Cotonou to Gran-Popo - Day 278

Date: May 23rd, 2010
Distance: 91km
Country: Benin
Song of the Day: On the Road Again - Willie Nelson

Woke up early and said goodbye to Liz. Thanks for everything! I really appreciated you letting me crash at your place for so long. Good luck with Yovo.

I did putz around in town for a big getting some breakfast. I knew I was going to need lots of food for the day though. By the time I was on the outskirts of the city, it was raining. That suited me just fine. Leaving the city wasn't that pleasant though. It was a busy road. The shoulder was muddy and often clogged with motos anyway. It is all built up along the road as well. So you don't actually leave what looks like a city for 20km or so.

I did stop at Ouidah. It is supposed to be this big cultural capital in Benin. Some voodoo stuff there. Plus a direct link with slavery. I don't know, I guess I missed what was supposed to be great about it. The museum there was cool, but not for the exhibits. Most of which weren't marked or described very well. Instead it was cool for the architecture of the old Portuguese fort it is in. Though I am not even sure how much of that is original. Still it was the only thing the brought me back to what it must have been like to be living there during colonial days.

After that I headed down the "Route de Esclaves", (The Slave Road) down to the beach. Again, I must have just missed the point here, but it didn't intrigue me in any way. There were some statues along the way that I didn't find very interesting. At the end was the giant modern construction of the Door of No Return. It was more of a monument to the men and women taken from Africa rather than an explanation of the history. I took a couple of pictures and got back on the road.

From there it was a tough slog to Gran-Popo. The wind was in my face most of the time. Really nasty. The road was flat though, so that did help.

I was supposed to meet Liz out there, but when I arrived, she had already left. I did get a place to stay. A Rasta bar that lets you camp on their beach. Not bad. Plus the beach is amazing. Not good for swimming apparently, but long and lined with palm trees and places to get a cool drink.

Liz also put me in touch with Christoph, who everyone in Cotonou told me I had to meet. I guess he used to race bikes professionally. So I met up with him and his girlfriend for dinner. We had some pizza, which was amazing, though not all together filling. I think between the three of us we had four of them. It was fun to explain my trip to them. I guess Christoph is thinking of taking a motorcycle trip at the end of his service around Africa with a local Puehlani friend of his. (These are nomadic herdsman found through out west Africa.) So they were going to stay at various migrant herding camps along the way. It sounds like fun.

-Dravis