Holiday Itinerary

Our unique adventure begins in Lome, Togo’s friendly and atmospheric capital overlooking the Gulf of Guinee, where the colonial past still vies for space amongst the trappings of the city’s traditional African roots.

This morning we have a chance to experience some of Lome’s fascinating mix of charm and cultures, with a tour of the city. We explore its central market, the famed Grand Marché, the hub of the city and home to the renowned Nana Benz, the “Mercedes Mamas” who rank amongst some of the wealthiest and most able business people in all Africa. These women have cornered the market in cloth, travelling to Europe and the Middle East to ensure their prestigious supplies. We learn a little something of the city’s administrative and colonial past amongst the grandiose architecture built by the colonizing hand of German, French and British settlers. We also visit the captivating Marché des Feticheurs (fetish market), which sells an eclectic mix of traditional medicines and charms, including bones, skulls and skins used by local witch doctors. The reputation of the markets draws clientele from all over West Africa and even Togo’s resident Christian and Muslim populations find themselves drawing on the ancient animistic traditions. Leaving the city we then head east, towards Lac Togo and the high grasses of the Savannah, where we find hidden villages steeped in the ancient voodoo culture where we hope to witness something of this remarkable culture through meeting the locals and witnessing traditional ceremonies before we continue to our nights stop across the border in Benin at Grand Popo

We cross into Benin today and head for the Mono river. Travelling by motorised pirogue we visit villages where salt is still extracted using traditional methods. The government of the region stipulates that during the packaging stage, iodine is added for its health benefits. The river takes us in a random and constantly changing route across a landscape of sand dunes, palm trees, patches of mangroves and little fishing villages constructed with the branches of palm trees. It brings us to the estuary where the Mono river meets the ocean. Later in the afternoon we drive to our beach accommodation in Ouidah.

Drive to Ouidah via Benin border; boat to Ganvie on Lake Nokoue (Benin). This morning we explore the town of Ouidah, considered to be the spiritual home of voodoo. Once an infamous part of the old slave route, Ouidah was the site of one of the largest trading posts, supplying slaves to Europe and its outlying colonies. The echoes and ghosts of those infamous days still reverberate today, in its Afro-Portuguese architecture. We aim to spend some of our time here visiting the museum at the old Portuguese Fort and taking a walk along the slave route to the beach, where the unfortunate victims were loaded aboard the slave ships. Bruce Chatwin’s book, The Viceroy of Ouidah, described something of life here back in those troubled times. We also aim to visit the remarkable Python Temple, where Ouidah’s ancient snake cult is still very much in evidence. Snakes are still an important feature of many voodoo rituals, believed to be able to imbue vitality and protection. From Ouidah we continue to Lake Nokoue, where we take a short pirogue ride out to the stilted village of Ganvie, reputed to be Africa’s largest lake village. Settled by the Tofinou people, fleeing the slave traders of the 16th century, the village today is an atmospheric setting of thatched huts, balanced on stilts of teak, where daily life is still very much conducted on the waters of the lake. Fishing is still the principal activity for the inhabitants and every day the men go about their business, whilst women deliver their goods to the floating market and children go to school and play from the backs of open pirogues. But even amidst this tranquil aquatic idyll voodoo plays its part and this evening we will meet a local Bokono oracle, a village soothsayer who guides the lives of these traditional people through the drums and dancing of voodoos haunting rhythm.

Transferring back to the mainland by boat this morning, we then drive to the town of Abomey, once the capital of one of West Africa’s precolonial kingdoms and a fabulously atmospheric collection of narrow alleys and fetish temples. Visiting the Royal Palace we discover the ornate majesty that was once the Dan-Homey dynasty. Originally a complex of some 12 palaces, until its destruction by the French in 1892, the Palace complex today has been reduced to just two, but this UNESCO World Heritage site still invokes a feel for those halcyon days of pre-colonial glory. Now a museum, the walls are still decorated with bas-reliefs representing the symbols of the Dahomey kings and its halls and rooms hold the thrones and altars, statues and arms of a kingdom that lived in a perpetual state of war and built its greatness on the slavery of its neighbours. In the centre of the royal courtyard is the House of Pearls, a temple built by king Glele to honour his father’s spirit, its walls made from a mixture of clay and human blood! Walking amongst these now derelict building evokes powerful feelings of a once mighty, but brutal regime, which challenged the might of Europe’s colonising nations. We also have the opportunity today to visit a Gelede mask ceremony at Cove. A cult to the great divinity Oudua, the earth mother, Gelede is a cult, a secret society and a type of mask all at the same time. The brightly coloured masks are comprised of a head with large eyes and sensual lips over which an animated collection of characters and objects tell stories, to the accompaniment of a choir and an excited audience. After witnessing this most remarkable of events we return to Bohicon where we will spend the night.

Our final day sees us journeying to the ancient Yoruba Kingdom in Ketou, en route to Porto Novo. On arrival in the village we will meet with a local Oba (Yoruba king) to hopefully learn something of the history and culture of these ancient people. From here we continue across the Benin Plateau to the old Portuguese colony of Porto Novo, today the administrative capital of the country. Built on the back of the slave trade, the city still retains some reminders of its somewhat emotive past and today we should have an opportunity to visit some of its more important sites before we depart. We aim to explore something of its old Portuguese centre and its bustling markets. We will also visit the fascinating Museum of Ethnography, which contains a large collection of Yoruba masks, as well as a number of artefacts relating to the history of both the city and Benin itself. At King Toffa’s Palace we learn a little of what life was like for African royalty, before a final visit to the mosque, converted from a Brazilian-style church. This evening sees us ending our journey in nearby Cotonou. The group flying back to London late this evening will have the use of day rooms until the transfer to the airport for the flight home.