Travelin' Road Show: 05/17/14

Sat May 17th 2014 - Lome, Togo

Togo - Between Benin and Ghana

First sight of Lome

Greetings to Togo

Market Chaos

Today, we had booked an afternoon excursion, so in the morning we hopped on the shuttle from the ship to the "grand marche' - supermarket in the town of Lome. the port is a container port, so the views from the ship are not too attractive... but it is very interesting to drive through a busy African container port. it is very big, bustling, and somewhat chaotic, weaving around the containers, quite an experience. When we got off the bus we decided to walk through the market area, which seems to cover the whole town ... if I could think of creating a West African town centre on a movie set, and got it perfectly right, no one would believe it that it was authentic. It really is everything you could imagine in your dreams, dusty, exotic, people yelling and trying to sell you anything and everything, goats and chickens wandering around, women carrying unbelievable loads on their heads (why is it always the women?), we saw one woman with a minimum of 6 full size suitcases on her head... another with a box of live chickens, another with clothes on hangers on three sides hanging from a framed mound of bales of cloth... they carry water, bread, corn, clothes, household supplies, shoes, you name it- they carry it!! All this, while small motorcycles created terror and havoc as they dodged in and around the crowds. While I thought the sales pressure was heavy in Beijing, it was mild compared to the markets in West Africa... After running the gamut through town we hopped into the local supermarket and picked up a few supplies for our cabin and took the shuttle back to the ship, heavy traffic both inside and outside the port area... it is incredible how the small motorcycles buzz around in packs weaving in and out on dirt roads, over curbs, across oncoming lanes... no helmets. I saw a family of five on one little motorcycle.. kid up front, then dad, then another kid squashed between dad and mom, who was carrying a baby on her back in a cloth pouch. Yikes, ... and I thought I was recklessly brave driving my 805cc on open tarmac roads in Canada with a helmet and protective padding in my leathers.

Voodoo ceremony

After a quick snack we headed out for our afternoon tour which was a trip to a village called Sanguera.

Derek with local kids

Voodoo Priestess - Note scars

Village Kids

It is a fairly large traditional style village and we were welcomed by the priest, who performed a welcoming ceremony, blessing us and pouring water and palm wine onto the dirt to indicate that we could now enter. They follow voodoo tradition and we were treated to drumming in the main village communal area where they danced and went into 'trances' etc. We noticed that many of them had large scars on their bodies and smaller, more defined scars on their cheeks from cutting themselves as part of their traditions. It was here that we saw our first Calabash (Crescentia) tree. The 'fruit' of this tree is not edible but are cut in half, dried and used as bowls we know as Calabashes. The pulp is used for respiratory conditions. After a short wander, and a cold drink we headed to the 'Village Artisanal' which is a small artists community, highlighting Togolese weaving, clothmaking, statue making, macrame etc. It was quite interesting, but we were determined not to buy more 'stuff' having off-loaded so much stuff we had gathered in the first 40 years of our marriage. We did enjoy watching them at work and a washroom break was an experience in and of itself... hygiene and sanitation are not high on the priority in Togo... I will not elaborate!!!

Back to the ship, dinner and dancing (finally some rock music) on the pool deck.