Travel Guide Elinkine

The name Elinkine would come from the recalcitrant character of its first inhabitants, with a head as hard as a stone (elinkine in diola). Located at the mouth of the Casamance River, this small village of about 300 inhabitants at the end of the road, 25 km from Oussouye and 55 km from Ziguinchor, faces the island of Carabane where the ferry drops tourists since 2014. It can also be reached by taking a pirogue from Elinkine. The atmosphere in this fishing village is warm and quiet, the camps are pleasant and animated by the villagers. Fishing used to be a quasi-monopoly of the "foreigners" of Casamance, the Diolas being above all rice growers. But many have taken up fishing, attracted by the significant profits generated by this activity.As Elinkine is based on the river, it is an excellent point to set off by pirogue towards new horizons with, at the head, the Île aux Oiseaux, Carabane and Cap Skirring, but also small fishing villages on the mouth side, Pointe Saint-Georges and Djiromaït. Nature is there, certainly the most beautiful mangrove of Senegal, its birds, its fish and its bolongs, sometimes wide enough for a whole fleet to pass through, sometimes so narrow and covered with a couch of greenery sheltering from the sun that one wonders if one will be able to get out of it. "Casamance, romance", Malraux said, and he was right!