Lagos, Nigeria - 01 May 08 to 04 May 08

You're going where?  Lagos?  You must be crazy!!  My uncle went there 5 years ago and they stole a briefcase right out of his hand!!  Do you have to go?  Why would you want to go there?  Don't you know that that place is very dangerous?

These were the type of responses I got from people, even in neighboring Benin, upon telling them of my final destination in West Africa.  But something about this pulsing megalopolis, the world's third-largest city in fact, was drawing me in.  I scheduled my outbound flight from West Africa down to Johannesburg from Lagos intentionally so that I would have an opportunity to visit this unique place.  

I first had to make it into Nigeria, however.  Getting the visa while I was in Accra, Ghana had been a multi-day process involving much pleading and cajoling and had cost $100 for a simple transit visa.  After I made it through the official customs post, I then had to run the gauntlet of corrupt border officials on the 200-meter or so walk from the border crossing to the motor park where the onward transport waited.  I counted how many times I was stopped by different uniformed border officials, who lurked at various spots about every 100 feet or so: 7 times.  In Nigeria, when someone asks for a "dash", they're asking for a little bribe to facilitate whatever action or transaction you desire.  I could tell these guys were all scoping me out, so I took a deep breath and tried to summon patience.  

Seven times I was ordered to stop and show papers, make an explanation of myself, state my purpose, whatever.  All the while I could tell these guys were just digging for any small discrepancy to hit on so that they could demand a "dash".  My ngoni saved me every time.  Invariably, people wanted to know what was this instrument that I was carrying, why, where did it come from, could I play it.  After playing a simple melody, receiving a smile and a good laugh, they always let me go.  In fact, I passed my entire 4 days in Nigeria without ever having to pay a single dash, which might be some kind of record.

Here is the motor park that I reached to look for onward transport after having run the gauntlet at the border.

Making it into Lagos was a bit confusing.  I had to take a car to another motor park on the outskirts, change to a big collective van that took me in to Lagos Island, then get a taxi to take me downtown.  It took a couple of hours.  I was all jacked up because of all the hype about how dangerous it was, but really, it was just like any other big African city I've visited, and every time things were confusing someone was there who offered me help and advice on how to get through the next stage.

I walked all around the lower downtown for a couple hours looking for a place to stay, but the few hotels in the guidebook were either full or too expensive.  Finally, I wandered by luck into an area between Lagos Island and Ikoye (which have now merged) called Obalende, which was an entertainment and residential district packed with people and bustling little streets that had a really cool vibe.  I found a run-down old place called the Obalende Guest House run by a blind man and his wife who were very nice and offered me a discounted rate.  With a home base, I now had the opportunity to let loose and explore Lagos.

Here is the Obalende Motor Park, located inbetween the islands of Lagos and Ikoye.  The central part of Lagos, similar to New York City, is located on a series of islands.  The main downtown is Lagos Island, Ikoye has most of the embassies and consulates, and Victoria Island has most of the really rich (from oil money) banks and upscale properties.  On the mainland are most of the residential neighborhoods in a sprawl that spreads for several miles.

This motor park seemed to be perpetually submerged in about 4 inches of black, oily water.  The cars and busses would just cruise on through, sending black waves splashing up toward the sidewalk so you had to watch out.  

I spent the next few days wandering around Lagos Island.  

This building had a typical message written on it: "Beware of 419".  419 is the Nigerian code for fraud.  It can refer to those mass emails we've all gotten soliciting help getting a large sum of money out of Nigeria, if only you provide your bank details; it can also refer to the practice of breaking into an unoccupied property and then selling it off to an unsuspecting third party.  

Evangelical Christianity has a lot of clout in southern Nigeria.  

The iconic entrance to Tafa Balewa Square in downtown Lagos.

The entrance to the National Museum.  A fascinating place, I spent the whole day here and still hadn't seen it all when they closed the doors.

The licence plates from Lagos State.  

Motorcycle taxis awaiting clients in the shade.  

While heading uptown toward the market district, I passed this outdoor wedding, very similar to many other weddings I saw in West Africa.  

A famous old bookshop in Lagos.  I read that there is some Afro-Brazilian architecture in Lagos, similar to Benin, that was built by returned former slaves from Brazil.  I thought this might be an example of one of the buildings but I am not sure.

There is a raised expressway called Ring Road which runs around the circumference of Lagos Island.  Central transportation centers can also be found periodically along the perimeter.  

The downtown Lagos skyline.  

The harbor in Lagos.

Getting close to the market district, which takes up the entire northern third of Lagos Island.

Lagos' downtown mosque, with a garbage dump in the foreground.  

This building spontaneously collapsed one day.  I asked a street vendor about it and he told me that one day a couple of years ago, as everyone was minding their business, they heard a huge crash and looked up to find the building had caved in with no warning.  Unfortunately, several hundred people died in the collapse.  

A closer view of the collapsed building.

Getting in to the market district.  

Masses of people thronging the streets in the market district at the northern end of Lagos Island.  

More market and more people than I ever saw.  There were streets and streets forever packed with people and stalls selling anything and everything.  

Getting near to sunset.

The daily commute home.  Lagos is infamous for its traffic jams, called "go-slows".  At the end of the working day, thousands and thousands of people were trying to get off of the island back to the residential districts on the mainland.  Traffic was at an absolute standstill and many thousands of these people were simply walking across the bridges back home.  

Another day, I walked east through Ikoye and across a big bridge onto Victoria Island.  Here is a roadside statue as one arrives on VI.  

This guy reminded me of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, but I don't think he was a police officer.  

A megabank built from millions of dollars of oil money.

Hey everyone, pay up.

Taken from the bridge back to Lagos Island, local fishermen ply the waters.

A view from underneath the raised causeway encircling Lagos Island.

The ruins of this boat were lying at the bottom of a ditch underneath the raised expressway.

The Obalende Guest House, my home away from home in Lagos.

My room in the Obalende Guest House.

The street outfront of the guesthouse in Obalende.

Below is a picture of me and my friend Shuaib Mumuney-Bako.  I met him while walking around the Obalende District.  He invited me to have a few drinks and we hung out for a while.  He was really nice and showed me around Obalende, but at first was very suspicious of me.  He was confused about the purpose of my presence in Nigeria and in Obalende (I was the only foreign tourist I saw the entire time I was there).  He asked me outright if I was an undercover CIA agent.  I have met with this suspicion before in different African countries.  Unfortunately, the suspicion is fully justified as the CIA has taken part in many covert actions in Africa in the past, some resulting in the assassination of legitimately elected African leaders such as Patrice Lumumba.

Politics aside and suspicions assuaged, my friend Mumuney invited me to his friend's bachelor party the next night.  It was held in a small park almost underneath a raised expressway adjacent to the Obalende Motor Park.  There was much drinking and dancing, as to be expected, and I got some leads on some new dance music.  Nigeria has a great music scene from the little that I observed and heard.  

The highlight of a bachelor party in Nigeria is when everyone is supposed to spray the groom with beer until he is completely soaked from head to toe.  Because we were in a children's park, the agreement was that we had to soak him with water instead so the ubiquitous plastic bags of water known all over West Africa as "Pure Wata" were handed out and we all rushed the groom at the appropriate hour and doused every inch of him.  

Me and Mumuney.

As evening approached on May 4th, I made the journey via public transport and motorcycle taxi out to Nigeria's international airport, at the north end of the city on the mainland.  The whole time it was running through my mind that this was my last day in West Africa.  I felt nostalgic already, missing the people and places I'd seen, and at the same time excited and anxious to return to Mozambique and see all of my friends there after 5 years of absence.  

The next post will be a short account of my transit of South Africa, followed by a post on my month spent in Mozambique.  Stay tuned.

Benin - 18 Apr 08 to 30 Apr 08

I was quite excited to visit the country of Benin, for a number of reasons. The first one was the good fortune of having a personal connection there. The best travel scenario is usually when you have a local contact that can show you around and give you the insider's view of wherever you are. My friend from Boulder, Olatundji Akpo-Sani, has a large extended family in southern Benin as his father is from there, and for the next 3 weeks I was the guest of the Akpo-Sani family.

The other reasons I was excited to visit Benin all had to do with the wealth of culture and history that this country contains, despite its small geographical size. From learning about the authentic nature of voodoo (properly called vodoun and born in Benin, vodoun is an official religion here), to having another opportunity to come face to face with the harsh historical realities of slavery, to learning about the Dahomeyan kingdom, to visiting a small town built in the middle of a lake entirely on stilts, Benin has a lot of unique and fascinating facets that I was ready to explore.

My first stop on the way from Lome was the commercial capital and largest city, Cotonou. Most of the Akpo-Sani family lives there so it seemed like the place to start.

Cotonou doesn't have a lot of historical or cultural tourist sites of note; most of what's in the guidebook is found elsewhere in the country. But it is full of hustle and bustle, huge swarms of zemi-johns (motorcycles) swarming everywhere on the streets, and more people than any other city in Benin.  And it is also home to the large and diversified "Peace and Love" corporation, whose various commercial holdings caught my eye all over the city.

Marguerite and Alime are a wonderful couple who live with their kids in one of the neighborhoods of Cotonou.  Marguerite is Olatundji's aunt, and two of their oldest kids (Tundji's cousins) are pretty close to my age so I spent the most time hanging out with them. The oldest son, Taofic, is quite a well-known pop star in Benin so we had a lot in common talking about music. He had a room in a compound just around the corner from his parents' house where I stayed while in Cotonou and we would come back to Marguerite and Alime's for delicious home-cooked Beninese meals.

Here is a picture of Taofic, my host and guide all over the city of Cotonou. As he had a zemi-john, we were able to cruise all around and check out the town, as well as experience the thrill of cruising through Cotonou traffic.

Taofic's next youngest brother is Loukman, pictured here. While Taofic insisted on going everywhere on his bike, Loukman and I cruised around the city on foot. He took me all over Cotonou.

Here is a photo of the neighborhood near where Marguerite and Alime live in Cotonou. Off of the main streets, most of the sideroads are sandy little back alleys where huge mudpuddles form when it rains. People leave strategically placed rocks where the big puddles usually form so that if you know the secret of where they are, you can still get by without having to get your feet wet.

This is a photo of the pinkest church I've ever seen in my life, on the way in between Marguerite and Alime's and Taofic's.

Some close friends of Loukman's. We went over to their house on my first night in Cotonou and they shared a bottle of really good imported German beer with me that they had been saving. It's fortunate that they decided to wear different clothes, otherwise they might be indistinguishable.

After getting acquainted with the neighborhood, I went out cruising with Taofic in order to get a feel for the city. Here we are swarming with the other zemi-john traffic.

Here is the statue on top of the Place de l'Etoile Rouge, the "Plaza of the Red Star".   Benin passed through a communist phase shortly after independence and there are many landmarks around Cotonou that attest to this history.

Another place we went was the new parliament building which was still under construction. It reminded me of 1950's architecture, maybe something by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Another sighting of the "Group Peace and Love" empire in downtown Cotonou.

As I mentioned before, Taofic is a big pop star in Benin. Together with his friend Romeric, they have a group called "Weziza", which Taofic told me was recently voted one of the 5 most popular groups in Benin. When I arrived, they were just in the process of releasing their 3rd studio album and they were doing some live shows in clubs around town in order to promote it. Here is a picture from a promo show they played. Taofic is on the left and Romeric is on the far right.

A different day, another one of the uncles in the family (I forget his name) came and got me and we went to visit some different members of the Akpo-Sani family that live around Cotonou.

This man is one of the people we visited. He owns this little quiosque that is right out side of the family compound where he lives. It was a nice little shop and very typical, I think, of the little roadside quiosques all across West Africa. He made me an awesome lunch and we hung out for awhile.

A bunch more family that all lived in the compound by the quiosque

That particular day happened to be election day and the uncle I was with took me with him to the polling place while he voted. Here is a picture of Beninese democracy in action.

We drove by the huge "Marche de Dantokpa", reputed to be the largest market in West Africa. On a different day I came back and wandered around this massive place for a few hours. The building shown in this picture is only the central heart of the market, which also spreads out through the surrounding streets and is really like its own neighborhood. To me, walking around in a big market is one of the most quintessential African experiences, and I tried often on this trip to capture what it's like in photos. I felt like I had little success in trying to portray the nature of these massive, bustling places with pictures. In retrospect, I wish I would have taken some videos while walking through some of these markets.

On another day, Loukman and I wandered all over the city on foot. We passed by this restaurant, which was located in a richer neighborhood of Cotonou where most of the embassies are located and the majority of expats live. As I walked past this restaurant, which was called "The Livingstone", I was struck by the fact that every single person who I could see inside was white, which seemed very odd in downtown Cotonou.

My first excursion outside of Cotonou was a two-day trip to the nearby town of Ouidah. During the height of the slave trade, the Dahomeyan kingdom would capture people and sell them to the Portuguese who would ship them from here to the New World, mainly Brazil and Haiti. In addition to museums recounting the history of the slave trade and the subsequent impact that the people of the African Diaspora have had on culture in the Americas, Ouidah has what is called the Route des Esclaves, a 4 km history walk following the route that slaves took on the way to the beach where they were loaded onto ships bound for the other side of the Atlantic. Ouidah is also the seat of the Vodoun religion in Benin.

Here is the central square in Ouidah.

This historical museum is housed in a former Portuguese fort. The Route des Esclaves starts here, and leads 4 km to the beach where the slaves were rowed out to the waiting slave ships. Following along the path there are many statues and historical markers along the way.

This was the first stop on the Route des Esclaves. Shortly before reaching this point I met some people in a vodoun temple who invited me to come back later and meet the high priest, which I did, but I wanted to walk the Route first.

This is the Place Cha-Cha, where slaves were auctioned off. The full plaque under the statue was buried under several inches of sand; I had to dig it up to read what was written there.

Further along the Route.  The big billboard on the left was part of a cell-phone advertising campaign that was ubiquitous in Benin at the time I was there.  

The Route des Esclaves was lined to either side with at least ten different statues such as this one, all having significance in the vodoun religion. Because I couldn't afford to pay for a guide to accompany me on the whole route, I missed a lot of the significance of what the statues meant. This one, however was well explained by the plaque.

This spot marks the location of the former "Tree of Forgetfulness". The male slaves were forced to circle the tree 9 times and the female slaves 7 times. This was to attempt to strip them of all memory of their homeland so that they could be more productive workers in the New World.

This compound I saw along the way belongs to a vodoun healer and the sign outside advertised their services.

When I got to about a kilometer before the beach, I encountered this place, which was a partially finished museum celebrating the contributions of the African Diaspora worldwide.

On the grounds, I met this man, named Kuku Fineboy, who was an Ogoni refugee from the Niger Delta in neighboring Nigeria. I was starting to feel like I was missing out on some of the important history of the Route des Esclaves, plus Kuku Fineboy was quite a nice guy, so I decided to hire him to guide me a little. After his tour was over, I also got to hear some of his personal story which was quite interesting.

He first explained that the African Diaspora museum here had run out of money before it could be finished. However, the grounds are partially finished and are used sometimes. There is a small, covered gazebo where Kuku told me there is a ceremony every year that takes place where the "Torch of Forgiveness" is lit and people from all over the world come to reflect on the evils of slavery and ask forgiveness of the ancestors.  They pledge to forgive but never to forget.  There are also some statues inside, of people like Martin Luther King, Jr., and W.E.B. du Bois, and one of a man I hadn't heard of before, called Litman.

Here is the statue of Litman. According to Kuku Fineboy, he helped in the invention of the light bulb. I looked up the history and although Thomas Edison is given credit for making the first mass-producable and commercially viable light bulb, there are reputed to be some 22 other people who came up with earlier prototypes that influenced Edison's work. However, Litman was not mentioned as one of them. Not only could I not find his name anywhere in Wikipedia, a cursory search of a couple of black history websites also turned up nothing. If anyone knows anything about the history of Litman, please let me know (you can post a comment right on the blog). Perhaps Litman is one of the forgotten geniuses of American history.

Kuku Fineboy showed me around the vicinity of the unfinished museum. Out back was an artistically stylized statue that represented the brutal and inhumane circumstances in which rebellious slaves were kept, as a way to intimidate the other slaves into obedience.

One other thing that he showed me was also a bit of a mystery. I had already seen the site of the "Tree of Forgetfulness". This next tree that he showed me was known as the "Tree of Return". Why the seeming contradiction? Apparently, the Portuguese slave masters were the ones to force the slaves to circle the "Tree of Forgetfulness". The Dahomeyan slave masters, by contrast, then later made the captives circle this "Tree of Return" three times. The purpose was so that even if they forgot Africa in this lifetime, their spirits would return here after death. At the bottom of the plaque explaining the story behind this tree, it states that the return is not "physical but mystical".

After we returned to the unfinished museum where I had met Kuku, he then told me a bit about himself. As you may know, there is a virtual war raging in the Niger Delta over oil and the subsequent degradation of the environment and people's living conditions by the companies who are extracting the oil. Many guerilla rebel groups have formed to fight this injustice and occasionally make international headlines by kidnapping foreign journalists and oil workers. Kuku comes from the small Ogoni tribe, who have decided instead to fight this injustice through entirely nonviolent means. He is currently a refugee from Nigeria trying to make enough money to feed his family and that is why he came to Benin.

Further along the walk, just before I got to the beach, I passed this small stilt village built in the coastal lagoon.

Finally, I reached the beach. A symbolic "Door of No Return" was built here to commemorate the spot where the slaves took their last steps on African soil before being shipped off into lives of bondage and toil on the other side of the Atlantic.

Just down from this monument there is a museum dedicated to the "Return of the Diaspora" which features a large "Door of Return". I wanted to go inside but they had closed it a half an hour early so I had to take this picture standing on a stump and looking over the fence.

Back in the center of Ouidah, I wanted to visit the Temple of the Serpents. This Catholic church was erected in Ouidah by the Portuguese who intentionally placed it directly across from the Temple of the Serpents to counteract what they saw as the demonic nature of the Temple.

The outside of the Temple of the Serpents. As the guidebook states, this vodoun python temple is now more of a tourist trap than a sacred site; it seems most of the important ceremonies are now performed in the new temple I passed earlier and was to return to shortly. However, I had to get my python fix so I paid my money and went inside.

You get to pose with the pythons draped round your neck and held in your hands.

As I mentioned before, I had previously met some people at a vodoun temple along the Route des Esclaves. They had been drumming and dancing as I passed, which of course attracted my attention. I stopped to watch but the dancing was just ending. A man came up to me and told me to come back later, that I could meet with the high priest then. I didn't really understand, but promised to return anyway.

When I came back, I was ushered into the chamber of His Majesty Daagbo Hounon, the Tomadjlehoukpon II, the spiritual leader of the Vodoun religion, or as he put it to me, the "Pope of Voodoo". I had to prostrate myself on hands and knees as a sign of respect, then we sat down to talk. He told me a little about the history of the Vodoun religion and showed me portraits along the wall going back hundreds of years of all the previous leaders of Vodoun, his predecessors. Each one, toward the end of his life, would perform a special ceremony at the edge of the ocean where the water would open up and they would walk into the ocean to join the ancestors, never to return. The next person in line would then take their place as the Daagbo of Vodoun.

Daagbo was quite an interesting and engaging person, but he wasn't quite sure what to make of me. We had some interesting conversations about culture and politics, and he expressed his wish to travel to the United States and pray for peace, as the Catholic pope has a number of times. He expressed his dismay that he is not treated with the same level of respect as his other religious counterparts around the world. After this, he asked me what I wanted from him and seemed frustrated when I said I didn't know. Apparently, many foreigners come and offer small gifts to him for him to pray for them and invoke the power of vodoun to help them in their lives. After I finally hit upon what he should pray for, we had some more interesting conversation, then he sent me with one of his acolytes to see a vodoun ceremony, which was quite cool. I thought it would be rude to ask to photograph inside Daagbo's temple, so I have no pictures of him or the encounter, but I did take some photographs of the ceremony, which was going on outside in public.

Here are a few pictures of the ceremony. I wasn't sure what the significance was, but the last picture shows someone wearing a python costume. The drumming accompanying the ceremony was awesome, and sounded almost exactly like some of the Afro-Cuban and Afro-Brazilian drumming I have heard, with many simultaneous bell patterns and polyrythmic hand drumming.

After the ceremony, we went to the lead drummer's house and I met his family. He told me that if I ever wanted to come back and study the music they run intensive month-long classes. Anyone want to fund such a venture?

After learning about Vodoun, I didn't have much time left in Ouidah so I just walked around and checked out the town a little bit before returning to Cotonou.  

Here is a picture walking around Ouidah. This road is under construction.

This was an old colonial building I saw while wandering around Ouidah.

After my two days in Ouidah, I returned to Cotonou. I decided that the next place I wanted to visit was the stilt-city of Ganvie, which is located in the middle of Lake Nokuè just to the north of Cotonou. It's about a half an hour ride on public transport to the subburb by where the main port is with boats bound for Ganvie. I had to wait around for a couple of hours until more tourists showed up so we could share the price of a boat ride out to Ganvie. Because the only way to get around the town is in a boat, you can't really go there on the normal public transportation, as once you arrive, you would be stuck where the boat dropped you off.

Most of the residents of Ganvie survive by fishing. On the way there we passed several fishermen at work. They cordon off a large area with nets that go all the way down to the lake bottom, then put palm fronds down in the mud at the bottom of the lake (about 20 ft. or less down). When the palm fronds start to rot, fish come to eat them and the fishermen harvest these fish with relative ease as they are already in a contained area inside the nets.

A "fishing field" of palm fronds planted on the bottom of the lake.

Here is a view looking down the "street" coming in to Ganvie.

Another view as we drifted slowly through the town. I didn't get a sense of how big Ganvie is, but I know we only saw a small portion of it. The Lonely Planet put the population at 27,000 people. The reason they live in stilt dwellings in the middle of the lake goes back to the slave-trading era. The powerful Dahomeyan kingdom would capture as many local people as they could and sell them to the Portuguese and other European slaving powers, but the Dahomeyans were prohibited by a taboo to cross over open water. The stilt villages thus were refuges formed of whole populations fleeing the reach of the slavers. Though this time has now passed, people choose to continue a lifestyle their ancestors have been leading for the past 300 years or so.

I was particularly struck by the ingenuity of this house, which was replete with its own floating yard of imported soil.

Reach out and touch someone from Ganvie, Benin.

Our last stop on our tour of Ganvie was a hotel, where tourists can have the novelty of spending a night here. They have an extensive gift-shop that we visited which they politely ask you to peruse before you leave.

On our way out of town I caught a glimpse of Ganvie's mosque's two towers in the distance. I really would have liked to see it up close to see how they pulled off a stone building like a mosque on stilts, but it was not part of the tour.

On the edge of town looking across to the lake's shoreline in the distance.

One last view of the fishermen of Ganvie as we departed.

After returning from Ganvie, I went with Taofic to meet another branch of the Akpo-Sani family who live across the bridge in a different section of town called Akpakpa. This is Mouniratou, Taofic's oldest sister who is now married with her own children.

Next we went to visit Taofic's oldest aunt, Madeleine, who made me a special lunch of delicious salad. We hung out and talked and I got to meet the kids in her household as well.

One of the kids there had on one of my top-ten favorite t-shirts of all time.

The crew over at Aunt Madeleine's house.

Since we were in Akpakpa, we went to visit Taofic's agent who is also one of his best friends and we put a few away. This combined with foodpoisoning (I think from mayonnaise that had been out too long) contributed to my most serious bout with illness on my 6-month trip. The next morning I woke up feeling like crap, but determined to go visit the nearby city of Porto Novo. I made it as far as the bus station, and while sitting in the car waiting for it to leave I started to get really dizzy and puked. I thought I might be coming down with malaria but I'd left my medication at the house. I got a motorcycle driver to take me back to Taofic's. On the way I had to stop and puke again, and the violent contractions in my stomach caused the diarrhea I'd been fighting to hold back to come shooting out with a vengeance.

I spent the next day and a half laying down at Taofic's, so weak I could barely stand except to go to the bathroom. Loukman and the neighbors made me a special folk remedy consisting of the pulp from papaya leaves mixed with water and lemon juice, in order to help clean the parasites out of my system.

I was now running short on time in my itinerary, but I was determined to still see Porto Novo. After a couple of days of fasting the infection felt as though it had passed and I just felt weak from not eating, but generally fine so I dragged myself to Porto Novo for an afternoon.

Porto Novo is the administrative capital of Benin, but is definitely the second city. It is much smaller and has a very relaxed feel. The streets are full of people walking around instead of zooming everywhere on Zemi-Johns. There are also several interesting museums in Porto Novo.

This musem, the Musée da Silva, explors the link between Afro-Brazilian culture and the effects that repatriated Brazilians of African descent had on Benin when they returned here, as many did, at the end of the 1800's.

The main building in the museum is the former residence of an Afro-Brazilian family who returned to Benin and settled in Porto Novo.

Walking down the street in Porto Novo. Notice all of the little bottles on the table. They are filled with gasoline. This is how fuel is sold all over West Africa.

Next I went to visit the Musée Honmé. Pictures were prohibited on the tour, except for here in the courtyard.

The museum is housed in the former palace of one of West Africa's longest-running dynasties, consisting of a line of 25 consecutive kings from 1688 to 1976. It was very bare inside, and luckily the guide was knowledgeable and explained the history and function of each chamber, otherwise I would not have understood much.  There were various official burial chambers, an exercise room, a dining hall and so forth.  

I thought the exposed root system of this tree outside of the Musée Honmé was quite beautiful.

Porto Novo's market, pretty laid-back by African standards.

One of Porto Novo's colorful mosques.

The last major goal of my excursion to Benin was to visit the home village of the Akpo-Sani family, called Pira. Loukman and Margerite hadn't been to see their family there in a while, either, so we decided to all go together to visit the village and the family and spend a couple of days there. We caught a bus from Cotonou in the late morning and arrived in Pira just before nightfall that same day.

The very first place I was shown upon arrival in Pira was the Akpo-Sani family shrine, where sacrifices are made to ensure the ancestors are happy. Here is the shrine.

This lady in Pira made a local "cheese", which was fermented something tasty and funky (although not milk I think). After fermentation, it is fried in hot oil and served wrapped in a big leaf. I thought the cheese was really good and ended up eating 3 or 4 pieces.

One of the uncles in the Akpo-Sani family. I forget his name but he showed Loukman and I around for a while and was a really great guy. I asked Loukman later how he had lost his arm. Late one night, he was coming back to Pira on his motorbike when he was ambushed by bandits. Not only did they rob him of his possessions, he was forced to fight for his life and lost his arm in the process.

As we were walking around town, we passed this large group of women who were walking all over town clapping and singing the most beautiful music. We went to meet them.

The ladies asked me to dance with them so I did. Loukman was holding my camera and he snapped the action shot.

This woman seemed to be appreciative of my dancing skills.

Loukman and I went around the village and visited many aunts, uncles, great-aunts and great-uncles. Many of them are getting quite old and I thought it would be a good idea to try and get some good pictures for posterity (I gave a copy of all my photos to the family before I left). After a while I started to feel like the family photographer, which was fun. Here is one of the great-aunts with some of her children and grandchildren.

Lots of pots, handmade and handfired in the village.

Margerite cooked for us on this cool little oven which was built right into the base of the wall of one of the houses in the family compound.

On the second day in Pira, Loukman and I went for a walk past the edge of town to see the fields where crops are grown. On the way we passed this massive termite mound.

Piles of cassava (manioc) roots which have been harvested.

I saw the most beautiful and colorful grasshoppers I have ever seen.

On the way back from the fields, we met a man who raised rabbits at his house and he wanted to show them to us, so we accompanied him to his house to see the rabbits.

Here is another great-aunt in the Akpo-Sani family (middle left). The man on the far left showed up just before I took this picture. He was returning from a traditional ceremony and was still dressed for the ceremony.

Sunset in Pira.

On the way back from Pira, Loukman and I stopped by the next town over where his father Alime is from (his mother Margerite stayed in Pira after we left to visit and catch up with family). Loukman went to boarding school in this town for a few years and has lots of friends here still, who he hadn't seen in quite a while.

This bizarre sign was sitting by the side of the road. If anyone can figure out what it means, let me know.

Here is Loukman with one of his cousins in front of a mural of their uncle, Alime's oldest brother. He was reputed to be 110 years old when he passed away.

There are two hills in this town, and we climbed one of them to get a nice view of the area. Here is the other hill across the way. Local legend is that one hill is male and the other female and they are married. Occaisionally they disagree or even fight, which can bring disaster to the village. In order to prevent this, a ceremony is performed every year to ensure harmony between the couple.

I think the hill in the distance is the male hill and we climbed the female hill, but now I'm not sure.

The village from the top of the hill.

Loukman and I then made our way back down in the direction of Cotonou. On the way back, I left Loukman in the crossroads town of Bohicon and he continued on to Cotonou. I caught a Zemi-John for the few kilometers over to the historic town of Abomey.

Abomey was the seat of the former kingdom of Dahomey that was feared throughout the region for their hostile nature (each king pledged to leave his successor more land than he inherited) and participation in the slave trade (southern Dahomey was once known as the Slave Coast). Once very powerful, the kingdom gave its name to the entire country of Benin, whose name was changed to the current moniker only in 1975 by the Communist dictator Mathieu Kérékou.

The first order of business was to find a place to stay in Abomey. I happened upon the Hotel Pussy-Cat and made a deal to stay there for a couple of nights.

Here is a shot of my room in the Hotel Pussy-Cat. I put this picture in the blog because this room is very representative of what the rooms were like in the small hotels I stayed in across West Africa. A room like this costs about 7-10 dollars a night and most of the clients are other West Africans who are traveling on business.

The next day I went to take the tour of Abomey and learn about its long history. Here in the main plaza is a statue of Béhanzin, the last king of Dahomey who fought against French colonization.

There were 12 kings of Dahomey and each one built his own palace. The whole tour around the town is known as the "Dahomey Trail" and encompasses many things to see.

I got a guide from the local tourist office who also had his own moto. We began cruising around the town and checking out all of the sites.

Here is one of the former royal palaces. Notice the yellow fish with the green net on the wall. Virtually all of the palaces have been restored and rebuilt for tourists, but the symbols are authentic. Each king had his own symbol which told an allegorical story representing him and was the symbol of his dynasty.

This unassuming-looking ditch is actually the remains of the moat which used to surround the central area of Abomey. "Abo" means "moat" in the Fon language and "mey" means inside, so this moat is the source of the town's name.

Here is a vodoun shrine where sacrifices are made.

Some local moto-taxi drivers taking a break in the shade.

This was the site of the former "Court of the Amazons", where the female Amazon army of Abomey was trained. The plaque states that the Amazon force was as many as 200-strong at its height.

Here is the Temple Zéwa. My guide didn't know anything about it, but the Lonely Planet said that this temple was built to appease the spirits of a rebellious group of King Ghézo's wives, who he had executed by covering them in red palm oil and letting ants eat them.

Although interesting at first, the tour started to drag on as all of the buildings were reconstructed ruins and the guide ended up knowing precious little about them beyond what I could read for myself on the signs. I started getting anxious for the grande finale of the tour, which was a visit to the Musée Historique d'Abomey.

Here are the doors to the museum, bolted shut. When we arrived there I was given a rude surprise: The museum was closed for at least a week while the workers there were on strike for better wages and benefits. The crown jewel of my visit to Abomey was shut and would not reopen until after I had left the country. I was bummed.

The museum is a UNESCO World Heritage site which contains most of the artifacts from the Dahomeyan kingdom, including famous tapestries telling the history of the kingdom and a royal throne mounted on human skulls.

The next day, I got up early as I wanted to briefly visit Ouidah again before returning to Cotonou. I actually had to pass through the outskirts of Cotonou to transfer to a car to Ouidah, and while I was waiting for the car I found another couple branches of the Peace and Love Group's commercial empire: The Peace and Love Hotel and the Peace and Love Restaurant.

After feeling a wonderful sense of completion at finishing my collection of Peace and Love Group sightings, I also finished seeing the historical museum in Ouidah and made a quick visit to the Sacred Forest as well. The Sacred Forest was pretty much of a tourist trap but is at least a nice park and was shaded from the brutal noonday sun.

The highlight of the Sacred Forest is seeing this iroko tree, which, as the story goes, King Kpassé, the founder of Ouidah, turned himself into while fleeing from danger.

This amazingly elaborate statue is in a small square near the center of Ouidah.

Finally it was time to return to Cotonou and say my goodbyes. Here is a family shot with my wonderful hosts, the Akpo-Sani's, during my stay in Benin.

Taofic took me to the gare routiere (station) to catch onward transport to Lagos, Nigeria, my last stop in West Africa before flying down to South Africa in order to make my way over to Mozambique. It was the first day of May, 2008.