Touba Travel Guide

Touba is located some 200 km inland from Dakar. It's a pretty strange city. The first thing that strikes you is the number of Mercedeses you see driving up and down the streets. Touba is the centre of the Mourid Sect, the most powerful islamic brotherhood of Senegal.The brootherhood strengh is their unity in a common goal of selfimprovement and solidarity.

the tolerance of the Mourides in senegal is notorious even after seing their leader being prosecuted by the colonial power mainly the french goverment sending him in exile for more than 8 years with several attempt of assasination on the cheikh life;neverthless the cheikh sticked to his message of peace and self improvement of mankind.

The main attraction of town is Touba’s Grand Mosque. It is the largest in the country and has minarets over 80 m tall, with wonderful views of the town and countryside.

You might want to avoid Touba during Magal, the religious pilgrimage that draws hordes of people to the mosque. It is pretty spectacular though, but getting a room is close to impossible and getting rest in completely impossible.

 

Touba is incorrectly designated on the map!  It's not in the Casamance region at all.  It's due east from Dakar.  You can find more accurate maps <a href="http://www.au-senegal.com/decouvrir_en/cartes.htm">here</a>.