We discovered there are two muscle beaches in Senegal. The first one is located in Dakar. It is a small stretch of beach below the coastal highway where, at any given time, you can find between 20 and 200 people exercising. A favorite exercise consists of standing in the sand with your legs together. You then rhythemical lift your back side. The upward thrust causes your locked feet to shuffle backward.
Especially energetic exercisers will drag a path 10 meters long and, after several passes, surprisingly deep.
The other muscle beach is located along a small nature reserve in Samone. Samone is about 1.5 hrs south of Dakar and has a few hotels and private houses stetched along a beach. To find this other muscle beach, you need to walk off the main road and follow one of the many dirt paths across the peninsula.
On the delta side of the peninsula, you following the edge of the mangroves around until you find an elevated path installed under the guidance of a local french couple. Follow this nature trail path in the mangroves and around a few turns until you reach muscle beach.
Here, if you come before it gets too hot, you can see between 20 and 200 fiddler crabs waving their single, unusually large claw in the air. The white color of their claws work to catch the sun and catch your attention.
A favorite activity, besides waving your massive claw in the air, is to dig a hole. Like all good crabs, these fiddlers move sideways as they move forward, and you can see their claw emerge long before their eye stalks follow out the hole.
And like all good muscles beaches, everyone on the beach knows who the top of the social heirarchy is without there being any fights. In Samone, we saw the top crab. He was waving to us from the little rise in the middle of muscle beach. We went to greet him but he dove for his hole. When I looked down at the size of my hand, I realized why he had run away. I was the new top crab. If so, why aren't the female crabs running to my side?
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