West Africa, part 2: Abomey and Dassa Zoumé

Independent travel around West Africa is no walk in the park. One of the reasons for this becomes apparent as soon as you try to travel any distance between cities. While there are some scheduled bus services, they don't exist everywhere--and where they do exist, they're not normally frequent. So, more often than not, you will find yourself travelling by 'bush taxi'--typically a Peugeot 504 or a Toyota Hi-Ace. These usually operate on no fixed schedule, but instead will depart when (and only when) they are full. Rarely will you depart from a bush taxi station ('gare routiere') within an hour of arriving. So the first virtue that one needs to develop in order to cope with travel in Africa is patience.

But that's not all. I said that bush taxis leave when they are full. Now you might think that a Peugeot 504 estate is 'full' when it has seven occupants (including the driver)--two in the front, three in the middle and two in the back. But no. If you're lucky, a driver will consider the 504 full when it has ten occupants--if you're unlucky, more. So, journeys in this mode of transport are apt to be highly uncomfortable!

I began to discover all this on day two as we headed north, in a bush taxi, from Cotonou to Abomey. The Royal Palaces of Abomey are a UNESCO-listed heritage site. Abomey was, for a long time, the seat of the Kingdom of Dahomey--a very powerful force in the land which now makes up Benin. They Kings of Dahomey were notorious for making deals with the colonial invaders, rather than simply letting themselves be plundered--i.e. they would give up slaves to the Portugese in return for guns and other benefits. This is apparently one of the few examples of the native rulers being complicit in the slave trade.

The museum which stands at the palace today features restorations of many of the centuries-old buildings, as well as artifacts from the Kingdom of Dahomey. One room housed the thrones of all twelve kings who ruled there between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries (each had a new one made for himself). The most striking of these was the one which was built on a foundation of the skulls of the enemies! The guide for the museum spoke only French, but Becky did an excellent job of translating so that I wasn't completely clueless.

After spending a few hours in Abomey we headed 100km to Dassa Zoumé, where we spent the night. Dassa was nothing more than a stop-off for us on our journey north, but it did have some nice rocky scenery nearby (see photo).

One other bush taxi anecdote before I finish (there will be more in the course of this tale!). Bush taxis rarely only take passengers--they will normally load themselves up with freight, too. And offloading this freight is, it seems, often a much greater priority than delivering passengers to their destinations! On the way to Abomey we were treated to a precarious drive through narrow market streets in a town called Bohicon, eventually reached a stall where the driver got rid of much of his freight. While he was offloading, a group of local kids gathered, amazed at the spectacle of white people in their territory. This was a common theme in Benin, and Burkina too--though I think that we attracted less attention in Mali, which is probably because of the greater frequency of tourism there.

Next up: travelling north to Natitingou, and crossing the Burkina border.