Porto Novo and other ghost towns

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So we left Ghana a while back now and after entering Togo on a river-bed type road where the delapidated border posts were filled with mountains of corn on the cobs (don't ask - I don't know) we have headed south through Togo and then crossed at a slightly more uptempo border into Benin where we now reisde in the eastern most town and capital of Porto Novo.
Togo was very small but very beautiful, the town of Atakpamé our highlight which was a small town with a real French colonial feel to it, Peugeot 504s rolling down the cobbled streets to a backdrop of wide leaved vegetation that gave me a sense of an Indian Jungle. We took a trip higher into the mountains early in the morning, the mist still hangin in the valleys below us. After a 40 minute walk across streams and dashes away from angry biting ants be reached a big waterfall, we cooled off in the pool below and pretended we were in a Timotei advert - not a bad jaunt at all.
Benin so far has been quite wierd, deserted beach village place which we were glad to leave after one night and Ouidah - the home of voodoo which we stumbled across as they were choosing a new voodoo king. There were a lot of people around and elder types undertaking processions but, as has become a common theme, we had little to no idea what was going on. Still the atmosphere was good and as with other festivals we've seen it soon became an excuse for an all day drinking session so we joined in with a few Beninoise bottles.
Porto Novo is perhaps the strangest place we have visited. Big enough, probably near the population of Cardiff, but the place is as deserted as a village and as we walk aywhere we are stared at as though we are from another planet. Not just the children too who scream "Yobo*, yobo bonsoir!" when they spot us from hundreds of metres away but the adults too. A very weird place which has sort of put me off Benin in a way. Will see.
*White person in (I'm ashamed to say) I have no idea what language.

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