12th April 08

Date: 12th April 08
Location: Grand Popo, Benin
Weather: Hazy grey/blue skies and scattered sunshine, 38°c
Status: All good, moving along very well and extremely happy

Set the alarm for 6am, got up and went for an hour’s run along the very soft sanded beach which made it really hard work and sweated buckets but loved it. Passed from the beach into the lagoon area and ran in between the fishing villages which dot the shoreline, through the men fixing their nets, past the boats being worked on and finally to the lagoon mouth where it joins the ocean.

Got back to the camp an hour later and jumped straight into the pool to cool off, where I spent the next half hour relaxing and watched the sun slowly climb through the palm trees. Still no-one up when I got back so made myself a coffee and some porridge and sat on the beach to eat it….awesome.

After we’d visited the internet café to email the essentials to Bre and Ammon for their visa applications we cooled off in the pool before finally packing up camp and hitting the paved road just after midday.

Destination for the day, Abomey, one of the nearest towns to the border with Nigeria where we’d rest up for the night before starting early the next day to attack the Nigerian roads.

An interesting day of roads in good condition and crowded streets as we passed through the coastal towns of Ouidah and Cotonou, then we turned north and covered the 125kms in just over 4 hours. Case and I hit the pedals to the metal and gunned it through the traffic with lights blazing, avoiding potholes as we went and cruising past the painfully slow scooters and trucks.

Arrived in Abomey around 5pm and using our guide notes found Chez Monique easily, setup camp and looked around the yard which is full to capacity of wooden carvings of crocs, people, hippos and anything else you can imagine! A good dinner of chicken and chips and to bed early ready for the big push tomorrow morning when we intend leaving by 7am.

End of day location: Chez Monique’s, Abomey, Benin
Distance covered: 235kms