Day 91-96
1st - 6th Febuary 2007, Togo	previous entry next entry

Day Ninety One 1/3. Chez Alice, Nr. Lome, Togo

6°10.00'N 1°20.48'E. Miles today 86, Total Miles 8587

Ready for Togo, we trundled back along the sandy beach track, (with Rob still grinning and happily reminiscing about desert driving) and soon rejoined the now severely potholed "highway" to the border. This border crossing at Denu was a notably special one. Somehow, they managed to turn what is usually such a simple procedure into something oh so complicated, with various bits of scraps of paper that needed to be returned to the right official-looking (not!) person. Add to this numerous locals all yelling at you trying to be your guide/helper and you get the picture. It took us 3 hours to get through but I will give the Togolese credit, as even though we had to apply for our seven-day visas at the Togo border control, they still came off far more organised than the Ghanaians. Eventually, on an equally severely pot-holed road complete with some pretty scary driving styles, we were on our way to the capital of Lome, once known as the "Paris of Africa." Passing through this crazy city with thousands of mobylettes, we drove along the coast road past beautiful beaches with fisherman selling bunches of huge ruby red crabs tied together with string. We found our way to Chez Alice, a well-known overlanders haunt run by Swiss-Germans where you can camp for €1.50pp. There we met Tatjana and Michael, on their way to South Africa in a Mitsibushi L200. We sat chatting to them discussing various route options for the next few months, as they are a little apprehensive about Nigeria. Seeing as they have the Ecowas visa, they have decided to head north to Niger first and then will drop down into Nigeria from the north. We, on the other hand (wondering why we have no worries about Nigeria and perhaps we should have) are going to carry on as planned and drive straight to Nigeria, only avoiding Lagos and the south. Hopefully we'll all meet up in the capital, Abuja, where we hope to get hard to come by visas for Angola. Despite the endless power cuts now so frequent in this part of Africa and hence the launch of an small and noisy generator, Chez Alice do make an awesome Schnitzel with chips, just like my mom used to make and they do a mean jug of iced tea! Not really African in the slightest but there's only so much fufu a white man can eat you know.

Day Ninety Two 2/3. Hotel Le Geyser, Kpalime, Togo

6°55.26'N 0°37.18'E. Miles today 81, Total Miles 8668

After an incredibly hot night and sweating like pigs in plastic jogging suits, we made the decision to drive north in search of cooler climates and to see more of Togo. Tatjana and Michael were gonna stay on a few more days at Chez Alice, as they had sensibly taken a bungalow with a fan. Had another scary drive out of town on the ring road but soon joined a surprisingly good road all the way to Kpalime, where we stopped at the Centre d'Artisinal to look at some woodcarvings and batiks. There we made the woodcarvers day, as we ended up buying a game of Bao, the popular game played all over Africa with the beads. I am sure it was his only sale of the day and he assured me it was made from Ebony but I have a sneaky suspension there was a bit of shoe polish involved. Now, if only we can remember the rules that Uncle Ray had taught us! The centre is a strange place, kinda ghost-town like but with a good choice of artwork at reasonable fixed prices. Watch out for the internet café though. Even though we shared a computer, they insisted on charging us for two! Closer to town and at the Hotel Geyser, we agreed on a reasonable price for camping and wedged Dino into the shady car-park under a mango tree. Chilling out by the exceptionally well-kept pool for the afternoon drinking ice-cold cokes has never felt this good. We took a wander into town on the hunt for the famous Fan ice-creams but alas, our mission was unsuccessful due to the endless power cuts here. Only those on the brink of melting into a runny goo were available. Hmmm, no thanks. With such a cool, breezy night ahead of us, we tucked into a Tofu Thai curry and slept like babies to the sounds of numerous bats tucking into mangoes above.

Day Ninety Three 3/3. Hotel Abuta, Badou, Togo

7°35.13'N 0°36.33'E. Miles today 100, Total Miles 8768

After scraping the various bits of bat poo off the tent, we had a lazy morning by the pool. Drove further north on a very windy gravel road passed Adeta and up to the monastery where we bought some locally grown coffee and biscuits with cocoa, hand made by the monks. Had we bought those biscuits at Tescos three months ago, they would have been given to the neighbour's dog. Now, we thought they were bloody lovely! You can camp at the monastery and it is a wonderfully peaceful spot under some weird trees with even weirder monstrous fruit but it was still early so we decided to explore a bit further towards Badou on another pretty nasty road. Having said that, I am sure I am gonna be longing for roads this good soon. Wow, the scenery was amazing with mango, banana, avocado, paw-paw, cocoa and coffee trees and plants everywhere. With whole villages jumping up to wave and the children now shouting "yovos" (white man!) at us, we seemed to be back in present-demanding land as the obligatory shout of "cadeau" with the open hand always followed. The 80km stretch took us four hours and we arrived in Badou quite late and tired. We camped in the car-park of Hotel Abuta (hmm…sense a pattern here….could be a good name for the book….."Bugs, Bowels and Car Parks of Africa") for €3pp and headed straight to the bar. The evening's entertainment was an old Celine Dion video, which was bad enough even without the lip-sync being out, although Rob secretly admitted to actually enjoying it! We wandered into town and found a cool little bar and got gently drunk on some ice-cold beers. Back at the car, we realised that the car-park was also actually the main road from town into the next village so naturally spent the rest of the evening entertaining all the locals passing by with what is now commonly known as "Tourist TV"

Day Ninety Four 4/3. Chez Alice, Nr Lome, Togo

6°10.00'N 1°20.48'E. Miles today 173, Total Miles 8941

Badou, in the heart of coffee country, is famous for it's Akloa waterfalls, which we tried to visit but ended up giving a miss. Too many people, too many guides! Made our way back south towards Lome via the old German colonial town of Atakpame, with the most beautiful, yet rundown, buildings. I would so have love to seen this part of Africa in colonial times. It really is such a pity that such beautiful buildings have been left to ruin. Back in Lome, there was a rumour that the Hotel Galion does a famous fondue and Rob being the cheese monster, was particularly keen to investigate. They were happy to let us camp in their car park across the street but for quite a silly fee and no shower, so we decided to forgo the cheese feast and head back to Chez Alice for more schnitzels and cheap camping. Tatjana and Michael were still there, they had tried to leave but oh, the cold beers and the cool fans……Sat chatting to a Canadian woman who was here investigating phosphate contamination in West Africa. Very interesting woman and good conversation.

Day Ninety Five 5/3. Chez Alice, Nr Lome, Togo

6°10.00'N 1°20.48'E. Miles today 0, Total Miles 8941

With the temperatures hitting the high 30's and both of us feeling a little tired, we decided to stay at Chez Alice one more day and relax under the thatch with the roof fans and the cute, yet flea-infested dogs being my new best friends. Lots of website writing and ice tea drinking….oh and more schnitzels! Ok, they do have sausages but even for me, those were best given a miss. We met Leticia from Ghana who very patiently taught us the rules to Bao! Rob (oh how I love him) has installed two small fans in our tent, which makes all the difference!

Day Ninety Six 6/3. Auberge du Lac, Lake Togo, Togo

6°13.00'N 1°27.00'E. Miles today 48, Total Miles 8989

Todays the day! Gotta get outta here or we'll never leave. Stopped at the supermarket in town for a few provisions. By the way, the Champion across the road from the recommended Marox is heaps better and cheaper. There's a good veg market outside and I was looking for some plantain but alas, they never had any. About half and hour later, the young woman had tracked me down and presented me with 4 perfect ones. How far she had walked to find those plantains and how she found me, I have no idea. Amazing what they will do here just to make a living. Drove towards Benin, passing more crab sellers and stopped for the night on the shore of Lake Togo. Auberge du Lac let us camp for €1.50pp and is a super spot but does come complete with a good dose of mosquitoes. We had to burn a coil, which did seem to do the trick of getting rid of the nasty buggers. The lake is popular for watersports but the boats available for were pretty scary and certainly not quite up to Rob's and Thornbury Sailing Club standards, so we just swam loads and played endless games of Bao. Tomorrow we are off to Benin, the real voodoo centre of Africa!

Day 91-96

1st - 6th Febuary 2007, Togo