Benin Frontier, Pendjari and Waterfalls
Big day today – pack up and get a zem to the gare routiere where I find a taxi brouse heading up to Tanguieta, that is filling quickly. Soon enough we’re off over some hills for an hour or so before arriving in the sleepy town around 8.30am. My pack is transferred to an empty taxi brouse that is going to Porga and I wait and wait until I am approached by a zem driver offering to take me to the border – it’s a long way, 55kms each way but could be doable if I leave my pack at the NP office. When I enquire of the Porga taxi brouse when they may be leaving they tell me 1pm – so another hour after that to get to Porga and then try for transport back AND I still want to get to the falls? No way so I go for the zem. Much tussle as the rider tries to reclaim my pack because the taxi doesn’t want to lose a passenger and they are pissed off with the zem drivers. But we succeed and then head to the National Park office where I meet a german vollie who is happy to help out and allow me to leave my pack in their offices. Then it’s off on the zem and we go and go and go – 1 ½ hours to Porga for a 10 minute conversation, one demand for 5ooo cfa that I manage to rebuff and then I’m stamped into Benin. A quick show of my ‘yellow card’ (yellow fever vaccination) to a chap in a white coat and I’m done with the frontier. The zem rider is keen to rest at Porga, but there is nothing there and I still have a long way to go today so reluctantly we head off again south back to Tanguieta, arriving around 2pm. I get my pack back and then find another zem rider to take me out to the falls. But unfortunately he is not too interested in where I want to go, just the fare and takes me to a hotel just out of town. No, Relais du Taningou so he tries another hotel. By now I’ve gathered I’ve got a dud zem when he starts asking me the hotel name again. When he finally understands where I want to go, he is shocked and I realise he is really quite young and probably not quite up to the haul out to the falls. I pay him off and find another zem who understands where I want to go – and wow what a ride that was! Another 35kms on a pretty bad dirt road on top of the 110kms I’ve already had in the heat of the day – I kept promising myself that I only had to do this road one way on the bike – tomorrow I’d be in a 4wd and would lay across the back seat and sleep all the way back to Nati!
I am so relieved when we finally get to Taningou around 4pm, check out my hut and literally throw on my bathers for a 5 min walk to the first part of the falls – I’m in heaven at last, submerged in lovely fast running fresh water, cooling off, relaxing and eating a lovely ripe mango (yes, food again) I’d been saving. No phone signal at the falls, so I head down the hill and try to contact Joseph to confirm where I am to be picked up tomorrow. I sms but don’t get a reply so when a couple come down from the falls I borrow their ph and ring him – to be greeted by a torrent of french! As the loudspeaker is on, the girl interprets for me; he and Mark have argued and the trip is off. I plead with him to let Mark know where I am, as I assume that Mark must have another guide planned and then the signal drops out. Surely this traveller wouldn’t leave me stranded here? I have hope…. After dinner at the Relais there is power for a few hours for the fans till late at night. Then silence reigns supreme with a starry, starry night.
Alas the next morning my hopes are dashed – no 4wd arrives for me. I get several offers: the swiss guys are camping for 2 nights in the park for which I don’t have enough time – it will be difficult to make my own way out after one night and one benonoise guy is visiting his brother at the park hotel and offers me a lift in – but that still doesn’t get me a 4wd to get around the park. Sadly all transport leaves the Relais, so I pack up and walk down the hill to await any kind of transport to head back to Tangieuta and Nati. Unfortunately this road only leads to one place – the national park - meaning passing 4wds are all on their way into the park, but after an hour or so a local guy turns up and agrees to take me to Tangieuta – but first he has to change his pantaloons. 1 hour later he turns back up, refreshed after his shower and change of clothes – lucky him – and I head back out on that shocking road on the back of a zem, cursing Mark/londonroads. Not only did he leave me stranded, but he also has 15k cfa that I gave for half the petrol for the trip. I am feeling very stupid, ripped off and pissed off at getting SO CLOSE to Pendjari National Park (billed as West Africa’s par excellence wildlife park) at the best time of year for spotting animals and I don’t get there! AARRGGHHHHHH
Eventually I get to Tangieuta, then onto Nati, then onto Djougou where we wait for the car to fill and finally get away by 4pm leaving a lot of the driving at night, which I hate. Still I make it alive and unscathed to Bohicon where I stay the night at an odd place – they are projecting a movie on their outside wall and customers are dining and drinking at tables on the other side of the road watching the movie! The waitresses get to play chicken with the traffic as they ferry food and drink to the tables!
FACT: Benin is 700km long and 120km across in the south widening to 300km in the north. This makes it twice the size of neighbouring Togo. It has a population of nearly 9 million in 2009 with a life expectancy of 50 yrs.
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