Next up I go to Cotonou the capital of Benin, in my normal style I dont bother with the number one tourist attraction, in this case it’s villages on stilts - very nice im sure.
Cotonou is meant to be a crappy place, for me it wasnt particularly bad or good. Like all the major French speaking cities it has Patisseries, Coffee shops and such like. I treated myself to a proper coffee, as I had been craving it recently. This cost as much as three street food dinners, but tasted good. In a land where Nestle is king, the poor excuse of African Nescafe doesnt quite cut it, and even worse than that - Lipton! To call Lipton tea is a complete sham. Lipton tastes like water that has been sitting in a copper pipe full of mud and bin juice for the last year. I agree with the environmentalists, shame on you Nestle!
Cotonou is full of moto taxis, absolutely millions of them. Crossing the road becomes a risky prospect. Despite all these taxis I think most of them drive around with blinkers on. The next morning I hailed about four down asking for a ride to the ‘ancient pont’ (old bridge), which is Benins equivalent to Tower Bridge, I was amazed that no-one new it. Eventually someone did, or so he claimed, once on the taxi he admitted to being an idiot and probably didnt know his own name. He did however manage to get me to a transit station which had a taxi heading for Lagos.
Now Lagos is a place that I didn’t have to go to, and most people, books and media would advise against it, but we dont want to listen to them. The drive to the border was foreboding, dark clouds loomed ahead, the thunder was getting closer and louder. The heavens finally opened as we reached the crossing point, i’ll be honest - I was shitting it!
