I've never been to Venice...

After my stellar arrival, I holed up in my hotel room but couldn’t sleep. I walked around checking the area out. I didn’t see any rabid bats, but apparently they exist. Awesome. The pool and deck area is incredible-- the hotel itself is straight out of 1975, but the facilities make it worth it. It's one of the expensive hotels in Benin, coming in at $87 USD/night.

Shaloo came over at 930am and we headed out for a walk around Cotonou.  Benin has one of the most stable governments on the continent, and a low crime and HIV/AIDS rate.

The only remarkable sight we saw, aside from unique side of the road gas stations (gas in liquor bottles) was Marie-Mere Notre Dame, an interesting red and white church. There were a large number of people standing outside in traditional African garb—big hats, bright colours, crazy prints etc. We thought it might be a wedding… til we saw the hearse. We stuck around to watch the funeral start and hear the INCREDIBLE choir sing French hymns.

We hit up the pharmacy (I needed hair products…) and the supermarket on the way back to the hotel (more alcohol in their supermarket than in our liquor store). There is a great covered over open-air patio here, so we had some lunch and Shaloo joked (I thought) about going out on a boat. It wasn’t a joke.

Hotel du Lac is, as you’d expect,on a lake, and I’ve spent the past 2 days watching people go out at 5 am in sketchy boats to fish. I saw one particularly ballsy Beninese guy take 3 strokes and haul out a bucket to pour out the water that was coming into his boat via the hole in the bottom. He would remove 3 buckets, paddle a couple more strokes, and repeat. So, I was hesitant about the boat situation. I figured it meant instant death—But, Shaloo had booked us onto a Hotel du Lac tour of Ganvie, what the guidebooks refer to as the “Venice of Africa” (note the PDF 'lifejackets' in the boat, but not in use). The people who live there fled when there was a war (ages ago) and just never came back. It is only accessible by water. We piled into a boat with some Belgians and headed off on our trek.

People in this area fish a lot. It’s their thing. There are shrimp and crab catching devices everywhere. We headed into Ganvie and there were children everywhere, some swimming, some driving their own boats, all prepared to strike when a tourist arrived. There were some great kids, but mostly they cover their faces from the camera when you try to take a picture. I figured it was because they thought we were stealing their souls or something…but Shaloo says it’s likely because they think we will sell their pictures to National Geographic and make millions off of them. Towards the end of our trip there, we stopped at a couple shops…

like, souvenir stores built on stilts. There was some great shopping here though, and I picked up some fabulous little souvenirs for friends. On the way back, we hit loads of waves and got soaked. Shaloo was laying down on the boat and we hit a wave and a fish came out of the water and hit him in the face. It landed in the boat and flapped around a little, before a Belgian threw it back to the sea. Anyone who knows of my extreme fear of fish can imagine this was not pleasant.

When we got back, I was finally exhausted-after having not slept on the plane or upon arrival. I had a little nap and a bed picnic of pizza and Pringles before supper. Getting ready for supper was easy as I had no clothes, so we got into a car and headed to L’ Atelier, a little European restaurant, with Shaloo’s friends Nate and Catherine. The food wasn’t so hot, but the company was fabulous, and after a couple bottles of wine we decided to move onward—to La Verdune. La Verdune is a Kelly Wilson place, as I call them, meaning the shittiest bar you can imagine but with such character it’s impossible

not to love. When we walked in, the song “Footloose” was playing, and the centerpiece of the room was a crooked pool table shimmied up by coasters, and the 6 VLT machines were all occupied by very excitable prostitutes, all waiting to win the jackpot. I made friends with Suzanne (aka Chiquita) who first told me of her jackpot dreams. I wasn’t sure if she meant picking up the clearly affluent older white gentleman who was alone at the bar, or winning the literal VLT jackpot. I figured either. Or both. This proved correct. Chiquita was fabulous, and told Shaloo later that white people aren’t usually that nice to them, so I guess she was surprised

that I talked to her.

What can I say? I love prostitutes.

She asked me if I’d be her ‘copain’ and we danced to ‘It’s Raining Men’ before I got my drinks and went back to our table.  We decided the night couldn’t end there, as it was so far perfect, and moved on to New York, New York, one of the most popular clubs in Benin. I didn’t know what to expect- but I certainly didn’t expect what I got. It was FANTASTIC! Great music (there is amazing music everywhere here…even on the dirt road you can hear someone singing or playing music somewhere), great drinks, lots of interesting people….we danced til 430 am and gave up—but the party was still raging. I moved my marriage proposals up by 2 and got a few phone numbers along the way. At this point, it was just Nate, Shaloo and me, as Catherine had gone home, and we realized we no longer had a drive. Cabs aren’t too common here-people use the much cheaper “moto”, a cheap version of a motorcycle where you pile on behind the drive and hold on for dear life. None of us were willing to do that, so we had to find a cab. We found one guy with a car who was willing to drive us, for 10,000 (20$ USD). Shaloo was like “6000 or nothing”…and the guy basically said screw you and walked away. Nate and I stood around wondering how the hell to get out of this mess, while Shaloo approached random people with cars asking for a ride. One nice Lebanese guy told another guy he had to find us a cab, so he did, and we got our 6000 drive without too much more trouble. It was a perfect, random, crazy day.

Now to find my luggage.