After the desert camping trip, we made our way from Agadez to the Benin border, and from there down to the capital, Cotonou, where we eventually caught a plane back to Paris.
Abomey
Abomey is the center of the Dahomey kingdom, which lasted from about 1600 to 1900. There are lots of interesting sites all around the town commemorating this time. More pictures...
Ouidah
Ouidah was a day trip from Cotonou. It had an interesting museum, a "temple of serpents" housing dozens of pythons, a road slaves walked down on their way to the ships, and a sculpture garden. More pictures...
Cotonou
Cotonou, the largest city in Benin, was the most modern and least desperate city we visited in West Africa. The first day we were there most everything was closed for inauguration of the new president. There were good restaurants, though a power failure hit as we arrived at one of them, and we had to eat on the street instead. We went back the next night and had interesting sauces on interesting starches, and one of the best grilled fish we'd ever had. As it was the last few days in Africa, we bought all the souvenirs we'd been putting off buying before. More pictures...
Ganvié
Ganvié is an unusual village on the lake north of Cotonou. There isn't really any ground at all — it's all built on the water.
One of the most unusual thing about Ganvié is that people definitely didn't like our beards — they'd make scissor gestures with their hands. More pictures...
