I awoke to the sound of flapping wings. It was far from dawn, what could possibly be flying around my hotel room in the middle of the night? I repeatedly blinked my eyelids struggling to get a clear picture. Directly in front of my face, with only a mosquito net between us a 2 inch long cockroach crawled, then took flight again leaving my field of vision for the dark abyss of the far side of the room… I hate cockroaches. I shivered and hoped that I had tucked the mosquito net in. I had known it was going to be a long night ever since we returned from dinner and were surprised by an enormous mouse and a cockroach in plain sight. We were able to shoo the mouse out of the room but the roach evaded us. It was clear that no one was going to be able to sleep on the floor.
I don’t know if I conquered my fear of cockroaches that night but I certainly made progress since every time I awoke there was at least one crawling above me on the netting. Mercifully, dawn eventually came. I walked past the monkeys in the courtyard to the shower. There was running water at Chez Alice which was appreciated after that night, though I think the only shower in the hotel was for staff only I used it anyway.
Our adventure was about to begin, all we needed to do was take care of some business in Lomé and head out. If we were travel to Mali, we would first pass through Burkina Faso and being that they did not issue visas on the border and had no embassy in Togo, we made our way for the French Embassy. France sometimes issues visas on behalf of their former colonies and we were lucky enough that the embassy in Lomé could issue Burkina visas. What was less lucky, however, was the requirements, cost and hours of operation. At the French Embassy we learned that we would need hotel reservations, passport photos, copies of our passports and 40,000CFA ($80). This was difficult but not impossible. We could go to an internet café, book a hotel, find a passport photographer and make copies. The time constraint was the challenging part. The embassy’s hours were 8:00am through 9:30am and it was already 8:30. Leave it to the French to only be open 90 minutes a day. I was optimistic that we could make it in time. Corbett rounded up some motorcycle taxis, I hopped on one and the race was on.
We weaved through the streets of Lomé on the back of our motorcycles, dodging traffic, pedestrians and potholes. It was utterly terrifying at first but soon the terror faded and it became a thrill (no mom, I do not plan on buying a motorcycle... don't worry) The scenery rushed by as we meandered through an incomprehensible maze of paved and unpaved streets until we finally arrived at the internet café. It didn’t open until 10:00am and it was already 8:50. I accepted failure. I think Corbett and Hannah had realized that we were on an impossible mission long before I. We wouldn’t be able to enter Burkina and therefore the only way into Mali would be routing through Benin and Niger… If only I had a month to kill.
Over a breakfast of chocolate croissants we pondered the implications of our failure and came up with a new plan: no plan. We would wander aimlessly around Togo for a week never looking ahead more than a few hours. We had no guide book so our trip would be controlled by a small amount of previous reading and a large amount of guesswork.
Lomé was on the coast so we went north. Corbett had read about Kpalimé (pronounced Pa – lah – may) so we went to the station and bought tro-tro tickets to Kpalimé. It was a couple hours north in a cramped van with an old lady who fell asleep on my shoulder. The flat plains turned into forest and then a huge mountain grew on the horizon directly ahead of us. It was Mount Agou, the tallest mountain in Togo. Our van followed the road around the mountain and into Kpalimé, which is situated just behind the mountain. More mountains dominated the landscape to the north and naturally, they drew us in.
Corbett asked around for hotels atop a mountain and eventually the existence of such a hotel was confirmed. All that was left was getting there. This was Togo so we chose the most common type of transport in the country: moto-taxi. We each hopped on a moto and took off for the mountains. We climbed through kilometers of switchbacks into the mountains, flying by forests and waterfalls. The trees broke way every now and then allowing for me to take in the amazing mountain vista with forest covered mountains and Kpalimé sitting far below on the valley floor. It was an amazing ride.
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| Moto-taxi thru the mountains (Hannah directly ahead, Corbett ahead of her) |
Eventually we arrived at a hotel, which was in the mountains but had no view sadly. The people who ran the hotel also operated a hiking tour business and offered to take us on a 6 hour hike through the mountains the next day for a price which we negotiated down to 5000CFA each ($10) kinda expensive but probably worth it as we would need a guide to do any hiking. Still, I was leery of getting ripped off.
A little bit down the road was a place called Chez Paul where we had our dinner. All the tables were completely empty so we chose one. Paul was shocked as if we had clearly chosen an inferior table and insisted that we change to a better table. This was quite confusing to me and I still have no answer to why one table was superior. I ate my couscous, which was pretty good and eventually, Hannah, Corbett and I all headed back to the hotel excited for the morning’s hike, which we were to embark upon at 7:00am.
TO BE CONTINUED…
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