WEST AFRICAN BEATS IN BENIN AND TOGO

As much as we loved Nigeria, and our lack of harassment in the country must be record-breaking, it was still something of a relief to leave and really know that we had made it through. The Beninese border officials were so friendly and relaxed that they actually stamped us in without giving us a visa. I was rusty on the French, and was trying to ask how many days in Benin they had given us, but they just said, "You are tourists, you will be fine with this!" "Combien de jours?" "No problem, no problem! Haha!" It was a typical African confusion: they assumed they knew what we were asking, and the language barrier meant I could not make it clearer, so we figured they had given us a transit visa for 2 days and wondered why we had not paid. Customs was in the next town, so after changing our leftover Naira for West African CFA francs we rode 30kms to finalize the border crossing, which was also painless. Driving down to the coast (we had crossed slightly north to avoid Lagos and the busy border on the coast) we noticed a lot of differences with Nigeria and Cameroon. Benin is definitely a more prosperous country- not as many deserted gas stations and shops, fewer rubbled remains of buildings and ones looking like they are about to collapse, some big modern-looking factories, etc. Reading the Lonely Planet later confirmed our impression that the quality of life is indeed higher in Benin, and Beninese youngsters can expect "a roof over their heads, enough food to live on and, in many cases, a scooter to sit on."

We stopped in a bar for a coke, and the music being played was energetic and upbeat, like the type of music I expected to hear everywhere in Africa. So far we had not heard much like it, and I was loving it. Later on that day, on the busy road between Porto Novo and Cotonou on the coast, there was a procession of people playing music, singing and dancing those same African beats. Wicked! However, my I-love-Benin buzz was soon destroyed by the traffic in Cotonou, getting lost, riding around on sandy tracks wondering if "tout droit, tout droit" actually implied a right turn back somewhere before hitting the sand alleys. To top it all off a cop tried to get a bribe out of us for going through a toll booth- motorbikes do not have to pay at West African toll booths, so there is always a path motorbikes have worn by going around them. The policeman was trying to tell us it was actually illegal to enter the toll booth area, which was ridiculous, and was saying, "Where's my Sunday money?" A security guy came over to get in on the bribe, and they were so sleazy and importunate that it was all getting to be too much, and finally we both snapped at the same time. We were shouting at them (something we never do to policemen) as Nick opened up the throttle a touch too fast, meaning we did a wheelie as we screeched past. Definitely a reminder that Nigeria is no worse than the rest of West Africa- and why did nothing half as obnoxious happen in Nigeria, but in friendly prosperous Benin the day we crossed the border?

It was a long day, but finally we arrived at Grand Popo on the coast to enjoy our only night in Benin. We had not been on the ocean for a while and felt that making it out of Nigeria so easily deserved some celebration, so we treated ourselves to tasty fish and Beninoise beer. We both liked the small part of the country we had seen and were sorry to be leaving, but the next morning we wandered the streets for a while, checked out the beach, and were off for the Togolese border a couple kilometres away. The border was busier than the sleepy dusty crossings we have become used to in West Africa, but hassle-free if predictably time-consuming. The Beninese border guard wondered why we did not have a visa, and explained that the stamp in our passport was just an entry stamp (everyone needs a visa for Benin other than West Africans). Stunningly, instead of taking the opportunity to try demanding a bribe he pointed us to the office where we could buy a visa. So we bought our Beninese visa and rode into Togo, the border being much the same as the Beninese side except this time we bought our visa on the way in.

Benin and Togo are narrow countries, and less than an hour after leaving the border we were almost on the other side of Togo, pulling into Chez Alice just outside of Lomé. There were 2 other big motorbikes there belonging to 2 British guys, Ed and Josh, heading down to South Africa. It was, as always, a pleasure to meet other motorbikers, and a party in itself. We were hungover more often than not in the 3 days we spent there, and they convinced us to spend a day longer than planned to see Amlima, a Togolese troupe with drummers, dancers, acrobats, etc. Amlima had just finished touring Europe and are very popular in Togo, and the music was not disappointing. The dancing is Cirque de Soleil-esqe in that it supposedly tells a very vague and metaphorical story. I would not have known this if the locals had not told me, but they said it was about 2 tribes who fall out and fight each other, I think until one wipes out the other. The dancing and acrobatics were cool, if a bit like being at a cultural show, and came with guys dancing on stilts, people flying and somersaulting around the room, people dressed as elephants, etc. The women dancers were my favourite, and hopefully the video I took of them drumming and dancing with the drums on their heads works.

Our real reason for stopping in Lomé was, as always, some pampering for the motorbike. There is a good workshop and motorbike gear shop in Lomé called Toni Togo’s, run by an Austrian guy called Toni Togo who competes (or used to compete before it was cancelled) in the Paris-Dakar rally every year. He has just about everything for bikes, and we bought a new chain and new front tire there, plus had the front bearings replaced- quite a luxury for Nick not to do it himself. Toni Togo rides in the rally for KTM, and so his shop is all KTM stuff, but I suspect it is the only well-stocked shop for big motorbikes in West Africa.

Leaving Lomé we rode north through Togo to coffee country, staying at Auberge Papillon in Kluto. There is a Togolese butterfly specialist living there, Mr Prosper, and after a few days in exceptionally hot and humid coastal weather, walking around in the cooler highlands with butterflies fluttering around sounded perfect. Of course it was not the right season, and we hardly noticed any butterflies except when Mr Prosper spotted them with his trained eye and chased them down with his net to show us. It was still a nice walk, but the highlight had nothing to do with butterflies: there was a group of guys from a nearby village gathered on one of the tracks we walked down, and they were debating how to kill a black cobra in a tree right next to the path. We stopped and waited for a while, and other than a drunk guy creeping close to it with a big stick, who thankfully was not that drunk and thought better of it before he could launch an attack, nobody was doing anything and the cobra did not move. Like you would at a zoo, we got bored of straining to see the thing with it doing nothing and moved on. Hearing a shotgun fire we ran back, and discovered that one of the boys had shot it. He shot it again while we were standing there, and as it was still not dead but coming out of the tree, shot it a third time which finally stunned it. Black cobras are strong! The guy with a stick and some guys with machetes started bashing it, trying to finally kill it, and brought it out to the path. Apparently even once dead (and this one still was not quite), a cobra can bite and release venom, so we had to be quick getting pictures of it with its head on before the boys could pry it off with a stick. It was 8 feet long, and apparently had plenty of meat so they were planning to eat it.

Back at Auberge Papillon we packed up and left for Ghana the same day, still trying to make up for time lost while broken down in Nigeria. The border is only a few kilometres from Kluto, and after getting lost for a while we made it to the lazy, slow border, stared blankly in response to the slurred French/local dialect the border officials spoke, and patiently waited for them to stamp us out of Togo, which only took a few minutes.

For the other side of the story, check out Nick’s blog http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/African-raid/

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