Category Archives: Benin

Benin Part III – Time Out in Ouidah and Chillin’ in Grand Popo

22 Thursday Feb 2018

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The Door of No Return monument on the beach in Ouidah

Ouidah is a significant town on the beautiful Benin coastline because of its historically significant slave trade sites.  Among these is a famous “Tree of Forgetting” that captured slaves would walk around in circles – men nine times and women seven times, in an attempt to forget and leave behind their memories of their West African lives before being forced into slavery.  The tree marks the spot from which there was a well-used path of no return to a strip of beach where ships would forcibly remove chained men and women from their African Homeland.  This path is called the “Route des Esclaves” and is now scattered with monuments, museums, and voodoo fetishes (statues) to commemorate this walk that would have been trodden by thousands of men and women during the 300+ year slave trade.

Mike and I set out to visit these sites, but started at the supposedly famous “Python Temple” which turned out to not be a temple at all – you basically walked into a reddish room that looked like it might be the entryway – and it turned out to be the actual temple, with a handful of pythons laying around looking trapped and without much room to be…snakes. It was the biggest waste of 3,000 CFA each that we had spent.  Cursing ourselves for not having gone inside one at a time (to exit and advise the other not to bother) – we made our way to the tree of forgetting, hoping it might also do the trick for us and the Python Temple.

This is how I felt about the Python Temple

From there, it was about an hour’s walk back to the beach along the “Route Des Esclaves” passing the various monuments and commemorative plaques about slavery along the way.  Luckily, since we had napped, we had skipped the hottest part of the day and were making this longer walk as the sunset approached.

About two-thirds of the way, we came across yet another voodoo ceremony being enjoyed by a rather large crowd of locals, all clapping and dancing to the music being played by men while a group of women danced and “performed” their ceremony to the onlookers.  I loved the fact that a good number of these women were elderly, and it didn’t inhibit them one bit in owning their movement to the music.

One of the fetishes along the “Route des Esclaves”

At one point, one of the oldest ladies feigned (whether “real” or not is ultimately in the eye of the beholder) possession and ran out into the crowd to grab someone, and the whole audience shrieked and took off in the opposite direction.  It appeared to be lighthearted, but again, it was a little difficult to tell.

Again, we were the only white people present and we got a mixed reception, some folks smiling and inviting us to take photos, while others appeared to be deeply suspicious and instructing us to put our cameras away.  It was a real shame that the folks from the truck, staying at a different hotel on the other side of the “Door of No Return” monument on the beach hadn’t known about this voodoo ceremony.  Mike and I were grateful to have yet again stumbled across one that tourists have to typically pre-arrange and then doubt its authenticity.

Monument to Benin Independence

It was almost dark when we got back to the beach, and we decided it might be nice to visit the truck’s hotel for a beer or two.  As it turned out, the hotel served pizza which was too good of an idea for us to pass.  We got to our hotel finally much later than planned, but bellies full of cheesy goodness.

The following day we took advantage of our nice digs for a relaxing morning by the pool.  Since leaving Accra, we had been going at quite a pace, and I for one was desperate for a few days to slow down.  Since it had been closed the day before, we headed back out along the beach that afternoon to visit the “Museum of Return” which honored the heritage of those who had been forcibly removed from Africa who were now being given an open invitation to return.

Ironically, the museum’s “Door of Return” remained locked and unattended even after we had waited and taken beers on the beach until the signposted re-opening hour.  Like sarcasm, I think irony is also lost on West Africans – as I received zero reaction from our hotel receptionist when I related this funny story to her.  Then again, it might have been my French.

Trying to get in through the Door of Return

Sigh.

Of note that afternoon was the fact that a local Benin man bought us a round of beers when we sat down at the beach bar waiting for the museum to re-open.  That was a first, and it was a most welcome sign of hospitality.

Being too lazy at this juncture to take public transport, we arranged a pretty decent cab fare to be driven the hour or so to our next point of interest – Grand Popo – a lovely beachside hotel called Auberge de Grand Popo, that would also house Dragoman for the next two nights.  Not only did Mike and I crave some more respite from our formerly chaotic pace of travel, but we also had a lot to discuss/arrange in regards to whether we were ending the trip in Lome/Accra – or whether we would continue traveling and visit Ethiopia together.

Our lovely room at the Auberge de Grand Popo

It was Jan 30th and we’d been traveling together for two weeks.  Originally, I was supposed to fly home on the 5th of February, so a decision had to be made soon and I was hoping for fast internet in order to accomplish all the research I would need to do.

The Auberge was gorgeous, historic, and beautifully kept with a location that I would gladly fly to just for a week’s vacation – if I lived in Europe.  The highlight was the restaurant, and though the food was a little expensive compared to what we had grown used to spending – it was still very affordable by western standards and boasted utterly delicious food.  On the first night, we ordered a shrimp cocktail followed by grilled prawns with rice and vegetables, topping it off with a raspberry sorbet for dessert.  It was phenomenal and paired with a couple of cocktails, I felt like I was home again.

Me, Mike and Liz enjoying our lovely meal in Grand Popo

We hung out that night deep in conversation with Liz and Sinead from the truck and it was really nice to be social with our friends again.  The whole next day I edited photos, wrote my blog, researched Ethiopia/flights, and took breaks to swim in the pool and walk along the beach.  I was feeling much restored especially with the lovely surroundings, good company, and delicious food.  I didn’t even want to leave the next day – but we needed to make our way to Togo and then on to Accra, having decided that we would fly to Addis Ababa from Accra and join the truck for their final goodbye party on a Saturday night in the Ghanaian capital.  Since we had missed so many of Accra’s main attractions during our first stay – it only made sense to go back – even if we had to finagle and pay for a transit visa for Mike – who opted to get a single entry visa for Ghana when first making his travel plans.

On the first of February, we left Grand Popo in a cab headed for the Togolese border.

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Benin Part II – Stilt Villages and Voodoo

20 Tuesday Feb 2018

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The Stilt Village of Ganvie

The bus journey was actually quite comfortable.  If you can stand the fact that they insisted on blaring loud gospel music for hours starting at 6am, followed by God-awful Benin-ois soap operas played back to back for hours on end, all of which had essentially the exact same plot.  There would be a room of men shouting at one guy, the victim.  He would eventually get beaten with a stick and have his shirt taken from him while all the men continued yelling.  Then there would be a “romance” scene with a man and a woman in some passionate embrace, followed by them having a falling out.  The woman would then grasp her face in both hands, crying, and begging the man to not leave her (am guessing here) while he loudly berates her before storming out.  Then the final scene would be the crying woman seeking comfort from her father/friend about the awful man who’d yelled at her.

I swear it was the same plot every episode – and the people on the bus were absolutely mad for it and laughed up a storm.

The good thing about this very long journey was the fact that we had air conditioning.  The bus also actually stopped a number of times for bush pees – and I learned a fascinating thing.  The women in Benin use large rectangles of fabric, much like the material they use to tie a baby to their backs, to cover themselves while they squat and pee out in the open alongside the men!  It’s ingenious!  The only trick is to skip wearing panties, and presto – the woman’s nightmare of peeing in the bush in Africa in private is partially solved.

Our lovely air-conditioned bus from Tanguieta to Cotonou

Sure beats holding it in for hours, I can tell you.  I made a mental note to make better use of my sarong for next time.

After weeks and weeks of public transport and bus stations – I can tell you that what Africa needs above all else – is an abundance of clean, available, usable, public toilets.  We take toilets for granted.  Toilets are a luxury item.  And peeing isn’t a big deal for guys – though some very funny signs in Togo and Ghana warned that urination against a particular wall carried with it the penalty of death!

We got off the bus in Abomey-Cavalie, the town where there was a port where one could catch motorized pirogues (long wooden fishing boats) to the stilt villages of Ganvie.  Hundreds of years ago, the local people started building homes on the lake to try and escape being captured in the slave trade.  Since then, over 130,000 people now call these settlements in the middle of the lake home (and, presumably so does the raw sewage they must pump out into it on a daily basis…)

Men and women sporting matching outfits in pirogues in Ganvie

We were met with the normal swarm of moto-taxis vying for our business.  Two guys who were particularly aggressive told us they knew where our hotel was and started grabbing our bags before we had negotiated a price.  They asked for 1500 and I stated I wanted to pay 1200 and they started arguing violently talking about the price of gas, blah and blah as per normal.  However, they were also super pushy, so I decided against going with them and walked a little further down to a nice quiet rider who immediately agreed to my stated fare.  At that moment, the two guys who’d lost my business come over and start screaming at this man saying he doesn’t get to give me and Mike a ride.  This escalates and Mike and I take a step back as now a larger group of men are screaming at each other and starting to fight.  The whole thing is ridiculous.

A “supervisor” of sorts comes over and asks me what is going on.  I state that I want to ride with my chosen moto-taxi.  He takes our luggage and starts walking away and gives it to two totally new moto drivers and we are forced to leave this melee that is quickly worsening.  I turn around and try to tell the poor man who is being attacked that I’m sorry – and off we go.

Not exactly what we wanted for our first 10 minutes off an 11-hour bus ride.

We arrive at our accommodation for the night and immediately order some dinner and beer.  After half an hour, the driver who was attacked shows up to apologize.  He told us that the two guys who first tried to take us to our hotel were drunk and it was good that I had avoided them.  At first I am taken aback by his kindness, but then came the predictable “sob story/ask for help/please can I call you in the US and you can get me a visa?” part of the conversation.  By this point, I was hoarse with my standard sore throat/cough and could barely speak English, let alone French.  I was exhausted, but I didn’t want to send this poor guy away empty-handed.

I told him, in no uncertain terms that I couldn’t help him come to America.  That it wasn’t the prized solution he thought it was – it was a tough and unforgiving place where you need to speak English, not French, to get by.  I told him if he was determined to leave Benin, he should consider France first – but also to consider that perhaps life in the West was not as glorified as he imagined.  I asked if he wanted the opportunity to make some money and make up for the business he had lost that evening.  He said yes.  So – I asked him what he would charge us to go buy phone credit for Mike and some cough/cold medicine for me.  After another short lecture on how important it is for him to decide what the value is for his time (since so many Africans rely on the “pay me whatever you think my services are worth to you” mentality) we came to an agreed amount.  He happily went and ran our errands for us, and we were able to pay him for his time.

It felt like a positive outcome from a negative event.

The following morning, we moto’ed again over to the port to await the arrival of our orange truck.  It felt a little weird and good at the same time to be seeing our friends again, and we soon got a message from Sinead that they were running a little behind schedule.  A commotion on the dock drew our attention and we wandered over, only to find ourselves in the midst of an annual Voodoo ceremony commemorating the start of the Voodoo calendar in Benin!  It was quite a spectacle.

Priest officiating the Voodoo Ceremony

Woman, feeling the “spirit” move her

There was a couple hundred people all dressed ornately in white, some with face tattoos/painting.  A priest, I’m assuming, was chanting over some lit candles which were, in fact, not candles at all but lit cigarettes mounted in a tall candle-holder.  He was holding a pigeon that was presumably going to get sacrificed.  All the while, musicians played rhythmically on drums, drawing shouts and dancing from the crowd.

After a few minutes, several women starting showing signs of contortion and flailing about, as if possessed.  They pawed at their own faces and started screaming in gibberish (though, of course, we couldn’t quite tell the local dialect from gibberish, so whether or not they were speaking in tongues or not remains a mystery.)  It was quite a spectacle and Mike and I were proud that we had taken the initiative of walking over and getting involved with this local ceremony – we were travelers, unlike the other white “tourists” who stood waiting for their own pirogues to show up on the docks – completely ignoring this authentic display of culture because it wasn’t a part of their organized itinerary.

Soon enough, the Dragoman truck showed up and we were greeted heartily by our friends old and new before piling into two boats that headed out into the lake.

The stilt village of Ganvie was a photographer’s dream because it was full of people going about their daily lives, so very different to any other we’d seen, because their life was on the water.  It was a Benin version of Venice.  In addition, since it was a Sunday, and the start of their New Year, many locals were dressed in their very best – and even better, entire boatloads of men and women passed by our chosen hotel for the night dressed in identical vibrantly colored and highly-patterned costumes.

One of our pirogues used to get to the island

Our hotel was very basic and unfortunately, not all rooms had fans in them and we were facing a very sleepless night in the bug-infested, hot and humid night air.  In addition, the hotel was built out of wood with very rickety floorboards that had massive gaps/holes in them – our room being situated above the kitchen such that we also got the conversations and the plethora of aromas rising up from below.  Add to that the fact that the bed was on a sloping floor, we both committed to sleeping somewhere out in the open that night – especially after deciding to move the bed clockwise so that the slope was from head to feet rather than lateral, and realizing too late that this meant our mosquito net would no longer fit the bed.

Some of the oldest structures on the lake – over 120 years old.

We passed lunch with beer catching up with friends and watching life boat by us on the water from the convenient balcony above the restaurant which afforded a great viewing platform.  In the afternoon, we ventured out onto the water once more, visiting more settlements, some of the oldest stilt homes in the lake, and a few mosques/churches built on the few land masses/islands that existed at the center of this large body of water.

The oil needed for boats, generators and cooking in these villages came from Nigeria – and we were shown the giant jerry-can laden boats that make the hazardous journey via the lake across the border to buy illegal oil to bring back in the dead and dark of night.  We were also lucky enough to spot some beautiful kingfishers diving for their own lunches in the water.

Offerings on the ground at the Voodoo Ceremony

On our return, we saw a huge line of boats with villagers all patiently waiting for fresh water that is presumably pumped from a spring hundreds of meters below the lake bed.  The water was being dispensed by a giant pipe that one by one was filling the huge water containers that locals used for their freshwater needs.

It was a sight to see and the line didn’t seem to grow any shorter as the sun began to set.

My night passed quite fitfully and awkwardly – maybe one of the worst I’d had in Africa yet on this trip.  Mike, I and Jodie all opted to vacate our “rooms” above the kitchen to place our mattresses on the second floor of the hotel in a wide open space at the top of the stairs.  The air was still and hot, but at least it was cooler than our fanless rooms.

After about an hour, Mike fast asleep, I noticed I was getting bitten all over by mosquitoes.  I decided to go back to the room, realizing though, that our bed no longer had a mattress on it!  Thankfully, I had my own inflatable sleeping pad, but once I placed it on the bed – I faced two issues.  One – the slats of the bedframe were too big to properly support my small pad, and Two – the mosquito netting only covered the pad partially, inviting my original problem back with a vengeance.

Realizing that Jodie had also left her room, I went next door and settled my sleeping pad on her bedframe which was made out of wire and therefore supported my pad.  Unfortunately, without her mattress on the bed frame, the mosquito net also didn’t quite reach me, and some of the little buggers were able to fly up for their blood-feed through the wire frame of the bed.

It was 2am by now and I was exasperated and tired.

I decided to take my sleeping pad and try the other side of the hotel where perhaps additional breeze meant fewer mozzies.  I found Ron, one of the trucks’ passengers trying to catch some Zzzz’s in a chair – telling me it was just too hot in his room to sleep.  Sympathizing, I offered him my sleeping pad, and resolved to go back to where Mike was still happily asleep.

I doused myself in extra repellant, took an ambien, and hoped for the best.  I finally managed to get a few hours’ sleep before having to awake for breakfast and our boat ride back to the mainland.

Grabbing our luggage from the hotel in Abomey-Cavalie, our guides from Ganvie were kind enough to drive us to a taxi rank and negotiate for us a ride to Ouidah – our next stop along the Benin coast.  Turns out that the screaming/arguing we had observed a few nights’ prior amongst moto and taxi drivers alike – is standard practice.  At least we weren’t involved this time as it took about 15 minutes for our guides to negotiate a fair and reasonable fair to the coast.  I was so tired, I was glad to have someone else deal with this apparently unavoidable discussion/fight that ensues at almost every stage of navigating the logistics of public transport.

Super happy and chillin’ in our lovely hotel pool in Ouidah

On arrival in Ouidah, we found a lovely and well-maintained, clean, rather upscale hotel with a beautiful pool only ten minutes’ walk from the beach.  I was thrilled, and after some lunch and a swim, enjoyed a glorious nap to make up for my prior mostly sleepless night.

Benin Part I: A Safari to Remember

13 Tuesday Feb 2018

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Beautiful bird in Penjari

The night in Fada N’Gourma luckily passed without incident, unless you count the fact that Mike and I both got up in the night and had to pee in our shower, since our bathroom was sans toilet.  We had to get transport to Pama and then onto the border with Benin from there, so the first order was to find a ride to where minibuses were heading south.  We had been seeing these tricycle trucks that were flatbed trucks being pulled by a motorcycle, and I couldn’t resist thumbing one down and asking if he would take us to the station.  At first, the guy was confused since he wasn’t a taxi – but gladly accepted our offer of money and we were happily on our way.  It was one of my favorite forms of transportation yet.

Happy on the Tricycle

Getting aboard the tricycle

Better yet, the guy driving knew exactly where to go, and I was lucky enough to be able to find a café that let me fill my Nalgene with coffee for the long journey ahead.

In a triangulation with 3 countries

The minibus was jam-packed and turned out to be one of the tightest squeezes on our foray into West African public transport to date.  At one point we were 23 people, 6 goats, a motorcycle strapped to the roof, luggage, jerry cans and even then 2 more people squeezed in through the back windows to fill any available pocket of air, regardless of whether an area of their butt actually touched a seat or not.  Mike and I were squished together to where we had to relieve certain areas of our body that had gone numb in unison, otherwise it was pointless.

I was pretty happy to get out of that transport once we were close to the border.

Guy getting in to the already crammed minibus through the window!

Our minibus

For the rest of the ride, we negotiated to go in a private taxi that wanted to take six people before it would leave.  Imagine riding with 2 people in the front seat and 4 squeezed into the back?  Yeah.  That is standard practice in Burkina.

To be able to get going faster and have a little more room, we negotiated to pay the cost of 5 seats so that the one person waiting could still go and we wouldn’t have to wait any longer.  All seemed to be going well until our driver decided it would be ok to try and make some extra cash along the way and leverage the fact that he already had six paid fares in the bag.  First, he picked up someone who rode in the front for five miles and then mysteriously got out.  Then, he tried to put a pregnant woman and her small daughter in the front seat sitting next to/on a man she’d never met.  We violently protested and, of course, insisted that she get in the back with us.  I complained to the driver who just kept saying it was only for a “short distance” – which was a blatant lie.

The woman, who at first was grateful, decided she could own her part of the back seat and gladly spread out herself and her child to where Mike and I were now squashed.  I assured the driver that he had broken his agreement with us and he was not gonna be getting the full fare.

How to wind up a window in Burkina Faso

I was well and truly convinced of this when he had the audacity to then further pick up another THREE guys and put them in the rear of the vehicle, crushed and sitting on top of our luggage.  I was livid at this point, and by the time Mike and I had made it through the border crossing and the extra hour to Tanguieta, the town we would stay at in order to visit Penjari National Park the next day, I was determined to only pay for 3 of 6 seats and geared up for a confrontation.

I gave the money to the driver, got out of the taxi and walked straight into our hotel for the night – and the taxi drove away without saying a word.

Huh!

Mike climbing onto the “death seat”

Exhausted, hot, sweaty and irritated – we still had to figure out transport and a guide for tomorrow, as well as figure out communication/SIM cards for our time in Benin.  After a shower and beer on the rooftop terrace, we started feeling a little better.  The hotel contacted a local guide, Charles, who came over to the hotel to explain what would be involved in a visit to Penjari the next day. Another guy who worked for the hotel in maintenance had also been kind enough to go into town and register SIM cards for Mike and I.  We offered to pay him for his trouble and he actually turned it down.  We were shocked – that was a first in Africa.   Charles explained that this was not that uncommon and that the Beninoise people were very hospitable by nature and truly wanted visitors to feel welcome.

We were going to need to be ready to leave the next day at 4:30am in order to get to the park at a reasonable hour to spot wildlife.  We would rent a private 4×4 vehicle and complete a full game drive till around 2pm when we would leave the park and head to a waterfall for a refreshing swim.  We then negotiated into our private tour the option to visit a traditional Tata Somba house in the evening before returning to the hotel.

Baboon

Baby Elephant

Charles didn’t disappoint.  Unfortunately, despite being promised repeatedly that there would be a packed/prepared breakfast ready for us to take on safari at 0500 – the restaurant was closed and no-one who was awake knew or cared enough to find out where our promised food order was.  This meant that we would have to go till 2pm without refreshment as there was apparently no services inside the park until we had reached a distance where the two lodges were located.  Luckily, Charles knew of a shack that sold coffee and eggs that was open at this ungodly hour.

Not only was it open, but they were literally blasting a full on action movie at that time.  It was something to behold.  Armed with coffee and baguettes with fried eggs – we could finally be on our way.

We tried to get some sleep but the road was just too bumpy.  We arrived at the park around 6am and had to register.  Then Charles put up the rooftop seat for us to climb into for our private game drive.  Apart from the fact that the seat up there had no guard rail and a large bump in the road or an overly enthusiastic right turn would result in certain death for the unfortunate occupant of that side of the seat or both – it was super fun being up there.

Beautiful Penjari Lodge where we had lunch

Mike, ever the gentleman

I’d say the wildlife here was far less habituated to humans than we had seen in Mole and so, Penjari became a highlight for us.  Aside from the expected crocodiles, hippos, baboons, oodles of antelope (JAFA, or AKA Just another fucking antelope) elephant and warthogs, we also saw red colobus monkey and some incredibly colorful birds that I can’t remember the names of, but will try to include photos of lhere.

We were altogether quite happy with our decision to visit, and yet, the highlight of our day was to come during our lunch stop at the Penjari Lodge.  I had requested to dine at this accommodation because I knew they had a watering hole and I thought we might be able to view more wildlife while having lunch.  As it turned out, it was a beautiful spot and rather swanky to boot – and despite the fact that they told us the kitchen didn’t serve lunch, per se, and we could only have spaghetti with tomato sauce – we were quite happy to enjoy cold beer and our simple meal while watching for more animals.

During our meal, the waiter came over to tell us that a lion had been spotted at the watering hole.  We excitedly made our way over and looked through our own binoculars as well as with the hotel’s own standing powerful scope that afforded a very clear close up of the two lionesses who were walking together around the water.  It was such a treat to see big cats – which are rarely spotted anywhere in West Africa anymore.  After about a half hour, satisfied, we returned to finish our now-cold spaghetti.

A huge herd of Hartebeest started approaching the watering hole and also a family of warthogs (well, I like to think they were a family, but I really have no clue).  The lions were nowhere to be seen, but the herd was beautiful to see nonetheless.

Just as I had grown tired of watching them and was about to go back yet again to our table, Mike shrieks and says “Oh My God!  One of the lionesses just grabbed an antelope!” and in an instant I spun around to see the cloud of red dust from which emerged the gruesome sight of an unfortunate Hartebeest with its neck in the jaws of one lioness while the other was chewing away at its intestines and leg.  This was my second time seeing a “kill” in the wild, and I couldn’t believe we were so lucky as to have such a clear view of what in reality was a good distance away, through the hotel’s scope.  I started screaming in French in case any of the other guests of the hotel were in earshot and wanted to witness this spectacle.

Lionesses with their kill

Lions at the watering hole

Incredibly, people seemed totally nonplussed at this awesomeness and we continued to have the viewing platform to ourselves, and we were giddy as children with toys.

As gruesome as it was to watch, it was still just astonishing.  These cats really play with their food.  This animal was being eaten alive – it took a full ten minutes for it to die.  One cat just held it in its mouth, allowing the other to eat.  You could see the ring of blood around her mouth as she munched away.

In any case, we were grinning from ear to ear when we left and Mike was excited to see what shots he’d managed to capture on his zoom camera.  Charles was happy for us – he didn’t get to see it at all as he was attending to our rented vehicle whose wheel had decided to come loose…luckily for us, right as we arrived at the lodge.

If the lion kill hadn’t been entertaining enough, Charles woke us both from afternoon naps on the way out to see a herd of elephants that were crossing the road right in front of the car, including a few juveniles.  As we stood up out of the car to get a better look, the dominant male starting to charge our vehicle!  We jumped back inside and Charles floored it out of there.  So exciting!

By the time we reached the waterfall it was after 4 in the afternoon and blazing hot.  It was a nice 30- minute walk to the lower falls and we cheerfully noted that we passed the campground where the Dragoman truck had stayed just three days prior.  After a refreshing swim in and around the falls, and watching the daredevil climbing antics of a few locals – it was time to head back to Tanguieta.  I did purchase some drop earrings made from bone that were being sold by a local artist – it’s so rare that I buy souvenirs, but this had been a special day for sure.

Mike and I at the first waterfall

Refreshing dip at the second waterfall

Despite our blinding exhaustion, Charles said that he had promised us a Tata Somba tour, and by God, despite the growing darkness, he was going to show us one.  These are traditional homes in the north of Togo and Benin that are designed to house livestock in the ground floor of the home along with a kitchen, and the roof contains other rooms where the family sleep, eat, and where grains/foods are stored.  We got a tour by a very enthusiastic Tata Somba occupant, and managed to take just a few flash-produced photos before I insisted Charles drive us back to our lodging at Hotel Atacora because we had now had a 15-hour day-trip and I was so tired I no longer knew my own name.

Me climbing to the roof of this traditional Tata Somba home

Unfortunately, there is no rest for the wicked, and the next day we were going to be leaving the hotel at 0500 to catch the 0600 bus that would be taking us all. The. Way. South. To Abomey-Calavie – a stop just short of Cotonou, and a journey which promised to be about 11 hours long.  We would be re-joining our friends on the Dragoman truck the following day on an overnight stay/tour to the stilt villages of Ganvie.