Too tired to say much tonight but I did get to the 'slave island' today. It's called Goree and it is one of the place where Europeans stashed slaves before trans-shipment to the New World or Europe. The first African slaves came from here. When the Spanish couldn't make the Indians work hard enough (or they inconveniently died of European diseases) they looked to Africa. The Portuguese already had the expertise and the access (via Goree) to supply the Spaniards with inventory. Hence began the African Slave Trade.
You can guess what the holding quarters were like, basically a series of heartless dungeons. Sickly, weak or non-virginal inventory was chucked to the sharks via the back door to the dungeons. I didn't learn a lot beyond what I'd already gotten from books and movies but it was educational to stand in the very places where so much mano a mano horror took place.
I also got to visit the local beaches. I was dying to take a dip in the Atlantic....until I noticed that every 150 yards or so there was an outlet for the city's sewers. The odor was suitably crude. The beaches themselves held tons of trash that had, no doubt, floated there from the sewers. I figured if I went in the water I'd probably die from some local bacteria so I kept my distance. The only people in the water were small children. I'm not sure why.
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