Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

We had to catch a bus at 7am from Fada to Ouaga and had a short walk to the bus station so we got up early. We were so early it was dark and no one else at the hotel was awake so we let ourselves out. There were a few motorbikes on the road and a lady sweeping the road edge between the tar seal and the gutters. John stepped into a dip at the seal edge and got a couple of scratches as he and his pack disappeared into the gap.

At the bus station were about a dozen men sleeping on the bench seats in the open waiting room. Some got up and washed themselves in readiness to pray in the prayer room off to one side of the waiting room. Others got up to use the pit toilets that we could smell everytime the doors opened and closed. One Muslim man gave us a loaf of bread to eat but we had bought some buns and cakes at a patisserie the day before so we had food for breakfast, but it was very kind of him to think of us. Sometimes those with the least have the most to give.

We realised why it was so dark...there was an hour's difference between Benin and Burkino Faso and had to turn our watch an hour forward!

The bus was huge with three seats on one side and two on the other with about 70 people altogether. We passed through lots of poor villages and the driver had to toot often to get the bicycle riders to move off the narrow sealed road and he also had to weave around donkey carts carrying goods. We saw a couple of squashed sheep on the road that didn't take any notice of a driver's horn. The goats, however, seem to be much smarter than the sheep and so manage to escape getting run over.

There are lots and lots of mopeds, that are peddled to start them, as well as motorbikes on the roads. A lot more than I would have thought there would be in a country as poor as Burkina Faso. In 2008, the UN ranked it 173rd out of 179 countries across a number of quality-of-life indicators, ranging from income and life expectancy. Half the population survives on less than US$1 per day. There seem to be very few private vehicles on the road.

When we arrived near the city centre and the bus station we saw huge black smoke clouds and a street was closed with military jeeps. We had to back up and find an alternative route to the depot.

Fortunately, we had a very short walk to the hotel. We chose it because it was close to the bus station and the city centre. One of the taxi drivers outside the depot tried to tell us the road to the hotel was closed by the military, while two others told us the direction we needed to go.

There was a nice courtyard with trees in the middle of the hotel with a thatched restaurant and bar. Our room had a double bed and a single bed with mosquito nets, a fan and an ensuite. Once we had settled in we chatted to a couple of the guests.

We met an English guy who had ridden his motorbike from Morocco. He found it pretty hard going and wanted to go to Ghana and ship his bike home from there. We had to explain the crazy Ghanaian visa rules to him as he had not done his research before setting out. Basically, if you have an embassy in your country you must get a visa there as embassies in foreign countries can only issue visas to their nationals and no visas are issued at the borders other than the airport. He was going to try to bribe his way in so we wished him good luck!

Later we met Sarah, a Danish lass. She had come to Ouagadougou to do some volunteering in a Catholic orphanage. From her we learnt that they had had a lot of soldiers in the streets outside the hotel and they were shooting for two days. On the Friday night the staff in the hotel turned all the lights out about 11 o'clock so everyone who was chatting headed for bed. She went to her room and started sorting out her gear. Ten minutes later she heard someone bashing on her door and telling her to open up. Her first thought was that it was the staff coming to tell her to hide from the soldiers. Unfortunately, when she opened her door there were eight or so armed soldiers there. They wanted money and she gave them the US$400 she had in both local currency and American dollars. They also took her camera, computer and telephone. At one stage she ran away from them and towards the office, screaming for help. All the staff had hidden and no one helped her. The soldiers grabbed her around the neck and took her back to her room where they left her.

The hotel courtyard

They moved onto the Canadian guy who was next door to her and she saw them hold him up against the wall with a huge gun. They took the same things from him and then went to the office to take money and a computer from there. The guy gave the soldiers what they wanted and after a short time decided to approach the soldiers to get his computer back. He offered them his credit card and pin number in exchange for the computer. The soldiers agreed to this and left.

Later we read a news report that the soldiers had ransacked shops, robbed guests in other more expensive hotels, and hijacked private cars they encountered in the city.

As we had arrived in the afternoon Sarah told us that all the other guests in the hotel had left. The man who was held up, cut short his three month trip, and flew to Europe. The motorcyclist headed for Togo and the Ghanaian border. Sarah decided to stay and spent the next night in a German man's room and then he left the next day. She decided that she would stay on and do the volunteering that she wanted to do, so she spent two nights in our room.

We later learnt that the smoke we saw was from the fire that the street traders had lit at the governing Political Party Headquarters.They did this in retaliation for looting by the soldiers. The city was on a curfew so we were not able to go out after 6pm. We only heard guns being fired three times on our first night and nothing after that. We had free wi-fi so we were able to read news reports from the BBC website and the French 24hr site. We were extremely disappointed with the management of the hotel who didn't communicate any advice or even inform of of the curfew!

We hid our valuable things in our room and pretty much stayed indoors the whole time. One morning the restaurant had the menu out for breakfast and when we ordered it the waitress told us they didn't have any food because the market was closed. We could tell by the mototrbikes and trucks in the street that things were returning to normal so ventured out to find some baguettes for breakfast. We did have some muesli and powdered milk with us but decided to keep it in case we were not able to get out of the hotel for a few days.

Apparently, the unrest began in Fada when students protested about the rising prices of sugar, rice (which comes from Myanmar and Thailand), milk powder, and cooking oil. Later the presidential guards went on the rampage as they had not got the rise in their housing subsidies that they were promised. After this the rest of the soldiers joined in. We read of the unrest spreading to other cities around the capital and the president sacked the chief of the army and dissolved the government.

We never felt scared and just did all we could in the situation to keep ourselves and our valuables safe. We kept a little money out and our travellers' cheques, which we knew they couldn't use but would be a way of showing that we didn't have any money as we hadn't been to the bank. John has two passports so hid one. We have a wallet with old notes from Bolivia, Costa Rica and a few other foreign locations that look impressive with their number of zeros but are worthless.

We had to get a visa for Mali and John was able to do that with a local guy who took him by motorbike to the embassy. Normally the visa takes a day but they gave it to him on the spot. John saw lots of shops that were empty and locked up. He thought that the owners had taken their stock away. We saw a few smashed windows where the soldiers had looted. Petrol is usually 1000 CFA ( NZ$3 ) a litre and the soldiers took over the petrol stations and charged 2000 CFA a litre, keeping the extra for themselves.

One day the police came to the hotel as the owner reported his losses. Sarah gave the police her statement and was told it was on the list along with hundreds of others so she will have a long time before she can get a report and make an insurance claim for her stuff.

We use the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree Forum and were pleassed we were able to leave some updates on the site for other travellers planning on visiting Burkina Faso.

Once the market opened and we had our Mali visa we headed away with this being the only photo of the sights in the city that we managed to take, and it was taken from the window of a ricketty very unsafe taxi on our way to the bus station!

Fada N'Gourma, Burkina Faso

A man in his lacy colourful outfit.

There didn't seem to be an obvious place to catch a ride out of Natitingou and a motorbike taxi guy flagged us down a ride. The 4x4 landcruiser was taking supplies back to the national park so we were some extra cash for the driver. He dropped us at Tangueta where we had to wait an hour an a half for the shared taxi to fill. John and I, and an elderly Muslim man, squeezed into the front seat and we were taken all the way through the border and into Burkina Faso.

The hills in the area were very bare as the large trees had been chopped down and burnt. It looked very dry and like the hills would never again be able to support large trees.

All along the road were dozens of petrol tankers taking fuel from Nigeria to Burkina Faso and even on to Mali. Some of the tankers were obviously leaking fuel through the joins in the tanks as they were so old. We saw several burnt out tankers off the side of the road and could see where the petrol fire had spread through the drains and into the shrubs.

At the border there were dozens of trucks in lines to clear customs. The drivers carry their fold up camp beds or home made beds made of small branches, strapped to the outside of the tankers. In the queue they set them up under their trucks and slept if they were not doing any maintenance on their engines.

The villages near Natitingou are famous for their two-storied round houses with thatched rooves but we only saw one compound with them. They are called tata somba houses. We couldn't stop and get any photos which was a shame. The animals traditionally are on the ground floor and the family sleeping area on the top.

Most of the small rondavel houses were built next to the fields that they tended with maize, manioc, and peanuts. The tribe in this area didn't build in a village like others, so there were lots of small thatched round houses joined by mud walls spread around the fields.

The small structures store grain.

The elderly Muslim man took us under his wing once we got to the Burkino border post. He found us all a shady spot under some trees where we waited for the next minivan to take us to Fada N'Gourma, known as Fada by the locals. He bought some pillows of water and gave us one and then gave us some mangoes that he had bought in the market. He was very kind even though we couldn't understand a word he said. His bicycle with a small bag on the carrier was loaded on top of the minivan along with a motor bike.

At the Fada market we caught two motorbike taxis to the hotel. The hotel had three floors and was spotlessly clean and nicely laid out. From our window we could look down on a thick green lawn and garden with statues and fountains. It looked like something out of a European park and not an African backyard. The blue of the swimming pool contrasted with the green lawn and the grey earth yards of the neighbours.

The owners were from Syria and the wife could speak a few words in English. She had relatives in Australia and showed us her plants from Australia that she had growing in the garden. There were also posters of the Atherton Ranges in Australia in the corridors. The clock in the reception area was in the shape of the island as well.

There was not much to see and do in Fada but we had to get some more iodine as John has had a rash on his big toe that started to clear up but then got worse when he stopped using iodine. Usually pharmacists speak English but the depot we found was more like a distribution place. We were able to use our broken French and they used their broken English to have a bit of a chat. Burkinabes are pretty friendly. As we pass people say 'Bonne arrivee' to welcome us.

We managed to find a ticket office for a big bus and buy a ticket for the next day's travel.

We enjoyed relaxing in Fada, swimming in the pool and dining in the garden but it was pretty quiet as we were the only guests at this huge place with conference rooms. We had free Wifi in our room so were able to chat with our daughter and catch up on emails.

One morning we woke to hear shouting and gunshots in the street near the hotel. We saw soldiers on motorbikes with their rifles charging up the road. We turned on the TV and the only news programme we could find was French 24hrs and it was all in French. We read that there had been unrest and shootings in the capital city with the presidential guards. Apparently the guards had not been paid the housing subsidy they had been promised. A few weeks earlier students had protested about the rising price of basic food supplies as well. Unfortunately, for the land-locked countries of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, the transporting of rice, milk powder,sugar and cooking oil, has been disrupted because of the civil war in Cote d'Ivoire, and prices have soared.

We asked the hotel staff about the soldiers and they told us it was nothing and had been something that had been sorted last month. We accepted their explanation and got ready to head for Ougadougou the next day.

Natitingou, Benin

Caught our first Peugeot 504. These cars are either assembled in Nigeria or brought over from Europe and have three rows of seats. They are built to take the driver and seven passengers, and are called sept place, but in true African style they crammed 9 of us in and stacked the bags and parcels high on the roof rack. It was a comfortable trip nevertheless and for the kilometres that they do it is amazing that they can still keep going under so much weight. As with the minivans we had to wait about two hours for the seats to fill and were able to find a spot in the shade to do it. We were visited by the tee shirt sellers, bread sellers, and water sellers. Water is sold in clear plastic pillows and contain about 250 mls. The mothers bite a corner off the bag and their babies are well used to sucking out the water they need. In no time the bags are finished with and litter every drain and street. Parcels of bags are often sitting in the sun for days on end outside stalls as they have no storage area for them out of the heat and sun. It is often sold as pure water and has been treated in a factory so is safe to drink. Sometimes well water is also sold in plastic bags but it has no advertising printed on it so we know what is treated and what is not. Usually the water is chilled and carried on a round dish or in a large cool bin on the womens' head. The road to Natitingou was potholed and we covered the 200 kms in 3 1/2 hours. Sometimes the driver had to drive on the road edge. We were in the back where there were three places and no window and luckily had a skinny guy with us. The middle seat had a huge woman and a huge man and the two skinny men between them shuffled often to get themselves comfortable. We saw a sign for an auberge we had seen in our guide so asked the driver to let us off. The auberge was run by a woman who had lived in Europe as her brother was a diplomat there. It was a huge area of land with a few trees and the soil was dry and rocky. We were given a round thatched room with four single beds and nets. The TV only had one French channel but the best thing was that they had free Wifi that was reasonably good. These carved chairs sat on the verandah and were surprisingly comfortable to sit in. There are a lot of carved masks and other wooden souvenirs for sale but it is sad to see how denuded of trees the hills around this area are. There are going to be no trees left to make these souvenirs in the future! This amulet was hanging on the wall. It has small leather bags with powdered animal parts in it and a snake skeleton as well as cowrie shells. Sometimes we see the small babies with leather pouches around their necks or waists to ward off evil spirits .

These local kids were getting out of school and rushed over to say hello and watch us. As soon as John got the camera out they shuffled up tightly to get in the picture. When he showed them the photo they squealed with delight.

Fortunately we haven't had to resort to this kind of transport ...yet! These guys were headed for the Burkino Faso border.

Caught up with our Belgian friend, Frederic in Nati and spent time chatting and eating in the evenings. He is vegetarian and has a lot of problems finding food without any bits of meat in it. The most popular vegetables to get in the local eating places are cabbage, onion and carrots. The markets have eggplants, peppers, tomatoes and okra but we rarely see them on the menu. Every place has rice, from Thailand, couscous, spaghetti, potatoes, yams, maniaoc, and canned peas.

We met a Dutch man and his daughter who had visited the national park and had been lucky enough to see elephants and lions. She had been working for a diplomat from Denmark with a Dutch wife and was looking after their children for six months. He came over to visit and take her home again. They were the only other westerners we saw in Nati.

Parakou, Benin

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!

Abomey, Benin

Caught a shared taxi from Ouidah to the outskirts of Cotonou and had to wait an hour and a half for our minibus to fill up. The driver put us in the front seat and as we filled there were three of us sitting next to the driver. The minibus seemed quite new so was in very good condition with thinly padded bench seats in the back. The road to Abomey was sealed but in poor conditions with many potholes. There were a lot of burnt out and jack-knifed trucks on the road side. It seems that drivers on both sides of the road race to get around potholes on their side of the road and when they misjudge there is a head on crash. Of course when the trucks with their long loads do it, their loads can shift and they go over. Sometimes we have seen trucks with their cabs at strange angles coming towards us but when you look at their tryes they are going parallel to the road, quite an unnerving sight. Nine kilometres from Abomey, we pulled into a small lane to drop passengers off at the Bohican market, but the driver was driving too fast. He tried to squeeze between a truck unloading maize, and a stall on the side of the lane but smashed the wing mirror. The mirror bent back and smashed the quarter light window and the whole lot ended up in John's lap. He was covered from head to toe in shards of glass and silver from the mirror. He had a few scratches on his arms and a larger one on his calf. All the local passengers got off and caught motorbikes to their next destinations. The driver and his conductor were of course blaming the truck driver for not leaving him enough room. We had paid to go all the way to Abomey and John nagged the driver to take us on. The conductor organised some motorbikes and wanted us to go on with them as we were the only passengers left and they didn't want to bother to take us. John perservered and they took us the nine kilometres to Abomey. All this was done in broken French! From the Abomey bus station we had to take a motorbike to our guest house. The guest house was a strange place. It covered a large area and had lots of buildings. There were circular covered eating areas under the teak trees and long blocks of rooms where there were several local families. There were dogs lying around the outside charcoal fire pit, an antelope in a pen, and a monkey in a cage and the staff were lounging around in different places asleep. Our room was big but quite dark as they have small windows that have wooden louvres and mesh but no glass. We had a mosquito net and a fan and were able to do laundry in the huge tiled bathroom. The trees in the garden were covered with wooden carvings and there were all kinds of carvings of fetishes with large penises under the trees. Abomey is famous as the capital of the fierce Dahomey Kingdom, who scared the heck out of the colonial powers for centuries. When the French built the rail they deliberately planned it around Abomey to avoid the kings. The last Dahomey king, Behanzin We visited the History Museum which is in a part of the king's palaces that were not destroyed by fire by King Behanzin. Each new king built his own palace so we were able to see a couple in the UNESCO site. They were a pretty bloody lot and we saw a throne that a king used where the legs sit on the skulls of four of his enemies. A lot of the history of the time is recorded in large applique hangings in the museum. Unfortunately, we were not able to take any photos of anything. The guide, we had included with our ticket, could only speak 'museum' English. She could point at things and say throne, buffalo etc. She could not answer any questions or make a complete sentence in English. A bas relief of a voodoo juju man A shrine of pots, fish bones, and animals' skulls covered with oil We walked about the town reading some of the signs telling about the history and its kings. We found a place to eat near our guest house where there were a few choices of dishes. While here we met Frederik from Belgium. He was unwell at the time and after a visit to a clinic was told he had malaria even though they didn't test his blood. He must have had typical symptoms. We spent a bit of time with him listening to his story about a girl he met in Mali and how he sent her money every month through Western Union money transfer company. He supported her for four years at unversity. He has at last come to the conclusion that her and her family were using him for the money. He was the only English speaker we met in Abomey although we saw about a dozen westerners. It is wonderful to see the locals wearing brightly coloured and patterned clothing. Sometimes a mum will be wearing the same amterial as her daughter or a dad the same as his son. Men even enjoy wearing lacy outfits (border anglais I think it is called). We have seen this dress in Ghana, Togo, and here in Benin.

Ouidah, Benin

Jumped onto the back of a motorbike and headed for the shared taxi station to get a ride to Ouidah. It was only a 42 kilometre journey so it didn't take long although there were a few checkpoints to go through.

As the guesthouse we wanted was only a few hundred metres from the main road, the taxi driver dropped us there, and saved us a walk in the heat and humidity. The receptionist could speak a bit of English so we were lucky. Of the eight rooms in the complex we were the only guests. Our room looked like it hadn't been used very much and I had to get the receptionist to come and give the bathroom a scrub while I brushed away the cobwebs on the walls and ceilings.

The yard had a disused tennis court and lots of trees. There was also a monkey tied to a mango tree who leapt down everytime he saw us come near. The poor thing couldn't swing as he was on a short chain belted to his waist. There were a couple of dogs and four puppies lolling about the restaurant floor as well and the ubiquitous chooks pecking in the dirt.

When we ate at the restaurant in the evening there were trillions of termites flying into the light and dropping all around us. It was an effort to keep them out of our steak kebabs (brochettes) and salad.

We visited the History Museum inside the Fortaleza Sao Joao Batista, a fort built by the Portuguese in 1721. The tickets included a guide but none of them spoke English so we had to try to figure things out for ourselves as there was little signage and what there was, was in French.

The fort

The display was rather disppointing in the museum, with a few artifacts and lots reproductions of early maps of West Africa.

We hired a zemi-john and drove the four kilometre Road of the Slaves. We started at Chacha Place which was the auction place for the slaves. From here the slaves were then shackled and marched to awaiting ships on the coast. Along the route are fetishes like this one.

There is also the Monument of Repentence and the Tree of Forgetfulness. The slaves were marched around the original tree to forget the land they came from.

A sign in the town

40% of the people are Christian and 25% Muslim, but most people practice voodoo whatever their religion. The Dahomey slaves took voodoo to the Americas and mixed it with Catholicism and their Afro-Brazilian descendants brought it back. The northern people practice voodoo under the name of fetishism where they have shrines. A fetish is a potion or object imbued with the spirit's power. Fetsih markets are where the buyer can get the items they need to make a concoction.

In voodoo there is a supreme god, Mawu, and loads of lesser spirits. Traditional priests or juju men are consulted as they are able to communicate with particular spirits.

A street scene

There was a python temple in the town but we didn't bother to go in as it is more like a tourist trap where they charge you to drape a python around your neck. We expected to touted by tour guides but were left alone to wander about so it was quite a relaxing place to be.

Cotonou, Benin

From Lome we caught a couple of motorbikes, zemi johns, to the shared taxi station. We waited 40 minutes for our car to fill and with four of us and had a pretty comfortable ride to the Benin border. There was a young student from Benin in the taxi and he had been six months in Ghana improving his English. He had studied accounting and wanted to get a good job for which he needed good English. It was great to chat with him about his life. All along the highways are stalls like this selling fuel for motorbikes and cars. Here our taxi is filling up in Benin where it is cheaper than Togo and the fuel comes from Nigeria. The funnels are lined with cloth to filter the rubbish from the fuel. Sadly many of the big petrol stations with their huge concrete forecourts are deserted as these stalls surround them and take their business. We had no problems crossing the Togo-Benin border and had a comfortable trip to Cotonou with our very careful driver. He dropped us off at the Catholic Guest House that we wanted to stay in. The guesthouse reminded us of the Soviet style residential building of grey concrete. It was four floors high and had a great view over the area. Our room was spotless with tiled floors, mosquito nets, a fan, a balcony and free Wifi. We had to do a bit of swatting of our French as the receptionists were difficult to communicate with and no one speaks English. We walked around by the beach and looked for somewhere to eat but only spent one night in the city as there was little of interest for us here too. We found a Lebanese restaurant selling shwarma and were happy to have a change from rice, chicken or pastas. During our walk into the city centre we noticed lots of beggars in wheelchairs at the traffic lights. A couple noticed us and chased us in their chairs. We have never been chased by wheelchair beggars before and it was a very uncomfortable feeling as they were a long way from us and we were crossing a median strip that they would not have been able to get over so they couldn't have caught up to us. During the night we were woken by a heavy downpour that sounded like a jet engine on the roof. John slept through most of it but I woke up as I felt raindrops on my body. The wind driven rain was pouring in the open louvres and the floor was flooded so I had to get up and close everything. It went on for about two hours and cooled the place nicely. This coast was formerly dubbed the 'slave coast', because the Dahomey kings pillaged their neighbours for slaves and land. For more than 100 years, 10,000 slaves a year were transported to Brazil and Haiti in the Caribbean. Benin is famous for voodoo, slavery, the Kings of Dahomey, and adopting Marxism.

Lome, Togo

The only transport to Lome from Atakpame was a shared taxi. We were four people across the back seat of the sedan and there were two adults and a baby in the single passenger seat in front. Luckily the road was pretty good most of the way so we didn't bump and bounce onto each other but it was extremely uncomfortable not being able to move our feet or arms. After a few kilometres, I realized the driver had started yawning and had wound his window down and was resting his arm on it, like he was getting himself comfortable to go to sleep. His eyes were very bloodshot and he dozed off, so we shook him awake. He must have made a joke to the other passengers about how we thought he was asleep and of course they all laughed at us and then dozed off themselves. It was only about nine in the morning, so maybe he had been up watching soccer on TV until late. For the rest of the journey John and I took turns to watch him in the rear vision mirror. The road was quite straight and there were no potholes or corners to provide any stimulation so it would have been easy for him to doze off again. After an hour or so he stopped and had a drink and something to eat and kept looking at us in the mirror and we at him for the rest of the trip. Along the highway we saw the wrecks of about five or six trucks . Once we hit the city, there were ample challenges to keep him alert and we could relax. We caught a taxi to a hotel, owned by a Swiss guy, not far from the beach. The main roads in the city were under construction so we had to take several detours. Many of the detours on the minor roads were very sandy and we were thankful that we had not decided to ride a motorbike the nine kilometres to the hotel. The hotel was an old villa with a restaurant below and the accommodation extended into a couple of the neighbouring villas as well. Although the place was fully booked they were able to find us a small room when we said we wanted to stay several nights. The place was dusty and dirty from poor cleaning: the housekeeper squirted water onto the floor from a drink bottle and then mopped it up with a dirty cloth on the end of a broom. She never used cleaners or rinsed the blackened cloth. I managed to find a rag and rewashed everything before we settled in. The next day we were able to get a bigger room and I had to rewash that one as well! There was free Wifi so we were able to sit on a balcony and catch up with emails and research the next part of our travels. The balcony was under a tree and the cleaner didn't clean it at all so I swept it everyday and left the rubbish piled in the corner but she still never bothered to do anything about it. We later heard that the owner was away so that maybe why they were pretty slack with the housekeeping! The beach looked beautiful but it stunk of urine and cooking waste. People seemed to live under the trees. They slept under the palm trees and cooked there. Their washing was spread on the sand to dry. No one was swimming as there is a very strong undertow and the huge waves thundered in to the shore. There are many French and German colonial buildings like this one but many are not maintained.

We were a short walk from a big shopping area with Lebanese supermarkets and flash hotels.

In the market, this lass sold baguettes filled with avocado, tomato, onion, lettuce and dressings.

We didn't bother to visit the art and craft markets with their wooden carvings, ironwork, pottery, weavings, and batik and wax printing even though we saw many galleries selling these items as well.

We ate French food in the hotel restaurant and met several interesting people. Jorn, was a German journalist from Bonn and he has spent many years in different parts of Africa reporting on all sorts of events. He told us how he had met Nelson Mandela a couple of times and about the various African leaders he had interviewed. He also told us about his 2000 African girlfriends...well not each one of them! He called them the 'Western Union girls ' ( a money transfer company ) because they have relationships with many westerners who then send them money every month. Of course they try to get as many boyfriends as they can to all send them money every month so they don't have to work but have enough money to look good to attract western men and support their families!

We also met Damian from the UK who had bought a motorbike in Mali and was travelling around on that. He was resting up as he was unwell and after some blood tests was told he had thrush and amoebic dysentery. He was able to get some medication and felt well enough to move on. We were able to get some information from him on Senegal, Mali and Burkino Faso which was very helpful.

The other Englishman we met was Chris. He had farewelled his girlfriend and was off to travel for four years. He was volunteering in an orphange in Ghana and had to get back there to record the children singing on a CD. His girlfriend had been in touch and he was headed back to the UK. We are hoping to be able to meet up with him in Mali and do some walking in Drogon Country together later on.

Lome has 675,000 people and we didn't find that much of interest there for us.

Atakpame, Togo

We knew that Auberge Vakpo was not the kind of accommodation we would find everywhere in Togo so it was nice to start our visit to the country in a memorable way. We strapped our packs to our bags and gave our small day bags to the motorbike rider to carry on his petrol tank. It was quite difficult keeping balance when he accelerated, as the weight of my pack pulled me backwards and my feet came of the pedals. With a grip on the back parcel rack and my right hand clasping my right knee I was able to remain upright on the bike as we bounced off through the dusty roads to the minivan station. The minivan was as well hammered into shape as our first one and after the standard 90 minute wait, we were full of passengers, stacked with sacks of charcoal and baggage, and ready to go. Everything was covered with a net and tied to the home made roof rack. While waiting, John met a Nigerian man who owned a small shop in the minivan station, until thieves broke in and took all his stock a few weeks ago. Life would be hard enough in Togo without such calamities. The sealed road was so bad it took 3 1/2 hours to cover the 100kms to Atakpame.

This is typical of the private houses in the towns while the rural places are thatch and mud.

We had to catch a zemi-john to our hotel as it was far too hot and humid to walk the three kms. The place was called Hotel California and sat beside and below a petrol station. Luckily not many people own private cars so the station was pretty quiet. Not many motorbikes filled up there either as small stalls a few metres away from the station were selling whisky bottles filled with cheaper Nigerian fuel.

Atakpame is a junction town and the streets are lined with stalls selling everything and anything. Even if they have especially built shops, the hawkers like to move as close to the street as they can.

These clay ovens are moulded and integrated with the footpath. Charcoal goes in the middle and the huge stainless steel basins or pots go on top. The women fan the flames until they are roaring and in no time the pot's contents are bubbling.

This van is being worked on on the side of the street by amazingly skilful and creative guys. It will be up and running in no time with new windows from another wreck and a coat of paint over the well beaten and hammered panels. This looks in even better condition than our first Togo van as it has glass in the back window...we had a sheet of plastic!

Everything happens on the side of the road... this was made here and is now for sale here.

We found an internet place and after 90 minutes we had been able to send two emails! There are only two internet providers and they are both owned by the same company.

The currency in Togo is the CFA; it stands for Communaute Financiere Africaine. It is the common currency for 8 countries; Benin, Burkino Faso, Cote d'Ivoire, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo. It is pegged at 655.967 to the Euro. Our guide book said there were no ATMs outside the capital city of Lome but we walked Atakpame and found one that had no sign but saw a small door outside a bank. When we went in it was an ATM that luckily gave us CFAs. Visa cards are the only cards that work here in ATMs.

There is nothing to see or do here but we filled in a couple of days and got to practise our French phrases. The only sit down eating places we could find were in hotels so we chose to eat at ours which did some simple but tasty food.

Kpalime, Togo

Took a cab to the tro - tro station to catch our last Ghanaian ride. We had to wait an hour and a half for it to fill. It was probably the worst minivan we have been in and I felt quite unsafe. There were no door handles, the sliding door kept falling off, and only the driver could open the doors from the outside, it had a leaking manifold /exhaust and the roof rack was welded to the rusting roof sills that were lined with pieces of rubber to keep the rain out. There were holes in the floors and the seats bolted to the floor looked in danger of falling right through to the road. Every time we went over a big pot hole or speed bump bits of rust would fall on my shoulder. The roof rack was so over-loaded that the roof sagged. When we crossed a hole or bump the walls and roof swayed back and forth and I was hoping the roof would not collapse and crush us all. There did not appear to be an inch of metal surface inside the van that had not been hammered into shape. We crossed the Ghana border post and the guard was surprised we only had an entrance stamp and not a full page formal visa like everyone else he sees pass through his post. When we told him NZ did not have a Ghanain Embassy, he wanted to know why not. Fortunately he accepted my explanation that we were too small and too far from Ghana.

The tradition in Ghana is to have three passengers across the seats in a minivan, so we had 14 passengers and two babies up to the border post. On the Togo side we picked up more passengers and were 17 passengers seated four across as well as two babies. This means you have to either sit one person forward on the seat while the next sits back or you sit at an angle so one shoulder is touching the seat and the other doesn't squash the neighbour. When a passenger has to sit forward on the seat they usually put their arms up on the back of the seat in front of them pushing that person forward. There is no such thing as personal space!

We passed through some coffee and cocoa growing areas but hardly saw any of the trees as the grass was high and there were many palm nut trees and huge mango trees. We slowly swayed our way along the red dirt road through the hills and tropical trees to Kpalime.

At the minivan station we had to hire motorbikes or zemi-johns as they are locally called as there was no other form of public transport to take us to our accommodation. The main road into the town centre was under construction. The contractors were boxing up huge concrete drains on the sides of the road and it was difficult to see where we were going because of the dust. John had found a guest house on the Lonely Planet Forum and had sent an email but had not got a reply so we headed for the place anyway as it sounded interesting. As soon as we arrived we could see it was like no where else we had stayed. There were several semi-nude women fountains at the entrance as well as other sculptures in the garden. We had a lovely room with air con and a TV with a French news channel but broadcast in English. It turned out the owner has his computer in Lome but there is no computer in the guesthouse for management to reply to emails, but we were the only guests any way. The place was a 30 minutes walk from the town centre and we would eat in town and then catch a zemi-john back. There was not much to see or do in town but we visited the 'petit marche' to buy bread, pineapples, tomatoes and avocados. Togo's official language is French so we have got our phrase book out and carry it where ever we go. NZ is about five times bigger than Togo. The Europeans came in the 16th century and used Togo as a conduit for slave traders. Once slavery was abolished, the Europeans traded palm and coconut oils, cocoa, coffee, and cotton. In 1884, Germany signed a treaty with Togoville and the local chief and they called it Togoland. The locals weren't happy with how the Germans treated them and they welcomed the British forces during WW1. The League of Nations split Togoland after the war giving 2/3 to France and the rest to Britain. In 1956, the British part went to Ghana and French Togoland became a republic. In 1963, Togo became the first African country to have a military coup. 2007 saw the first reasonably free and fair elections, according to international observers. It is taking the country a while to get tourists and businesses operating here again. The country is young with more than 40% of the population under 14. Life expectancy at birth is 58. 65% of the population are involved in agriculture, making up 40% of the GDP. Polygamy is rife and women work the hardest, fetching water, looking after the children, fetching firewood, working the fields, as well as cooking and cleaning.

There was not much to do in Kpalmine as there were no internet places and few sit down restaurants. We did find a place to eat in the evening that had burgers, spaghetti, couscous, steak, and fried chicken dishes. It had a roof that kept out the rain during a short downpour but the sides were open to the dust, and hawkers and next door was a small bar. At night there were no lights and it sat right next to a main road that was under construction.

One evening the owner turned up from Lome and offered to cook us a meal which was very pleasant as we could eat in the garden surrounded by the sculptures. He wanted us to stay on but we had seen all we wanted to see of the area. We did meet many young lads who were tour guides wanting to take us to waterfalls and see butterflies but we had already done this in Ghana. The owner cooked us a breakfast and we introduced him to the Hostelworld and Hostelbookers accommodation sites as a way of letting more people know about his interesting and comfortable guest house.