Few days at the Auberge

As there was no train back down south, we got a taxi back to the gare routiere and a few guys helped us into a taxi heading to Porto Novo (the capital of Benin). We had a few days to kill before the Voodoo Festival in Ouidah, and unfortunately didn't have enough time to head up north and get back down beforehand. Just before the taxi departed from Abomey, we picked up a pretty well off kid from a house on the outskirts of town and from the way he was talking to the taxi driver, and the clothes he was wearing, we thought he was a prince!

Passing quite a few crashed, overturned and burnt out lorries on the way, we arrived in the capital and headed straight for the Centre Songhai - a sustainable agricultural project just on the outskirts of the city centre. In our guide book it was said to be the best place to stay, with over 80 rooms, a recommended restaurant on site and the fastest Internet connection in the city (which obviously didnt help me too much getting this up to date, as I'm still writing this after I'm home!).

Unfortunately, the Centre was full, but we had a very nice lunch of pintade (guinea fowl) and, yes you've guessed it, rice. We then had to try and hail down a taxi to take us back into the city centre to find somewhere to stay. This may sound quite simple, but in Benin there are very few car taxis, most taxis are zemidjans (aka zemi's - motorbikes that zoom back and forth across town for a very small fee). They are a great idea, but very scary or exhilarating depending on which way you view the journey! As we had all our bags, we waited till a four-wheeled taxi pulled up and got taken to the Detente Hotel. Which doesn't exist anymore.

We walked further up the road, just as the rain started up, and arrived at the Auberge Malabo. This seemed more our price range than the almost-palace next door, which we found out was a top government minister's house. The auberge was a really nice little place, run by a friendly chap who helped us out with directions etc around the city. Actually, that night we weren't sure where to go to eat, and the guy, who spoke a bit of English, flagged down a couple of zemis and showed us to a nice little restaurant a few minutes away.

We thought he was going to sit with us for the whole meal, but made his way back after making sure we were okay. The food was fine, but the service went back to Ghanaian and we had a lot of difficulty getting any drinks! Returning back to the auberge we discovered that there was no electricity. Not so bad for any rooms with windows, but mine and Barney's room was a veritable cell - it was in the middle of the building, with only a small window leading to a corridor for ventilation. When the fan was off it was a sweatbox; too hot to sleep.

The next day, we went to the city centre and found an omlette man down a side street. Dree went off to change some traveller's cheques while the rest of us went into a dubious museum called La Musee Da Silva. In the guidebook it said that the museum was a bit random and had a strange collection of objects. We went inside and found an English-speaking guide called Gerry. It turned out that Gerry was born in Benin, but his parents had left for Gabon because of the problems with communism in the 70's and 80's. Gerry had gone to university in Philadelphia in the USA and it was really good to have a guide we could chat with.

The Museum was created by a former government minister who had Brazilian ancestry, and was filled with all sorts of random items - from old cameras and typewriters, through hundreds of pictures of family members and famous people, to a Rolls Royce, a mummified turtle and some dubious artwork from around the world. It really was an unexpected little tour, but was very interesting. The former minister had collected all these things in his old house, which was in the original Afro-Brazilian style of architecture, but the tour itself was made by our guide.

Gerry was very, very funny, walking around explaining about the exhibits, and sometimes turning to us and saying "Now I'm only saying this because it says so on the label, but I don't think this is right!". One memorable one was the 'Thai' art section, which had some Western nude women in erotic poses. Very Thai! I was taking photos of some things on the way round, and Gerry kindly allowed me to, but became quite nervous towards the end. Probably because he'd been walking around chatting to us for about two and a half hours - when the tour was only meant to take an hour max! Poor Gerry got a rollicking when we got back (we obviously tipped him), but poor Dree had been sitting outside for the whole time!

After a cheap bite to eat we hit another museum - the museum of Entomology - but the Beninese lady who showed us round seemed frosty and annoyed at first. She was a bit aggrieved at having to speak English, although the employees were being taught to do the tour in both French and English. She was quite friendly toward the end, but the museum itself was more to do with families and the upbringing of children, and quite different to the eclectic-ness of the da Silva!

I spent the evening back at Centre Songhai, catching up on a few weeks of blog from over Christmas, and had a couple of very scary moto rides back and forth! The zemi riders zoom in and out of lanes at speed, and the Beninese as a whole don't seem to get the idea of roundabouts...they stop ON the roundabout to let others on. It all makes for a hair raising adventure!

The next day we'd planned to leave. However, things weren't going to plan. The ONLY time we'd paid for three days up front, rather than day by day, and we'd been stung! We asked to leave a day early, but apparently the 'police' had been informed of where we were staying and the 'tax' had already been paid... We couldn't afford to give up a night's paid accommodation, and so spent a very cheap day reading, eating from the street stalls and repacking our bags. Bit of a downer at the end of such a nice stay that we were kind of kidnapped, but compared to what would happen in a few days this was pretty mild!