Had to catch a couple of motorbikes, from Abomey, about ten or eleven kilometres to a dusty square off the main highway where the large buses left for Parakou. We were greeted by men in uniforms with ticket books for several bus companies. As soon as they knew where we wanted to go we were sold a ticket and ushered to a wooden bench under a corrugated iron roofed seating area.
All around the square were small stalls where women cooked food and prepared things for sale. There were peanuts bagged up, kola nuts set out under damp hessian bags, mangoes, bananas, bread with various fillings, rice with peanut sauce, fried guinea fowl, fried chicken, fried plantain (banana), peeled oranges, and various offal from goats and sheep.
After an hour or so a bus painted in Benin Post colours and logo arrived. We were able to get a seat at the back of the bus. As soon as it had stopped the girls from the stalls surrounded the bus to sell their goodies. Only one of the windows could open on the bus so they had to rush the exit doors to get customers.
The seat we had did not have much leg room and the seat back was so soft we got a massage up our spine every time the person behind moved their bags or legs up and down. The bus would have originally had air con but it was not working so the only air we got was through the three push up vents in the roof. The two windows that did open were barely open as the locals don't like the wind and are reluctant to open the windows and then they pull the curtains across as they also don't like the sun.
The road we travelled for four hours was the best we have been on in West africa. We passed through Dassa Zoume, famous for its 41 hills of amazing rock formations. The locals sold sliced slabs of rock on the side of the road.
The north is noticeably drier than the tropical coastal areas and there are still lots of subsistance farming. Fields were being hoed into high mounds ready for planting manioc.
In Parakou, the bus was met by dozens of motorbike taxis and a couple targeted us as soon as they saw us. They wanted to charge us five times the usual rate to go to the guesthouse we wanted. We didn't take the ride and the guy ended up with no customers as the locals had all loaded up the bikes and gone.
The guest house recommended in our guidebook had been sold as a private family home so we headed around the corner to a new place that was only one year old. It was spotless and very comfortable with a very helpful receptionist who tried hard to understand our French.
There is not a lot to do in Parakou and is used as a stop-over for people going to the national parks in the north. We found a pretty fast internet place and caught up the blog, news from home and emails.
We met a local man who was born in Ghana and spoke very good English. He was the same age as John and he came to visit us a couple of times to chat. His mother was from Togo and his father from Benin.
We found Parakou a laidback place where none bothered us. There were no beggars, and no shoeshine boys. We noticed in Ghana that very few people smoked but as soon as we arrived in the French colonised countries we noticed that more and more people are smokers.
We had to get more CFA ( Communiaute Financiere Africaine - African Financial Communuity to us! ) currency here and after trying two bank's ATM's we were able to get money out. It has been so easy having countries with the same currencies and not having to worry about changing money at the border or with money changers that can be unreliable at times.
Managed to find a couple of very nice places to eat and enjoyed some fresh salads and meat without bones or ofal!
