Tag: Wheatcroft

Abomey

Abomey is the historic heart of Benin, it is where the Dahomey Kings reigned for 4 centuries from the early 1600s.  We ended up  setting up camp at Chez Monique, a  backpackers complex spread out over four adjacent properties that offers camping in a garden full of sculptures where craftsmen work every day.  It sort of varied between fascinating and scary.   We cooked ourselves an Italian dinner with wine and were witness to a steady parade of locals and backpackers going by.

Images from Chez Monique
More Imaghes from Chez Monique

Abomey has many, many palaces in varying stages of decay or reconstruction , the main palace is a walled area 14 hectares in area.   We hired a guide out of Chez Monique for two hours in the morning to show us things other than the museum in the main palace because the admission includes a guide.  Two hours is not very much time but he took us to an older, quasi-restored palace on the outskirts of town.  Here one could see some of the same structures that had been present in the Palace of Tofa I.   The element that this visit most drove home to us was again the link between the past and present.   In this case it came in the form of the respect which the guide showed for the king that had been dead for 4 centuries.    It is traditional that anyone visiting the king visiting room has to take off his shirt, partly as a sign of respect and partly to show he has no concealed weapons.  They excuse tourists from this requirement, but any Beninois to this day takes their shirt off when they go in.  Our guide was not the only one to do this.

Jonathon and our guide Marc at a Dahomey Palace

The visit to the palace was not an altogether positive experience.  The site included a cage for two sick looking lions and a pretty disgusting pit where they kept a pitiful-looking crocodile.

Afterward we took our guide for a slow lunch that took up any time we might have to spare for the museum before we had to leave for Dassa, the next destination in our journey north.   Dassa is only a stopover on a long journey to Nattitingou, which holds both enthnocultural (the Tatasomba houses) and natural (Parc national Pendjari).  After numerous unsuccessful visits to ATMs and filling stations we were able to get some CFA (French West Africa francs) and some diesel before we headed north out of town.   The bank that worked for us was the Bank of Africa, which we have not used before but seems to have many branches so we can relax a bit about cash flow.  We are actually not spending very much money at all: diesel is cheap, our accommodations are not expensive even when we go to a hotel, and we make most of our own meals.  Guides and souvenirs are likely to be among the greatest expenditure we have.

African Print Fabric

Wax print is the typical fabric of west Africa. We know it in various forms in Ghana. This traditional brightly printed fabric is sewn into lovely up-and-downs(skirt and top) and some shirts for men. Wax print designs tend to be large and multi-coloured. I’ve seen wax print with images of alphabet letters, computers and now purses and stiletto heels. A few years ago a Ghanaian promotion of local fabric encouraged wearing traditional cloth on Fridays. We both enjoyed following this local custom.

Benin takes wax print to a whole other level. Men and women wear clothes made from the bright fabric as everyday wear. Men wear pants and shirts from the same fabric. Women might have a skirt of one and the wrap of another and baby tied on her back with a third. And somehow all the bright colours, the matchy pants and shirt, and various combinations of prints all seems to work and to our eyes looks so glamorous.

Jonathon bought a shirt (but not matching pants). Laura will stick to buying yards of the fabric for future use.

Some Beninois men looking good

 

Porto Novo

Time in Cotonou was dedicated to adminstrative things, the mechanical work, banking, shopping. The city is a bit manic, with the most remarkable traffic, comprised principally of fast new motos and slow old trucks.  It moves quickly, but it is crazy.   We actually were laughing as we drove through, completely surrounded by motos at close quarters.

We  left Cotonou on a Thursday via Porto Novo, the actual capital of Benin, inland a few kilometres to the north-east.  We thought that perhaps Porto Novo was a created capital, like Brasilia in Brazil, or Abuja in Nigeria, but that is not the case at all. Porto Novo was first established by the Portugese as a slave trading centre in the 1600″s, and was made the capital of the colony by the French in the late 1800″s.  a colonial centre (?) but is now another rambling African city with little to distinguish it.  We did go the the Musee Homne, a reconstruction of the Palace of Tofa I, the first local king in a long dynasty that began in 1688 and ran until 1976, when a succession dispute led to the abandonment of the palace and its assumption by the state which then established the museum.

The museum is a small complex of simple one storey buildings linked together and tastefully restored.  The lifestyle depicted has many similarities with what we know of that of Ghanaian chiefs.  Today part of the governance system of Benin, like that of Ghana, consists of traditional leaders, known as chiefs in some countries, kings in other.  In Benin the term King continues to be used, as we saw when we visited the village near Grand Popo (see earlier post). The feature of the complex in Porto Novo that really drove home for us the physical link between the past was the courtyard where the king held public events and ceremonies 400 years ago.   It consisted of a large open square with covered areas just a few rows deep around the perimeter.   A special, slightly higher place was for the king”.   This kind of structure was clearly the inspiration for the durbar squares that exist throughout Ghana and where I have attended many functions.  They are all even squares open in the middle with one side higher than the others for the dignitaries, just like the one at the Musee Homne.   On the occasions I have attended no one sat in the large open middle of the square. It was empty except for intervals when traditional music and dance troupes appeared to provide entertainment.   The Palace in Porto Novo was much more than this, and was very tastefully reconstructed to convey a sense of the myth and reality of the life of African kings, at least these ones.

Laura in the Hall of the Queen Mother
Tofa I Palace

Living out of the Land Rover

So how do we get everything in the Land Rover? Laura chimes in with her comments on “overlanding”. It’s one thing to do the touristy stuff but we are living out of our Land Rover. How do we do it?

The equipment and supplies in the back of the Land Rover have been moved around a couple of times over the week and a half we have been on the road and now we seem to have things where we need them. The back of the Land Rover has been specially outfitted with 4 bins on slide out drawer rails that fit between the wheel wells.  I have marked each bin lid so we know which is which. 1) Dishes 2) Pots and cooking utensils 3)Breakfast and some snacks and 4)Toiletries including malaria test kits, various antibiotics we hope not to need and the malarone tablets we are taking every day to protect against malaria.  Set on top of the drawer system and the wheel wells is a plywood floor that has been carpeted.  Here is where we each have our suitcase and to one side of the suitcases are the folding chairs and to the other is the plastic dish washing bin with the dish soap, sponge, tea towels and table cloth. This is also where the flashlights and fire extinguisher are kept.  Then there is a box with overflow food, clothes hangers if we ever want to hang clothes to dry. (So far we have sent our washing out while in Lome. Besides which we haven’t been in one place long enough to wash and dry clothes.) and there  is a basket with “activity” stuff which includes our crossword puzzles, a quilt I am beginning to piece, pens to give away when we feel charitable and a couple of books. I have my Kobo though one of the books I bought doesn’t seem to have loaded.  Jonathon has   tool box and a ratchet set in the middle of the floor. These have already proved useful for tightening the light on the back of the vehicle or replacing a grommet in the awning and for loan to a Togolais to repair a wheel  hub on his moto.

The guide books are kept in a basket squeezed between the back of the passenger seat and the fridge is  in easy reach while traveling. There is a space under the fridge floor that runs halfway across the vehicle that is handy to store things:  a small shovel, the emergency road alert triangle, the jack, and the long rod that makes the fourth side of the awning. We kept the single passenger seat on the other side behind the driver and when not in use for guides or other passengers it comes in handy to put day packs and other miscellaneous pieces. The awning and its poles are inside the door on the side where the awning hangs. The fridge behind the passenger seat is plugged into a specially installed plug that runs to the second battery, which is installed under the passenger seat. The fridge is big enough to hold what we need to keep cool, from milk and butter to white wine and insulin.

On the roof beside the tent are two more almost empty black bins (“ammo boxes”) in a waterproof traveling case. These are for the purchases we make along the road. So far they just have two jars of jam and a bag of coffee from the Benedictine Monastery.  Surely there will be more to come.

It took us a couple of days to master opening the tent on the roof and putting in the metal stays that hold out the fly. I try to keep the sand out of the tent by sweeping the sheets and floor every morning. We have a mini broom and dust pan that fit in a side pocket of the tent. We hang a bag from the tent frame with our pj’s that can stay there when the tent is folded. The roof of the tent is high enough to be able to sit and read by fluorescent lantern.

Jonathon on the laptop. Note the Ipod and battery monitor on the near side of the dash console

The ipods have music. The mobile speakers have new batteries. This computer can be charged using any one of the three “cigarette” lighter plugs we have wired to run off the second battery.

We have drinking water in a  jerry can  attached to the outside on one side, wash water in a jerry can  on the other, and a propane cooking fuel canister on the back.   Many people, including me, wondered about toilets. So far we have always had access to a toilet and often shower in a nearby hotel, monastery or host’s house. I do take advantage of our couple of hotel stays to wash my hair and luxuriate in a long hot shower.

We aren’t deprived – did I mention the couple of bottles of wine we have drank and replenished?  As for security, all our cash, passports and other valuables are locked in a very secure hidden place that no-one will ever find, but of course I can’t tell you where it is. It’s camping comfortable. Sort of like shabby chic but with al fresco dining.

First Maintenance sur la route.

When we left Lome we noticed the second battery was not charging correctly.   It was only when we arrived in Grand Popo beach in Benin after a couple of hours driving that it seemed to be charging, but the power quickly dropped.  We had to run the vehicle a bit over the two days we were camped there to keep the power level up.   To make things more interesting, when I was doing the routine vehicle levels check (oil, water, etc) the morning we left Grand Popo I noticed the cooling hose was sitting against the AC pulley.  I pulled it away and was horrified to see the pulley had carved a deep groove into the hose, not enough to open it, but a deep groove nonetheless.   Pretty poor workmanship  to have left it like that  and one would not have seen it without looking closely.  I had the cooling system flushed and a gasket replaced just before we left Accra and it was that high hose they used to bleed the air out of the cooling system .   I was able to pull it away from the pulley by a millimetre or so bit using a rubber-coated wire I had in my odds and ends can but it was very tenuous.  With the damage already done to the hose it was clearly going to have to be replaced while we were within reach of services to avoid losing our cooling system in some remote location.  Our next planned stop was  the city of Cotonou anyway, we would simply add a visit to a mechanic  to our itinerary.

It turned out to be quite easy.   Inquiries about garages at the Chez Clarisse Guest House where we stayed led to their driver getting a mechanic to come in.  He took the hose to size a replacement and took the auxiliary battery to put on charge.   It was all done by the end of the day.  The battery will need to be monitored and if it does not hold the charge it will have to be replaced, but the mechanic here said we could get a deep cell battery anywhere in the country.

While one is never happy to have problems the experience also demonstrates a couple of positive features of our systems.  One is the dual battery monitor that we bought from BushPower in South Africa in March (see separate post A Shopping Spree like no Other) and had mounted on the dash when the dual battery system went in.  The meter enabled us to see right away that there was a problem with the second battery, before it was run down.  There is also a battery meter built into the National Luna fridge, but it only reads the auxiliary battery and metering both batteries helped to isolate the problem.  The other positive feature this experience highlights is the value of checking the vehicle closely.   It was not by chance I saw the hose problem, and will be sure to continue to watch for things like that.

Into Benin, Auberge de Grand Popo and Intro to Voodoo

We crossed the border into Benin on a Sunday afternoon after an uneventful hour long drive across narrow Togo from Lome.   The border crossing was also uneventful, the officials at both sides of the border were polite and professional.

Timing was great for a late afternoon arrival at Auberge de Grand Popo, a very laid back beach spot along the western coast Benin near the Mono River.  Its features include an almost idyllic campsite set just back from the beach among trees.   There are basic sanitation facilities for campers, but the  restaurant and small pool set in bushes are only a short walk down a path.   We are here in the off season so it is very quiet, but we really liked this place and it was from here that we made our first foray into the  culture and environment of Benin.

Many African countries have varying degrees of voodoo traditions but Benin is considered to be the source.   Most of the slaves that were exported from here  went to Haiti and Brazil, and took with them beliefs and practices that are known as voodoo.  To understand this better we hired a guide to take us into a so-called “voodoo village”.  It was a good place to go because we are off what tourist circuit as exists here, so there did not appear to be any thing being put on for tourists.  The guide we went with takes people there so they are accustomed to visitors and were somewhat accommodating, we had schnapps at 11:00 AM with the voodoo priest, who had just buried his son, who died at age 50.
The principal physical manifestation of the culture consists of several simple, occasionally disturbing, shrines constructed throughout the village.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are many different “gods” serving many purposes.  There was an overal “Dieu protecteur du village”, another for good fishing, another to protect against smallpox, etc etc.  Some are figurative, others appear to be collections of assorted materials, almost like found art.

Laura and our guide Mathias at one of the voodoo shrines
Strolling through the voodoo village

Our visit also gave us the opportunity to see some community development in action.  The village was in the process of constructing a maternity wing on the health centre and needed to raise the level of the land to prevent flooding.  The site was at one end of the village, at the other end end  was a huge pile of sand that had been dredged from the Mono River.   There were about 10 men shovelling sand into a big old dump truck (which did not seem to have brakes, someone had to thr0w down a block of wood in front of a tire to make it stop!) , at the other end there were as many women taking the sand dumped by the truck into pans and distributing it around the site.

Women buidling maternity ward – there is at least one baby seen here being carried in the traditional way

Lome

We arrived in Lome on Day 6 of our trip, which felt a bit strange as we know Lome is normally only 4-5 hours from Accra.   So we took an indirect route.

To spoil ourselves after spending a week in a tent we checked into a hotel, not least to take advantage of the laundry service.  We opted to return to the Hotel Bellevue, a simple place we stayed on a previous visit.  Because we arrived without a reservation this time we were not in the main building but in an annex about a block away.   The room was small but had A/C ,  and a TV.     There was also WiFi, which enabled us to catch up on email and blog posts while we missed while we had been in the hills.  I also took an hour on Saturday afternoon to finish the installation of the hidden security safe that I had not had time to do before we left.

The capital of Togo, Lome is a suprising place.  Because Togo is relatively poor there are many fewer vehicles than in Accra, instead the streets are dominated by motorcycles, or “motos”.  The infrastructure is quite poor, paved main streets are all flanked by secondary streets of sand.   Because of this, Lome feels as much like a beachfront holiday destination as a al capital.  Typical of many capitals of former French colonies, Togo does have lots of style, with great restaurants and grocery stores with lots of good food.   There are also lots of good restaurants  and this was the main focus of our time in Lome.

Guess what we did in Lome?

Agou-Petsi Falls

We left la Part du Chef right after breakfast bound for the capital city of Lome.  Out of curiosity we turned at a unction with a sign referring to a “Cascade Themale ” (thermal waterfall) but had to stop in response to a whistle and waves from a road side shed where we were asked to part with 5500 CFA ($10.) to visit the mountain.   We agreed to do so on assurance that the  Casade Thermales was operational, although the assurance did not include guarantee of a refund it is was not.   The payment was a rather bureaucratic process, we had to fill out  several forms and the person manning the wicket was not literate.    As we drove up yet another steep switchback road the sun broke and we were treated to a great view of the valley below.

Vally View off Mont Agou

There was another sign to mark the turn into the falls so we were discocerted to find the road suddenly end at what appeared to be nothing at all.  A number of people surrounded the Defender and gave assurances  that we had indeed arrived at the cascade.   No fewer than four “guides” then led us through a village to a well maintained trail to the falls, at which point we learned that, in Togo at least, thermal means healthy, not hot.   It was very pretty tho’, and the guides articulate and pleasant.

Laura and Guides at the Cascades Agou Petsi

They told us how they had developed this as a community project and we got into a discussion of how they did nto get any share of the revenue collected at the junction.   They welcomed our suggestions for how to make the pleasant site moreso (ie. a sign at the end of the road to say one ahd arrived, a place to change into bathing suits, and fewer “guides”)  We took one of them back down with us to the guichet and reinforced our point that is was the “cascades thermales” that had inspired us to make the turn and pay the money and he seemed quite content with that, there was no pressure to pay more.  Indeed he seemed quite appreciative that we had helped empower him to take up their cause with the “official” at the shed.  No doubt the story continues, but we left feeling we had perhaps  made a modest contribution to the project by helping them assert themselves.

Agou-Petsi Falls

Agou and La Part du Chef

We had heard about a restaurant that specialized in exotic meats in a village located about 25 km south of Kpalime in the small town of Agou at the foot of a mountain of the same name and decided it was a not-to-miss site.    We had no information about places to park and camp in Agou but our timing got us there early enough   in the afternoon so we went by just to confirm it would be open and place an order so we just asked them if they knew somewhere we might b e able to park and set up camp.   After some discussion the lovely women that welcomed us went to speak to the Chef, who came out and said we would be welcome to set up in his garden.

To set up we had to move some rocks and stacked lumber and backing the Defender through a narrow gate into a lane that ran through the middle of an extended family living space.   It worked, and the large extended family that called this ‘garden’ home were more than a little entertained by the rooftop tent which just fit under the mango tree.  Everyone took turns climbing up the ladder and peeking into the tent.

Jonathon and Chef Late in the yard
Visiting the tent

We also enjoyed a tour of the property, which is a small livestock operation, with pens for pigs, goats, lambs, chickens and of course guinea fowl.   The chickens are everywhere, fed in  the morning by the youngest son.  The agouti (bush rate) are caught in the wild and kept in cages awaiting slaughter when needed for a plate.

Late’s son feeds chickens while Laura reads

We opted for the Agouti and the Pintade, which translate roughly as bush rat and guinea fowl.    The agouti is the same creature as what is known in Ghana as grass cutter, which we never liked, but this was good.     Guinee fowl is a dry meat, but this one was meatier than most. We also enjoyed corn meal dumpling cooked in the corn meal jus.

This is what an Agouti looks like

There was no running water, but there was a toilet that flushed.  At night they put a big barrel of (very) hot water in the shower stall in the bathroom  for washing.  We were awoken early by all the animals and served a breakfast of guinea fowl eggs, bread and Nescafe.

We enjoyed learning about Le Chef, as in the name of the restaurant…”La Part du Chef”.   We had of course assumed it was all about the person who did the cooking, but that was not the case at all.   Rather, Mr. Late did not cook, but was a minor Ewe “Chief”, or Chef en francais.     He had earned his living as a primary school teacher  until he retired in 1995 and set up the restaurant to supplement his pension.   It was a popular place among people from Lome who would come up from the capitol  on the weekend.  He was also planning to set up a campground (campement)  among the trees bordering his property, but he had not yet set up the services and security arrangements, hence our spot in the garden.

It was a lovely evening, which we enjoyed very much.

Day 2: Tranfer into Togo

 

Driving through the Volta Region of Ghana towards the Togo border

Yesterday we drove from Ada in eastern Ghana up through the Volta Region to cross into Togo at a place called Shia.  Imagine the most isolated, backwater border crossing, down the roughest, most unused road, managed by a host of people who are so starved for human companionship they will not stamp your passport until you have engaged them in conversation for a good 10 minutes, and you will have gained some insight into our day today.

The first (of several) policeman at the Togolese crossing was the most interesting.  He had been a participant in Canada World Youth twenty years ago and spent a couple of months in Trois Rivieres.  He was convinced that Quebecois were not as nice as people from other Canadian provinces, an impression I tried very hard to disabuse him of.  Despite the numerous stops required to traverse the border (two on the Ghanaian exit and four on the Togo entrance) the only unpleasant part was at Ghana Immigration.   Certainly the most overstaffed border post I have ever seen.  There were five people (women) behind the counter  and two men, not in uniform but clearly in charge, standing in front of the counter that gave the impression they were travellers.   After having the women go through our passport  the two men  subjected us to what can only be called interrogation,  grilling us about the last time we entered Ghana, how long we had been in Ghana, where we were going,   At the end the person in charge said it would not be possible for us to cross there, rather we would have to go to the next post, which was the main Aflao crossing now two hours drive away.  This was clearly an effort for a bribe but he did not know that I don’t pay bribes.   We just held our ground, we had made small talk with the other staff and I think they could  see he was being unreasonable and after a time he after a time he  instructed one of the women to stamp our passports.   I am sure this will not be the last time we have to play this game but so far I can still say I have never paid a bribe.

As officious as this individual was, to his credit he at least cited a reason to prevent our crossing that was somewhat plausible – the condition of the road.   He said the road was very bad and would need a “very strong car” to make it.   Because we had a 4×4  it was a bit easier to dismantle the immigration official arguments.   There was no road at all, only a mud track that wound through streams and tall grass, clearly they were not encouraging people to cross there.

 

Muddy Track at the Ghana-Togo border Shia crossing

A very long and rainy 9 km after the border, most of which had to be done in 2nd gear because of the abominable condition of the road, we arrive into the back entrance of Kpalime (the K is silent, the e is not) in the heart of Togo’s hilly coffee/cocoa country and a centre for those seeking to escape the heat  along the coast.  By the time we got there it was after five so we decided to find a place there for the night.  We went to the Geyser (pronounced, we learn, geezer in French) a quiet place within the town boundary and equipped with a pool.  It had stopped raining and for CFA 5,000 (CAD 10) they let us set up the rooftop tent in the garden  and we had beer and salty but good Pork Dijonais for supper in their restaurant.    The main evening event was the large flying termites  that emerged while we were having dinner.  Apparently this happens for a couple of days when there has been a lot of rain.  There were thousands of them, so many the hotel staff went around and turned all the lights off. They carpeted the ground as we walked  back to the Landy to climb up into our tent.