Day Fifty-One; Friday, April 25 '08

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Woke up at 6:00 and called Tonash. Matt instructed him to go into Jahwill's house and wake him. We talked to Jahwill and only got "Ch" out when he asked what hotel we were at and where to meet us. He never called back. We thought our trip was pretty much done at this point and talked about what else we could do for the weekend. We called Tonash back multiple times and he told us that Jahwill wasn't there. He then finally told us that he was going to Ho to meet us at Chances Hotel. JAHWILL SHOWED UP! We were ecstatic and FINALLY on our way to BENIN!!!

We got a ride to the tro-tro station and passed the CCS van on the way which was pretty interesting. We hopped on a tro-tro to Togo, another country, for $2.80. The border was crazy. Everyone trying to exchange your money with counterfeit, bribing you, etc. We got into Togo and it was the first time I felt like I was in the "Africa" you see in the movies (think Consant Gardener.) We found a cab driver who was really rude and awful, but willing to take us to Benin, which is actually only 40 miles from the Togo/Ghana border.

Togo was a weird time for me as everyone and anyone was asking if I was German. I even held a short conversation with a man at the taxi station in German. We got in the cab and on our way to Benin the driver stopped the car and bought a stereo through his drivers side window as someone was selling them in the middle of the street. Oh Africa.

When we got to Benin we again went to get visas. Jahwill normally wouldn't have to pay but because he forgot his passport they wanted him to pay. He didn't want to pay so he took off his T-shirt and held it in the air pretending to be a street seller when he crossed.

We drove through Benin to Cotonou, the capital. Cotonou was crazy. It was kind of scary walking in at night because it was so packed. Someone brought us to this really disgusting hotel to stay. Our toilet wasn't even self flushing as you had to bring a bucket of water to the toilet to flush it.

Later on we found a really posh restaurant which was very reminiscent of NYC. A French guy had a huge crush on Maria and offered to buy us anything we wanted. He owned a petrol company. We ordered pizzas, wine, beer, burgers, etc. It was crazy that our night costed nothing.

After we left I could barely walk (my foot got severely infected from my bike accident) so we took motorcycle taxis back to the hotel which was actually a lot of fun.

The craziness doesn't end here...

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