Lac Retba — Pink Lake — is the obvious day trip, an hour's drive northeast, where a cyanobacterium turns the water a bubblegum pink in the dry season; salt collectors work the lake in wooden pirogues. The fishing village of Yoff at the northern tip of the peninsula has a Layène Sufi shrine and a working beach. Further out, Keur Moussa Monastery holds Sunday mass set to kora music — an unexpected and beautiful thing.
The Île de Gorée is barely a day trip — a twenty-minute ferry from the port — but it is the essential excursion from Dakar. The resort town of Saly and the inland market town of Thiès are both feasible if you have your own transport or a willing taxi driver.
