blog

Cotonou, a week after arriving in the wee hours of the morning and
deciding it was all a bit much...

This ain't the capital of Benin but it's the biggest city, and it would
also be in the running for the "pollution", "noise" and "sprawl"
categories of the urban awards. So despite the fact that our
eye-wideningly pricey hotel had a lovely swimming pool (if you didn't
mind watching the cranes loading shipping containers in the dock just
beyond the diving boards) and a shower of sorts - when the water was on - we decided to split the town in favour a beach break in Grand Popo, a
villageish thing close to the border with Togo.

I'm told that "popo" is the word that French kids use to describe what
they leave behind after a more emphatic session in the toilet; so you
can imagine we weren't expecting too much of the swimming. But the name
isn't a reference to ahem outfall but to the local tribe, the Popos, who
have over the years hung out pretty much everywhere along the Beninois
coastline.

That said, the swimming was a tad intense in its own right. A huge beach
stretches almost uninterrupted along the entire West African coastline
from Cote d'Ivoire to the mouth of the Niger in Nigeria; the sand
continually carried eastwards by the pounding waves which carve and
scrape at the coast. Grand Popo itself, despite being a reasonably old
town, doesn't have any old buildings - they're all in the sea, swallowed
up by the advancing waves.

'Course, we thought we were sophisticated Sydneysiders, having got our
badges and proficiency certificates for being dumped by a big wave at
Bronte beach on Christmas Day. Nonetheless, the glance down
the 45 degree sand slope to the broiling briny was enough to put lumps
in our throats; and when we got in, there was a sudden and unexpected
step where we went from waist-deep to shoulder deep, all the time
watching a 3ft wave bearing down on us faster than we could outrun it.
In addition to which, we'd already been shown the old Portuguese cannon
which the locals use as a fetish charm to prevent shark attacks, which
isn't great for the confidence (although maybe it was - at least we had
a fetish charm to ward them off).

Anyway, this story is coming to an abrupt end because so is my timed
internet session. The long and the short of it is, we got in the sea and
it weren't so bad. We got a bit tired, is all.

Back in Cotonou now. Much noise and pollution. Much net cafes too - in
the next thrilling instalment, gasp as we watch a proper voodoo
ceremony, complete with unfortunate chickens.