Cotonou, Benin

Benin, a French-speaking West African nation, is a birthplace of the vodun (or “voodoo”) religion. Almost half of population is practicing it.

Since we went to see voodoo ceremony yesterday, we decided to see a village on stilts. 45,000 people live in this village.
We got up at 7:00am, had breakfast and by 8:30am were waiting in the lounge to get out tickets and go on the bus for the tour.
Around 9:00am we were told that there will be five busses going on this tour, but only three came.
They asked for volunteers to give up the tour. Some people decided not to go. The tour time was moved to 9:45am.
At 10:00am we were told again that there are only 3 buses. By this time, I think enough people gave up, so we were given tickets and went outside to get on the bus.

Our first stop was a enormous statue of Amazonian woman. Then another huge statue of warrior (can not give any details, the tour guide did not have a microphone 🎤).
We passed big market with locals selling everything, lots of motorcycles with up to5 5 people on one, motorcycle taxis with a drivers in yellow T-shirts,

In about 45 minutes we arrived at the entrance of the village and boarded a little very old boat.
The ride through the stilts village was pretty interesting. There are schools, shops, other services…all on the water.
There are no running water. They have one water station where everyone fills buckets with running water.
We came back on the ship around 2:30pm, had a late lunch, shower and spent a nice quiet evening.
Tomorrow is a sea day. Glad to have rest after four hot days of tours.Lue lisää