The old Peugeot for the ride from Parakou to Natitingou in northern Benin didn't inspire much confidence. At least, my protests against putting a third person on the front passenger seat were successful. Four adults and two children were squeezed in the back. On the outskirts of Parakou, the driver of an oncoming shared taxi gave a hand signal and our driver turned off from the road to park the car behind a wall. He mumbled a few words and disappeared. After a while, I asked my front seat neighbour what we were waiting for and he explained to me that there was a police checkpoint which our driver, whose papers were not in order, wanted to have a look at. After the onset of a downpour, the driver returned soaking wet and in the best of moods. In a weather like this, he laughed, no policeman would get out of his shed to check the papers. The passengers were of the same opinion and we could continue. The limited visibility due to the rain (the windscreen wipers didn't work properly) and the horrible condition of the flooded road gave me an awkward feeling which wasn't improved by the fact that the driver kept singing in a high-pitched voice. At least he respected my plea to drive a bit slower. Due to the thousands of potholes we couldn't drive fast anyway. Contrary to our expectations, we were stopped at the checkpoint. With a sigh, the driver got out of the car and approached the two policemen with a huge laugh. These welcomed him stone-faced. I prepared myself for a long wait and thought that maybe it wouldn't be too bad if they'd make us continue in another vehicle. After a few minutes, however, our good-humoured driver returned, said something to the passengers of which I only understood "mille cinq cents" (thousand five hundred*) and we could continue our journey. The rear luggage cover wasn't properly closed because there was too much luggage so I did not have much hope to find anything in my backpack left dry on arrival in Natitingou. The heavy rainfall did not reduce and even increased when we had a flat tire. I didn't envy the two men who changed tires. In the next village, we stopped at a tire repair place situated on an island surrounded by rainwater-rivers. It took one hour until we could continue. The condition of the road got better and the driver got faster. I felt very uneasy and decided to get off the taxi in the next town to look for another vehicle to Natitingou. This wasn't necessary however as the driver stopped there anyway and made us board a relatively well-preserved Opel waiting there. Unfortunately, the rule that the better the condition of road and vehicle, the faster the ride proved correct. With 120 km per hour, we raced to Natitingou.

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* 1500 Francs CFA are about 2 Euros.

On the road again: Togo and Benin

After an intense, interesting and exhausting time in Madiaso, I decided to set off again on for the last month of my time in Africa and travel southwards to greener regions. Before and during the first months of my trip, I had thought that I'd be spending most of my time in tropical parts of Africa and only a few weeks in Burkina Faso but then...

After I'd failed to get the visa for Ghana in Ouagadougou, I had no difficulty obtaining a 'Visa des pays de l'entente' which allows entry into five countries of the region.

Although I spent only about a week in Togo, I quite liked several places that I visited there especially the northern city of Kara and the beautiful lush region around Kpalimé.

Lush vegetation...

... and nice villages in the Mt. Klouto region.

Even my time in the admittedly very hectic, polluted and noisy city of Lomé was better than expected.

However, it was great to find a place like Grand Popo just across the border in Benin to chill out for a few days. Grand Popo is home to a Finnish cultural centre (don't ask me why there's a Finnish cultural centre in a small coastal town in Benin) with a big library which was, unfortunately, closed during the time of my stay there.




My next stop was two bush-taxi-hours east in the country's biggest city, Cotonou. This city has a really bad reputation which was confirmed by all the travellers from that direction that I had met in Grand Popo. I liked it even better than Lomé.



Benin's capital Porto Novo is a rather sleepy place compared to Cotonou. There's a very interesting centre for sustainable agriculture, the Centre Songhai, which was founded by a Nigerian priest in the 1980s. I found the philosophy of not wasting anything (and recycling everything) really good and the way it is realised on the vast grounds of the centre even better. Wastewater, for instance, is treated in ponds of waterplants which are then (mixed with animal manure) used for biogas production. Later, the same water is used to raise fish before being brought out on the vegetable fields. All production seems to be organic and the products can be consumed in the centre's restaurants or bought in the shop there. There's even a workshop to produce agricultural machines and tools like a cashewnut-cracker. What a huge impact such a thing could have in a village like Madiaso...!

Taro and oranges


Part of the centre's wastewater treatment system

As I'm not getting to Nigeria on this trip (I had been looking forward to travelling there for some time) I wanted to get at least as close as possible: the border at Kraké. Pretty wild, I enjoyed this place!

Now, I'm in Abomé, the capital of the old and great kingdom of Dahomey. This kingdom was so powerful that French colonial officials decided to not connect it to the railway line but have it pass by the city at a distance of 10 kilometres. The station there, Bohicon, is now the much busier place and Abomé rather sleepy which only adds to its charm. There's palaces (every new king bought a new palace for himself) and temples all over the city and both Abomé and its surrounding villages are well protected by a vast number of fetishes.

Shrine containing a fetish

A fetish with offerings (notice the beer can in the background!)

The teak forest of my guesthouse