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Published: February 5th 2023
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You might be led to believe that an airline of such a low profile, and seemingly questionable set of credentials as Air Mauritania might not be the airline of choice for a relatively short hop flight within the African continent. Reality though was a totally different picture, and the airline felt and even looked as fine as very many others, and even offered a highly substantial airline meal in the process. I had not even arrived at Abidjan airport in the Ivory Coast, but clearly, the opening salvo was promising. A few formalities at the airport, and it was into a pre-booked taxi to get me to the resort town of Grand-Bassam further along the coast, infamous for being the location of a shooting attack a few years prior in 2016, but not the kind of episode which would dampen this traveller's spirits by any means. The town of Grand Bassam might well be one of the nation's hotspots, in that it is a beach resort, of sorts, with other lesser known beaches further along the coast, therefore would offer no shortage of options for a two night stay here. The town itself offered the kind of atmosphere which you might
associate with a nation of this ilk, but one or two vital and interesting tweaks made it an enjoyable and interesting initiation to an Ivorian adventure. The sea might have been too choppy to exploit the bathing opportunities, and it might have even been too quiet a resort to feel that kind of coastal beach town buzz, but fortunately, as with many other visits to inactive places, just being there alone was enough of an experience to qualify it as a worthwhile undertaking. Being such a short stay though, time elapsed in the blink of an eye, and the time came to move onto a hotel located in Abidjan, the nation's largest city, which looks and feels like the capital city in all but name. Having done the background reading in relation to Abidjan, you would have been led to believe that the skyline and urbanization qualified it for something of an urban zone extraordinaire, but in reality, this is still comparatively third world Africa, so standards are more than likely only relative to the contexts in which they are located. Given that the hotel was located out of the city centre in the substantially-equipped area of Cocody, it just
felt like a wise move starting the sightseeing tour from the southern tip of town on foot, heading northwards, in search of all the vital reference points and photo opportunities which the city had to offer. One curiosity encountered early on was a cathedral going by the name of St Pauls which bears no visual relation whatsoever to its London counterpart, but as always, warranted a couple of photos nonetheless, especially when I had enough in the way of memory card storage space with me to allow for the entire trip to be conducted at least 15 times over! Further north, the city's outdoor market area revealed more of the kind of urban fabric which you might more readily associate with commerce in this area of the globe - in other words, a thrown-together hotch-potch of traders and shoppers existing in an area where the sale of goods took place on any patch of dusty ground where space permitted, or so it seemed. Indeed, more 'upscale' malls (again, only relative to national culture) such as the Abidjan mall were more well-to-do options, but in reality, you really had to look at the whole picture and judge what you came across
on its own merits rather than the set of standards which westerners seem to be more attuned to, on the whole. Escaping the urban zone of Abidjan became something of a necessity after a while, so, despite the long journey to and from, a day trip to the nation's capital city of Yamossoukro was worked into the script, if only to pay a visit to the world's largest Basilica, located there. It was worth noting though that, despite being fully aware of the nation's economic standing and expected set of standards, the street which roughly connected the main bus terminal with the said basilica, and photogenic mosque along the way, was indeed one characterized somewhat by what shouldn't really have been (but was) a level of squalour which you would not normally associate with a nation's capital city. Was it the case that Abidjan siphoned off most of the nation's economic might and left just about every other area of the nation feeling somewhat underdeveloped and feeling like a backwater? This was clearly something of a mysterious nation in which standards were by no means uniform, but where the cultural aspects could and would appeal to the visitor if they were appreciative enough to realize that poorer nations don't automatically equate to poor experiences. The closing salvo of a plan-falling-through experience at Abidjan airport involving an invalid visa forbidding the onward journey to Ethiopia forced an extra night's stay in Abidjan, and though this was remedied quickly the following morning by a transfer on an onward flight to the UAE, I had reached the point at which the African stretch of the world tour had come to a close. This was, then, a significant stage of the overall 7 and a half month-long episode, as I was departing from a continent which had constituted the entire first month of the trip, and what ensued was around 18 nights in the Middle East. The budget was going to plan, and despite at least one sizeable hiccup, the engine which powered the entire episode forward looked in no danger of running out of gas, a sizeable 'told you so' indicator to all the doubters out there that the spirit of determination, a realistic budget and a basic sense of direction could indeed keep this dream alive.
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