The Long Way to the Coast

For our second year getaway trip we decided to head east, to the beaches of Ghana. We went with our normal plan, which is to have no plan at all. Our travelling companion was our friend Susan and our only fixed date was to meet her boyfriend, Brian, at the airport in Ghana two weeks after we started our trip where he would join us for the remaining two weeks. In certain places having that much freedom might lead to distraction due to not having time to do everything. Not a problem here.

We entered Burkina and stayed in Bobo Dioulasso for a few days. We found this to be one of the nicest spots in West Africa, actually. With its tree lined streets, its relative lack of motos and harassing locals and a sleepy pace of life, this town was a real nice change from Bamako. It is also a hotbed of Christianity. The Jesus part is less alluring than the real reason we liked the heavy missionary presence in the area, the profusion of little open-air bars. They were on every corner. There is nothing like a frosty local brew in the middle of the day during the hot season, especially when they are practically giving them away. This was a recurring theme for the trip.

Onward to Ouaga where we decided, if we could get the right visa, that we would take the long way around to Ghana. After brief discussion of the bribe (our only one this whole trip!) and an afternoon of waiting, we had our five country visa. That decided it for us. We were off to Niger.

Naimey is a pretty nice capital city, as West African capitals go, albeit less fun to say than Burkina's capital Ouagadougou. It is cleaner than most, maybe because of less people. Of course it is also much further away than most, on the edge of the desert, making it also much sandier than most. The Niger river flows through town and still has, as we saw, hippos right there in the middle of town. This is not the case in Bamako (even though the country’s name, “Mali”, means hippo in the local language). In Bamako the river is so dirty that the only creatures you see in it are women doing their wash, yuk.


Why go to Niger at all? Well, we had heard there were giraffes, the last herd of wild giraffes in West Africa. We were shocked at the ease with which we arranged everything to find them. In Niger, they actually understand the tourist thing (in this case, at least) and try to make it easy on people! This was a serious departure from the West African norm. It did take a bit of effort to find them but nothing compared to our ordeal looking for elephants in Mali (which was long and uncomfortable but still recommended). The giraffes were not far from the capital and not too far from the road. They were fantastic. None of us had any idea how cool they were until we saw them in the flesh. It was worth a five hundred mile detour.


Then it was on to Benin. Why go to Benin at all? Well, we had heard there were giraffes in Niger. We traveled Benin from north to south, stopping for a few days in the beautiful hill town of Natitingou to laze by some waterfalls and just chill out. We made it to the coast at Cotonou but headed directly to the old voodoo capital of Oudiah. We actually spent a day walking from town, down the slave walk, to the point of no return (where the slaves were packed into the holds of the ships waiting to take them across the ocean, never to return) and back. It was such a nice tropical walk and so picturesque and peaceful at the monument that it was hard to get your mind around the fact that some of the more miserable moments in human history occurred right where you were standing.

On to Togo. Why go to Togo at all? Well, we were in Benin because we had heard there were giraffes in Niger. We spent a few days on the beach to recharge our batteries. The beaches were, unfortunately, too dangerous at which to swim. While being very scenic, they were also so steep and the current is so strong that we were warned against going in: severe under toe. We were, however, impressed by the profusion of good beers (read: four passable varieties) thanks to Togoland having at one time been a German colony. Therefore, it was probably a good thing that we were not swimming in dangerous waters while sampling these.


(Believe it or not, these are very dangerous waters.)