Senegal and especially Gambia “rushed through” a bit. The colors are great. It is green! There is water, brown and green! There are colorful birds as well as colorfully dressed people. Suits and dresses are sometimes made of completely absurd plastic material with extremely imaginative patterns. Or have prints like “Edeka – We love food.” All of Europe's old shoes are sold again on the side of the road, individually and in pairs. The north and the coast are more modern, the south and east of Senegal are again clearly conservative Muslim. And in the south of Senegal there are hardly any vegetables left except onions. Chicken, however, is a daily staple.

Mauritania and its desert challenged us more than we thought – people and machines needed rest and care. So we stay for a few days in the so-called Zebra Bar south of St. Louis.

Dakar is dusty, hot, full of exhaust fumes, busy, loud. We spent what felt like three days in traffic jams getting the car import papers stamped at the industrial port, filling up our gas bottle, getting the visa for Guinea and having a problem with the indicator fixed at Toyota (unsuccessfully).

But: We also went out in the dark in the evening in Dakar to get something to eat somewhere and didn't feel uncomfortable for a moment. On the contrary, the people in Dakar were very friendly to us, as they have been almost everywhere on our trip so far.

However, we also had our first encounter with a corrupt police officer in Dakar (and paid) and later in Gambia with police officers who, out of sheer boredom, engage you in really long conversations – and you simply don't move on without permission and often not before you have a new WhatsApp contact.

In Senegal and especially in Gambia we find that the tourist infrastructure away from the coast is rather rudimentary. And the few places where you could imagine staying are often “invaded” by day tourists from the coast with rental cars, drivers and guides and are then completely overcrowded. So we cross Gambia in just two days.

But we treat ourselves to a few days in the southeast of Senegal and visit the Njokolo Koba Park. A comparatively expensive affair because we are not allowed to travel without a guide. But it's worth it. There are not as spectacular or many animals to see as in Namibia, for example, but the rides over the completely natural slopes are fantastic.

The time in Senegal was basically determined by focusing on ourselves. We were concerned with the question of how we actually wanted to travel further. The organizational effort and daily dealing with everyday issues (diesel, water, food, cash, SIM cards, car “care” and, in the future, increasingly visa issues) takes up so much time that we haven't had enough breaks up to this point of the trip .

The days in Dakar were the lowest point so far – the first physical discomfort accompanied by the feeling of being overwhelmed and in a place that doesn't allow you to relax.

We need a change in strategy!

We started with the idea of giving ourselves lots of time. Now we will try to get to Angola or Namibia by April next year.

There are logistical reasons for this (the Nigerian visa is now also available “en route” and we don’t have to go to Berlin for it), as well as political reasons. There were occasional problems for tourists in Guinea (the ex-president escaped from prison and the borders were closed), Gabon is currently not passable to tourists, and there were recently riots in Freetown (Sierra Leone). We suspect that it will not become more stable. And so it seems to make sense to do the whole trip now.

So we will travel faster and look for one, maybe two tourist highlights in each country that offer relaxation.

You may call it “hurry with time”.