The Final edition on my trip south - taking me through five countries: Mali, Burkina-Faso, Ghana, Togo, and Benin.After a leisurely start from Accra, we made our way to a bus station and were on our way east. The plan was to take the few hour trip into Togo and spend a few nights on purportedly not-so-special beaches. By the time we arrived in Lome, the capital of Togo, we decided to continue on the barely two hours across the entire country to Benin. We hadn’t heard many good things about the coast of Togo and much better about that of Benin so off we were to Grand Popo.
Considering the fact that we didn’t leave Accra, Ghana until a little after noon it is quite remarkable and telling of how small these countries are – we were in Grand Popo (just east of Benin’s eastern boarder) by 7pm. We arrived on what would be Memorial Day weekend back in the US and was brotherhood/friendship (approximate translation) weekend in Grand Popo. Perfect, we picked a festival weekend – a mixed blessing – lots of people crowding the place yes also great since there was something interesting going on. Overall a good thing. We dropped off our bags at a posh hotel (by Beninese standards) where all the rooms were full (a situation that applied to virtually all lodgings in town) – we were going to pay $5 a night for the two of us to camp on the beach.
We hitched a ride into town with another guest
heading to the festival where we could hopefully satisfy our appetite… we hadn’t eaten since breakfast. We were treated to a Beninese specialty: pot. No not that kind – something that can best be described as a white, gelatinous, mound of mashed up corn grain and a unknown green sauce in which to dip it. We were hungry – it could have been tasteless giggly something or other and we would have eaten it… oh wait, is was.Peace Corps Benin had just finished a training session in Grand Popo the day before we arrived and a few volunteers had stuck around to enjoy the festival – we had some locals to show us around. It is always interesting meeting volunteers from other countries and talking to them about the differences between where you’re serving and where they are. We were a bit tired from traveling so said farewell to our friends before walking the few kilometers back to our tent on the beach.
The next day we slept late (about 9am) and walked down to hangout on the beach. This was our first glimpse of our surroundings – there was a long gradually rising beach before dropping suddenly to some huge churning waves – not the most swimmer friendly beach. Within an hour a huge rain storm came in. Owing to our relative fascination with rainstorms (remember we don’t get them up in Mali), we decided to stay run to a hut on the beach to watch the storm.
Inside the hut was a group of Beninese taking refuge from the storm (in contrast to our intentionally going out in a ranging thunderstorm). After chatting for a few minutes, they asked if we played volleyball. If you remember (or read) how desperate we were in Ghana to play volleyball that we used a soccer ball, you’d have known our affirmative answer. They were apparently going to play just a 100m down the beach once the storm let up and invited us to play. Only later did we find out they were meeting up with about 20 other players (not including friends coming with them) who were all professional volleyball players.
The man who initially invited us to play turned out to be ranked the No. 1 player in all of Benin. I ended up playing on a team with his sister (she played for the national women’s team), her coach (i.e. the coach of the national women’s team) and the coach of the national men’s team. These people weren’t messing around… well, sort of. It ended up being an informal round robin so to speak with the teams who won most going on to play each other. You might think they would have been pretty harsh on two white Americans that just happened to be on the beach, but they weren’t. The mood was remarkably relaxed and casual – they were just out to have fun. We ended up playing volleyball with them until almost five in the afternoon.
We spent one more day in Grand Popo hanging out with our volunteer friends before heading to the former capital, Cotonou, to extend our 72 hour visas before leaving the north next day. We were a little dismayed to find out it took a full 48 hours to process a visa and, while we were waiting for the office to re-open after lunch, were scheming some way to expedite the process. Things were looking grim until, low and behold one of volleyball friends walked by. It turns out he is in charge of issuing passports (we were at the immigration office) and was going to see what he could do to pull some strings. Five hours later we walked out passports and visas in hand – success! What a small world! In a city with .75 million people, we happen to run into someone we were playing volleyball with in a tiny town two days ago.
We woke up early the next morning to a torrential rain storm – something that doesn’t lend itself to riding a moto. It stopped just in time for us to race off to the bus station and hop a ‘Comfort Line’ bus north. The bus companies are much nicer and more organized in Benin. For one thing – they leave on time!! Knowing this, we were a little concerned cutting it so close, but we made it and before we could find a seat, the bus was moving.
We got off in largish northern town called Natitingou, checked some email for a few painfully slow minutes and jumped in another mini-bus north to Tanguieta our destination for the day. We were accommodated by a hospitable volunteer based in the town who was so kind to let us stay two nights with him. The next day we went out to some waterfalls and a little exploring in the local area. To be honest, I liked northern Benin more than the coast. It probably has something to do with me being from Colorado and being predisposed to liking mountainous regions… it was really pretty and quite refreshing to be surrounded by topography – any topography at all is more than what I have in Mali –so having real-ish mountains (probably more like hills) was quite a treat. We even climbed one of them and got some spectacular views.
After our second night, it was time to get home to Mali. We went out to the main road through Tanguieta hoping to catch a ride north. Only problem was there weren’t any ‘rides’ north. We sat on the side of the road for five hours before finally giving in and catching motos the 80km north to the Benin-Burkina border.
Normally in Mali, we aren’t allowed to ride motos since they are deemed too dangerous. It is really the same situation in Benin only they often don’t have a choice. Thus, they are given helmets and told to ‘be careful’. We picked up some helmets from Cotonou and used them while getting around in the city and to get out to the waterfalls. We never expected to need them for a long distance (80 km on some not-so-fast motos is a long distance as far as I’m concerned) to get out of Benin. We went back to the volunteer’s house to pick them up and were on our way.
As we approached the border, our drivers suddenly veered off to the right onto a dirt track through the border town. As I was trying to figure out what was going on and why we were taking this detour, I realized they were taking us around the border guards on some back road. I immediately told my driver we had to go back – we needed our passports stamped! Two minutes later we popped back onto the main road only to find ourselves surround by gendarme policemen on motos yelling at us to follow them… let me just say they were about the opposite of pleased. We tried to explain we didn’t know what was going on and plead innocence and/or ignorance. Eventually we convinced them we had intended to cross the border normally but our drivers had unexpectedly taken the short-cut.
We were free to go but our drivers were ‘staying here’ – implying a long wait and a bribe to let them go. I still don’t know what ever happened to our drivers, but two hours later when we finally left the border after eating lunch, they were still there with sad expressions on their faces. Knowing they were most likely going to have to bribe their way out of it - we gave them an extra 5,000 (~$10), on top of the 10,000 we were already paying them, to help them out - $10 to us and $10 to them is a big difference. We figured that would at least cover their gas roundtrip.
We caught the last bus to Ouagadougou, spent the night in their beautiful volunteer house and were off the next morning back to Mali. We had a trip similar to our experience back in February to Kayes – i.e. sleeping in the middle of nowhere – and had to sleep at the border until it opened. I just made it to Bamako for my meeting early the next morning and finally, my long trip was over!
I apologize for the length of this post and the tardiness of getting up – hopefully you made it this far.
Till next time!
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