Dakar International House

To decide whether a hotel is well-managed or not, I perform a simple test: is there a name sign on the building or at least on the door? On this count already, Dakar International House fails: it is completely unmarked. The hostel has its own website with a booking engine. Sure enough I got an automated e-mail acknowledgement that my reservation request had been received and would be processed, i.e. accepted or declined. That was the end of all communication. Predictably, the reception had no record of my booking when I arrived. The receptionist did not even know that the hostel had its own booking website. Staff were hit-and-miss: all duty receptionists except one were lazy, clueless and passive; for any chores they tended to summon one of the security guards who were generally kind, understanding and helpful. I was shown my bed after one such security guard decided and announced that the bed selected was 'probably' (!) not occupied. Nobody bothered to provide fresh bedding. The dorm bathroom was a tiny one square meter cubicle. The washbasin was the size of a dinner plate. To reach the shower one had to climb over the toilet. Sitting on the toilet was impossible because the toilet bowl was as long as the bathroom was wide. The bathroom/toilet door was a flimsy metal affair and you could hear EVERYTHING that your fellow guests were doing inside. (Use your imagination.) The dorm was teeming with mosquitos. All beds had mosquito nets, but the upper bunk beds lacked anything to hang the nets from, so the nets were useless. WiFi worked not at all on my first day, and only intermittently thereafter. One of the first things a hostel security guard told me was never to leave 'anything' (not just 'any valuables') lying around in the dormitory. (Big lockers are provided.) None of my fellow sleepers looked like bona fide backpackers or travellers. A guy next to me appeared to be a West African bumster who was on his cellphone all night running his love scams. The reception had absolutely no local, travel-related knowledge or advice other than being able to point out the nearest bus stop. If you plan any activities in Dakar's city centre, the hostel’s location is terrible. Getting to the town centre or back by public transport takes about three hours each way, including waiting for the bus that has no fixed schedule and runs only every one or two hours. Since the closure of Dakar’s old international airport in Yoff they only reason for staying in the hostel neighbourhood (Grand Yoff) has disappeared. The only positive thing I can say is that the hostel is cheap: CFA 6000 for a dorm bed. How this dump came to be rated as 'Senegal’s best hostel' is beyond me. Not much competition may be one reason. Is there even a second hostel in the country? I also suspect the management changed and the hostel went downhill as a result. One indication would be that the hostel today looks nothing like the colourful, fresh photos on its website: the cafe/restaura