The most important urban crossroads in the Senegalese interior, Kaolack is a bustling medium-sized town known for its immense mosque, sprawling market and salt refinery alongside the saline Saloum River. It is also the best base for day trips to the World Heritage sites of Sine Ngayene and Wanar, both of which lie to the east of the Trans-Gambia Highway near the small town of Nioro Du Rip.
At Wanar, a concentration of 396 megalithic stones is arranged in 21 circles and includes nine lyre-shaped stones. Sine Ngayene houses the world's largest collection of prehistoric megaliths, with 1,102 individual stones arranged in 52 circles, including one concentric example. Excavations suggest that both sites functioned as vast funerary complexes over the course of several centuries in the first millennium AD.
Regrettably, both sites are largely ignored by the tourist industry, and they are difficult to reach without private four-wheel-drive transport.
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