Ye Olde Kingdom of Dahomey

After winning the game of cards to win the coveted "bidet-bathroom" and air-conned room, we had a pretty good (if expensive) meal of chicken with rice and sauce. Of course before all of this, we had to have a mammoth shower to wash off the extra five layers of red dust from the day's open-bus journey!

The next day we walked the twenty minutes into town (with no help from the useless Bradt map; which held no resemblance to the actual town) and took a wander around. Abomey was the capital of the kingdom of Dahomey that is now known the Republic of Benin. The kingdom is notorious for being at the heart of the Transatlantic slave trade that we'd learnt about in Ghana. Dahomey supplied slaves for the Europeans by raiding villages and capturing enemies during their many wars.

Before we headed to see the famous palaces built by the Fon people (another UNESCO site), we found some lunch. Eventually. For some unknown reason, Abomey had very little in the way of restaurants, chop bars, street food or any kind of vendor of food products. We did find a place after about five or six rejections and ordered some of the local grub from the variety of pots outside. We ordered (were given) a plate of rice and some sauce with some deep fried things. Everyone else worked out that it was deep fried cheese way before I did. It was really nice to have something different - a change from anorexic chicken!

Now craving cheese, we made our way to the royal palace. Firstly we walked into the wrong high-walled area, and were confused when a lady said that the museum and palace was round the corner, as there were maps and signs for the palace inside. Once we got to the museum/palace, and the woman had woken up from behind the desk, we were ushered out into a main courtyard, which had been turned into a craft market. Cue hassle. It wasn't too bad to be honest, and after the tour we bought a few things that had been woven there. The looms were pretty cool - the guys operated them barefoot, with the thread tied to their toes!

We asked about an English-speaking guide and were told that there was only a French man available. We joined a French lady, and had the huge locked doors that led to other courtyards opened for us by a very old caretaker. He followed and locked the doors behind us as we walked through the palace. The tour guide spoke rapid fire French, but did speak some English pretty well when we asked him to. The basic overview was that the palace was the home of the kings of Dahomey, who lived there along with their hundreds of wives and mistresses, and personal army.

As we wandered through each enclosed area, we picked up a bit of what the French guide said. The gist of it was that the kings were very strict, and subjects who got even slightly out of line had their heads chopped off! This included people who looked directly at the king's favourite mistress, and the executioner, who would also be decapitated if he didn't behead someone in one fell swoop! It was basically quite hard to KEEP your head! Furthermore, the high walls surrounding the palace were apparently coloured with the blood of enemies.

One particular group of warriors also caught our eye. The Amazonians were a unit of women that were renowned for being ruthless in battle, and were not, as I thought, anything to do with the Brazilian rainforest! They apparently fought with more passion and anger than their male counterparts, and were the kings' favourite battalion.

After about an hour of wandering around the separate enclosures (seeing cannons, probably a new addition, low buildings where people were buried, and some funny artwork from back in the day which showed warriors stabbing their enemies in the bottom), we came back out to the craft area and saw some overpriced tat. For example, there were old bottles that had been taken from a rubbish tip, painted some colour, hung from a tree and then were being sold for 10,000 CFA - about £13 - for a discarded bottle...

We did find out that the train wasn't running to the cities on the coast, and so had to re-evaluate our plans. We headed back to the auberge and ordered dinner (as there was nowhere else to eat in the city!), before deciding to leave the next morning for Porto Novo, the capital city of Benin.