So, I'm in Africa. The adventures started upon landing.
Some things I have learned:
1) I can't live without Colgate Wisp's. They are little disposable tooth brushes that don't require water and have a minty gel thing in the middle that makes your teeth feel lovely. WAY better than having to carry toothpaste and a brush/using the airplane water to brush your teeth. Im a teeth fanatic and can't deal with swamp mouth, so these we a great find. $1/2 pack at my local Wal Mart (love American Wal Mart...)
2) Two other must-have travel items have been discovered on this trip. One is the Body Shop's Vitamine E Intense Moisture Cream and the other is Polysporin Lip chap. This replaces my old standard, the Blistex medicated pot. Gotta thank Jacqueline for these ones-- she gave me a going away/survival package pre-Africa which contained these gems.
3) Royal Air Maroc is truly the most crap airline of all time. Far exceeds Air Canada in crap-ness. The food is heinous (more than most airlines), they lost my baggage, and they don't print all the via points on the tickets. I flew Casablanca-Cotonou (Benin) but we mysteriously stopped in Lome (Togo). It was a scheduled stop of the route, but it wasn't listed on my ticket so I had no idea. Not impressed. In the end, I had no bag in Cotonou and when it did arrive (next day) the nametag and lock had been removed, and someone had rifled through all my stuff.
Ok, onwards to the real story.
I arrived in Cotonou on Saturday, June 20th at 4:20am. I had to file a lost baggage claim form, so came out of the customs area at 4:45am. My friend lives here and was supposed to come get me... but he wasn't there. I, like an idiot, didn't have his number. This is made worse because I have a 10 page itinerary with everything I could possibly need, but I didn't write that down. Anyway, I was immediately accosted by 5 large, burly taxi drivers who wanted to drive me around. Bad idea, methinks. I told them, in French, that I was waiting for a friend. 20 mins elapse and they're like vultures to a kill. They come back and harass more. So, I went to the lady at the info desk and asked her who she trusted to take me to town. She pointed to a driver named Vincent, so I followed him out. We walked through the pitch black to a car in a sketch parking lot. I asked to go to Hotel du Lac, as it was the only place in town I had heard of. I got in shortly after 5am with nothing buy my carry on baggage and my purse, and checked into the hotel. I had 8 mins of battery life left before my Toshiba bit the dust, and my converters were in my other bag (the lost one). I quickly booted up and got my friend's number from my Outlook, before it died. I then called him 10 times until he answered, at 7:30am.
Me: Where are you?
Friend: Uh, where are you?
Me: I'm in Benin.
Friend: WHAT?
Me: *silence*
Friend: Shit.
There was a slight miscommunication. He thought I was coming in at 4:30am on SUNDAY, when it was actually Saturday.
There is more to this day...it does improve significantly after this slight disaster. I would have killed for a serax at that point... but, they were also in the lost bag. Stay tuned for the tales-- an African funeral, the "Venice" of Africa (a stretch, in my opinion), and a nightclub that would put many Canadian ones to shame. Oh, and a bar called La Verdune that featured a crooked pool table shimmied up with coasters, VLT machines and Beninoise prostitutes...with whom I made friends. 'Chiquita' was my favourite. She asked me to be her "copain". Ha.
A bientot!
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