Benin!

February 25-27, 2012

Weekend off... How about we cross a border? Benin it is!
We had a pretty large group, 9 total, all excited and ready to travel.
The difficult part is trying to travel together in such a large group.
Somehow, it works out! After spending a couple of hours at the gas station working on getting a taxi or a bus, we met a man from Ghana who spoke English who helped us. So we jumped in two taxis to the Ghana border (yes, that's the opposite direction of Benin) with him in the front seat. When we arrived we got to a "taxi station" type of place where we got a station wagon that would fit all 9 of us and the driver, for a fee of 4,000 CFA each, to Benin. We piled in the schwagon (sweaty station wagon) and were off! At the border, we waited while "mom" and "dad" (Fiona and Nathan, occupants of the front seat) jumped out to sort our visas for us. All worked out and we made it into Benin (after a nice lunch of packed sandwiches and some Fan Milk... (ice cream/frozen juices/frozen chocolate milk/etc in a bag that you buy, bite the end of the plastic package off, and suck it out! mmm!)
 A couple of hours later, we found ourselves in Ouidah. We drove through and arrived at the gate of no return on the Atlantic Coast of Benin, significant during the Atlantic slave trade. This was the last place the African people passed through on their way to the ships.
The driver said he could not take us to the hotel we were trying to get to unless we paid him more because he had to drive down a sandy road to get there.  After trying to bargain, we decided it wasn't worth it and got out at the beach. We took some pictures, ate some snacks, stretched our legs, then tried to figure out what to do next.



Luckily, we came across a man in an Infiniti. He spoke some English and agreed to speak with the owner of the hotel to help us figure out where we were going. As he was speaking in French, one of us heard him say, roughly, "I found them wandering along the beach..." Ha! He ended up driving us back into town where we could more easily find a taxi to take us to the hotel.  We were dropped off at another place where, eventually, two taxis came to pick us up and start the (longer than expected) journey to our hotel.  It was a beautiful drive, all along the beach, driving on sand roads, looking at the stunning waves of the Atlantic ocean crashing on the shore.

When we made it to the hotel, we were pleasantly surprised by an enthusiastic greeting from the owner followed by a quick tour of the grounds and our rooms.  There were individual hut-like buildings for each room, a large open-walled, covered area for meals, a pool that was not currently full of water, and many recliners and huts out in front by the water.  Also, a horse! And many lizards. We gratefully put down our bags and sat down for dinner. We enjoyed our long meal and the company and were just so thankful to have made it safely to such a beautiful location and have wonderful food and incredible hosts. We agreed upon a plan for the next day and went to sleep.
In the morning, we awoke and went to breakfast. We were served a tray of fresh fruit - pineapples, mangoes, papaya, yum! Then some bread and mango jam and coffee.  Then came the omelets and fresh squeezed orange juice.  A feast! So good, and we ate every bit. We then took some time figuring out how to pay for everything and what to do next.  We had forgotten about the time change. The owner told us it was only 9:00 am when it was 10:00 in Togo, which confused us but we thought maybe we gained an hour? This didn't make sense in relation to our location, so we asked our waiter what time it was and he said 11:00.  In a matter of minutes, we gained an hour, then lost two hours. yikes!

We kicked it into high gear and left for a boat ride to Bab's Dock, a resort area on the water.  It was beautiful, had nice docks on the water, kayaks, a small sail boat to rent, and an outdoor bar to order drinks or food.  We soaked it all up. After a couple of hours, our boat came back for us and we returned to the hotel where we were waiting for taxis to take us back to town (3 of us needed to return to Lome to work the next morning and the border closed at a certain time).  Our hotel owner ended up taking us in her personal SUV because the taxis did not show up in time. We once again scrunched into a vehicle 10 people are not meant to ride in, and drove up the sandy roads back to town. We were short on time and worried about running into the police with too many people, so the 6 of us not going back to Togo jumped out, said a very quick goodbye, and went on a search for our next adventure.  We met a man who walked us to a moto/bus station.  We decided we had a couple of hours until sundown so thought we would be ambitious and try to go to the stilt village of Ganvie. 

After another very long conversation and bargaining, we ended up hopping into a lovely blue van with RAD on the side ("Read a Dream"). We went flying down the road to the place where we pay for a boat tour of Ganvie.

We decided upon the more expensive option of having a motor since the sun was due to set soon.  As we were boarding the boat, we noticed it did not have a motor... All of a sudden a man passes us on the dock carrying a motor and attaches it to the back of the boat. Voila! We climb in and are greeted by our tour guide as we start our boat ride into Ganvie.  The village is all over the water with each house, hotel, hospital, market, attraction set on stilts. Everyone has a boat that they ride from place to place to buy whatever they need or to go to and from town. Some people greeted us with songs of Yovos and laughter while others just stared, making it clear they did not want their picture to be taken.  We selectively took photos and took in Ganvie, a beautiful village on the water.

When the tour was over, we then had a man help us to find a place to stay in Cotonou that was not too expensive and was also safe.  He drove around with us and found us a wonderful hotel to stay. We had an incredible meal of rice, cous cous, amazing sauteed veggies, and, of course, french fries.  We befriended our new mom and dad, two of the owners (I think) of the hotel.  We had difficulty finding a person to drive us back to Lome in the morning (which was necessary as many of us had to work in the evening). The woman saw our stressed faces and said, "Don't worry, Mama is here, I will take care of you." She went on to say that if we could find noone, she would take us herself in her car. The man used our phone and talked to some people for us and arranged for a friend to take us back in the morning.  He had to go to Lome and needed to leave very early in the morning, so we jumped in with him! We didn't mind getting up at 4:30 am as long as we got back! We woke up early early, met with the man, said our goodbyes to our new friend at the hotel, and we were off. The car flew through the nearly-empty streets in the darkness of the early morning. The breeze was nice and cool, sheltered from the sun. We raced back in record time, spent only 10 minutes through the border with all 6 of us, and got back to the boat in 2-2 1/2 hours, in time for breakfast (served only from 6:30-7:30 am).  Success!
Actually, as Lina would say, an epic success.