Cap Skirring

An Atlantic beach resort in Lower Casamance, with long sands and palm groves. Visitors can paddle dugout canoes through mangrove waterways and visit Jola villages.

Cap Skirring lies in Ziguinchor Department in southern Senegal, close to the Guinea-Bissau border. It is the Atlantic beach resort of Lower Casamance. Rainfall is heavy here. Behind the long beach are palm groves, rice paddies, and mangrove waterways. Most residents are Jola people, who preserve traditional kingdoms, sacred groves, and animist beliefs, a world apart from the Sahelian landscapes of northern Senegal.

Main areas: (1) Cap Skirring beach and the Jola villages of Cabrousse to the south and Boucotte and Diembering to the north. (2) Elinkine fishing port, about 30 km northeast, where dugout canoes cross the mangroves to Karabane Island. (3) Inland, the Oussouye kingdom and the double-layered mud houses of Mlomp. Lower Casamance National Park is currently not open to visitors.

Seasons: November–May is the dry season, with clear skies and peak beach season. July–October is the hot, humid rainy season, and some hotels close.

Getting there and notes: During peak season, flights from Dakar and Europe serve Cap Skirring airport. You can also reach Ziguinchor from Dakar by ferry or by plane, then drive about 70 km. Security in the Casamance has been generally stable in recent years, but check your government's travel advisories before leaving, and do not venture into remote forests without a guide. Plan 4–6 days.

Top sights

• Cap Skirring Beach – One of the most beautiful Atlantic beaches in southern Senegal, with long stretches of fine sand merging into palm groves, and hotels and b…
• Carabane Island – A small island at the mouth of the Casamance River, the site of a 19th-century French trading post. It has a colonial church ruin, an old c…
• Elinkine & Casamance Mangrove Pirogue Trips – A fishing port on the south bank of the Casamance River, and the main departure point for dugout canoe trips through mangrove channels to K…
• Oussouye & the Diola Kingdom – The center of the traditional Jola kingdom of Oussouye in Lower Casamance. The king still holds religious status, and visitors can learn ab…
• Mlomp Two-Storey Clay Houses – Traditional two-story rammed-earth houses in the Jola village of Mlomp, rare in rural West Africa, with a huge kapok tree in the village.
• Diembéring – A Jola coastal village north of Cap Skirring, with dunes, centuries-old kapok trees and long, nearly empty beaches.
• Kabrousse – A Jola village south of Cap Skirring, home of the anticolonial heroine Aline Sitoe Diatta. Rice paddies and beaches lie side by side.
• Boucotte – A Jola village north of Cap Skirring with a small Jola cultural museum, rice paddies, and a beach quieter than Cap Skirring's.

Where to eat

• Le Régal – A long-standing favourite in the centre of town, where chef Adrien serves French-Senegalese fusion dishes, with seafood…
• La Cabane Sauvage Beach Restaurant – A wooden shack restaurant on the sands of Boucotte Bay, where you can eat freshly caught fish and lobster with your fee…