Friday, September 2, 2011

Ride for Polio, Day 11 – From Lome (Togo) to Ouidah (Benin)

Unlike my expectations of yesterday we had a fun filled and relatively comfortable day. We left Lome shortly after 6am (local time) and covered the nearly 120km in good time with enough to spare for other recreational activities once in Ouidah. Except for the last two hours of the day’s ride, we had relatively comfortable weather conditions with the wind pushing us from behind. The highlight of the day was definitely our early lunch at Grand Popo...
Leaving the comfort of our hotel we hit the road and very soon made it to the first of the two gravel roads in Togo that caused me such discomfort on the way to Accra. Fortunately there was a lot less traffic and with the wind now coming from behind also a lot less dust blowing into my eyes, mouth and nostrils. Then suddenly I heard a big bang. As I looked back over my shoulder I saw two cars rammed into one another with a lot of people standing around waving and shouting in French (based on their body language I guessed that they were not greeting each other in a friendly manner).
Since we had a long road to cover, we did not stay to watch the end of it all but Friday told me later on that an over eager motorist tried to overtake us when perhaps most of us would not have. Friday, with his tried and tested driving skills, did not allow this guy to overtake us fearing that he might hit me off my bike. Apparently, the accident occurred when this guy swerved to the left in one last feeble attempt to overtake Friday and then slammed head on into oncoming traffic. Failure!
Eventually we reached the final “DEVIATION” sign board and we were back onto the main road and I had settled into a nice and comfortable rhythm. About 15 km later I looked to my left and saw someone waving at me with all his might. It was one of Mr Aloegavi’s sons who recognised me on my bicycle.
Mr Aloegavi, who did not feature on day 3 of my blog, is a local village chief who speaks perfect English and owns a road side motor vehicle repair shop. One of his wives also runs a small road side beauty salon and they will definitely be the wrong people you would try to sell coconuts to. On day 3 of our trip (from Grand Popo, Benin to Keta, Ghana) we stopped over at Mr Aloegavi’s for a quick breakfast. While we were eating, he had one of his sons carting a wheelbarrow filled with coconuts over to our vehicle. After about 4 coconuts I had to ask them to stop otherwise they would have cracked open all of them.
Even though this was an unscheduled stop for the morning, I did start to feel some hunger pains. Besides, it would have been improper of us not to stop at Mr Aloegavi’s again after the great hospitality shown to us a week earlier. Within minutes another wheelbarrow filled with coconuts made its appearance and we were once again treated to industrial quantities of coconut juice. After repaying for their hospitality in kind (we gave them some t-shirts, dried fruit, cheese and salti crack biscuits), we waved them goodbye and headed off to the next border crossing which was now only about 25km away.
The rest of our Togo experience passed by relatively quickly and before long we reached the border. Crossing it was pretty straightforward. We were now back in the Republic of Benin, crossed the time zone losing one hour in the process and the sun started to rear its head from its deep slumber of the last few days.
By now the sun started to take its toll on me and the rehydration juices were flowing at a steady rate. My yearning for an ice cold coke also started to get the better of me and most importantly of all I was getting really, really hungry. It was time to eat. Fortunately our next pit stop was only about 9km away so I made it a small goal to achieve before the promise of some food and drink.
About 20 minutes later we reached Grand Popo, the same settlement that served as our overnight location at the end of Day 2. It did not take us a long time to find the first Coca cola sign which prompted me to hit the brakes and dash for the first available open table ready to be served. The location of this little road side “restaurant” was perfect. It provided nice shade from the angry sun and we had a nice view of the ocean. There was also a nice breeze coming from the west and I was happy with our decision to stop.
When the waiter brought my coke to our table I could hardly believe my eyes – an ice, ice cold 60cl glass bottle of coke. I have never seen coke being served in such denominations before – it reminded me of the 1 litre coke bottles they used to sell in South Africa when I was a child (not sure if they still do?) I was so happy. Before Friday and Uzo could settle down and order their drinks I had already ordered my second 60cl bottle of coke. Awesome!
After enjoying a nice plate of Grand Popo’s version of spaghetti bolognaise and my 1.2 litres of coke we set off to complete the remaining 40km of our day’s journey. By now I was feeling pretty confident seeing that we had completed about 80km for the day and my energy levels were still pretty high notwithstanding the effects of the sun. I soon settled back into a good rhythm and was enjoying the ride. Approximately 20km later we reached the same fishing village where I was denied the opportunity to have a well deserved swim in the lake on Day 2. This time however my camera’s batteries were fully charged and I was able to take a few snapshots.
After arriving in Ouidah about 45 minutes later our next task was to find suitable and reasonably priced accommodation for the night. My family and I have stayed over at Casa del Papa (a lovely and relatively well known beach resort in the area, about 20km off the main road) at least 4 or 5 times before. However, we simply needed a cheap place to wash and sleep for the night and I was certainly not in the mood to add another 40km to our overall mileage. We eventually found a “hotel” almost 1km off the main road that provided very basic accommodation. Perfect!
Given the good time within which we polished the day’s distance (less than 5 hours of cycle time) we had enough time left to explore the town. Friday decided to stay behind to do some washing so Uzo and I took the car and drove down towards the beach. Along the way we stopped over at the local python temple – I kid you not! The locals worship pythons (amongst other things) and also seem to be taking out some time to go to church every now and again. For only FCFA1,000 per person (a little over USD2) we were allowed access to the python temple. I was amazed to see the number of pythons casually lying around the “rondawel” like structure (“rondawel” is an Afrikaans word for a small house built in the shape of a circle). Since I do not really like snakes we did not overstay our welcome and soon left for our next stop which is the “Door of no return” memorial site in remembrance of the survivors and victims of the North Atlantic Slave Trade.
As the sun started to set over the horizon we headed back to our “hotel” picked up Friday and went down the road to a local “pub” to have a few drinks and allow Friday to have a proper meal – local style. He was not to be disappointed and after he polished a man sized portion of spaghetti and fish, we went back to the hotel where I cooked a quick meal for Uzo and I before we all went to bed ready to tackle the last two days of our journey.
As I was getting ready to fall into a deep slumber, I couldn’t help but feel a certain amount of sadness realising that our long journey was about to reach its end. Even though I was very tired I did not want to fall asleep and was recounting all the wonderful experiences we have had thus far. Only two more days and one night and then all of this will be over! Unfortunate!
I was also starting to miss my family a lot more than I had since the start of this journey. Wishing we could all be together again I switched off the lights and closed for the day.

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