-9363. Hotel Savana, La Casamance, Cap Skirring, 011-221-93-15-52, U.S. reservations, (212) 719-9363.

Dining: Le Hanoi, 85 Rue Carnot, Dakar, 011-221-21-32-69; Le Lagon, 2 Route de la Corniche, Dakar, 011-221-22-17-80; Hotel Croix du Sud, 20 Avenue Albert Sarraut, Dakar, 011-221-21-29-74.

Ile de Goree: There are frequent ferry crossings from Dakar harbor to the island; round-trip fare is about $4. The House of Slaves is open daily; free admission. There is a nominal charge for entry to the island museum, which is closed Mondays and Wednesday mornings. There are a number of inexpensive beachfront cafes on the island, recommended for drinks and simple meals.

For further information: Contact the Senegal Tourist Office, (212) 757-7115 or (800) 443-2527.