The rapidly brightening sky was painted with swaths of orange, pink, and yellow. The early-morning light revealed a city that seemed to be little more than a patchwork of haphazardly planned mid-rise buildings in varying states of repair, punctuated with sprawling bushes, trees quivering in the morning breeze, and lawns sloping toward the nearby sea. The nocturnal beep-beep of tree frogs gave way to the insistent chirp of morning birds that rose from the trees to swoop across the sky like animated chevrons. As I watched the Senegalese sunrise on my first day in Africa, I was vibrating with anticipation. Dakar was waking up, and I was here to witness it.
In 2018 I was gifted a DNA testing kit. Although I was born in the UK, I am also Caribbean—my mother is Barbadian and my father is Jamaican. But it had never occurred to me to consider what had happened before the islands. The results showed that 29 percent of my DNA came from Nigeria, 29 percent from Scotland, and the remaining 42 percent from the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Benin, Togo, Mali, and Cameroon. These clues to my ancestry ignited my desire to finally visit the continent. Would Africa feel like “home”?
The opportunity arose last fall, courtesy of HX Hurtigruten Expeditions, the sister brand to Norway‘s Hurtigruten cruise line, which sails to places like the Galápagos Islands. The company had debuted its West Africa route as part of an effort to offer more warm-weather destinations that spotlight rich ecosystems and cultures. (This route is currently on hold per instability in the region.) We were to sail round trip from Dakar to Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau’s Bissagos Islands, and the Gambia.
My first morning in Dakar, I sipped my coffee and watched guests—more than half of them Black—circle the buffet at my hotel, the Pullman Dakar Teranga. This could have been the Jamaica Pegasus, a classic Kingston business hotel where sharp-suited men and perfectly coiffed women take morning meetings. But rather than Jamaican cornmeal porridge, they were spooning lakh, a Senegalese version made with millet. And replacing ackee and saltfish was thieboudienne, a one-pot concoction of seasoned rice, fish, and vegetables that is Senegal’s own national dish.
Later that night I boarded MS Spitsbergen and settled into the stateroom on the 220-passenger expedition ship that would be my home for the next 14 days. We’d have excursions in each port that focused on the area’s wildlife, history, and more. After a day at sea, I was eager to explore Santiago, our first port of call about 400 miles from Dakar, one of three Cape Verde islands we’d visit.
As I strolled Santiago‘s ficus-shaded streets, bordered with buildings erected by the Portuguese in the 17th century, observing residents whose skin color ranged from milky coffee to espresso, that sense of familiarity returned. These were faces I was used to seeing all across the Caribbean, from Havana to Trinidad; the style of buildings was common in Caribbean capitals from San Juan to Bridgetown.
