Day 3 5th March - Exploring Cotonou and narrowly avoiding arrest

Photo above - Market life in Cotonou, Benin. More photos below

First full day in Benin

This morning, after breakfast, I set off with one of my fellow travellers to see a bit more of the local area.

As we joined the main road to head towards one of the biggest markets in West Africa, the morning traffic was reaching a peak. Small motorbikes and mopeds are the primary form of transport, and there are a lot of riders wearing yellow t- shirts which denote that they can be hailed like a taxi, which is a very popular way to get around here.

Road traffic accident

There are a few cars and most of those I have seen have been quite modern, with lots of Asian makes like Toyota and Hyundai. The lorries and trucks on the other hand seem quite old and decrepit. One such articulated lorry was attempting to exit a side street onto the main road. He had part of his engine cover missing and the engine was exposed to the elements. We then saw why. As he turned onto the main road, his trailer caught and went over the bonnet of a car trying to turn in. We heard the crunch and saw the car disappearing under the trailer. Luckily, after some reversing to separate the two, there did not appear to be much damage to the car, but I didn't see any exchanging of insurance details!

Market by the river

We eventually arrived at the point the main road crosses over a river that empties into the sea here. There were a couple of canoes out fishing, and right in the distance as the river enters the sea, a curious sand bank with a single large tree growing out of it. After taking our lives in our hands to cross the fast flowing two way traffic, we turned north to walk parallel to the river towards what we had been promised was one of the biggest markets in West Africa.

It was not hard to find! After a few hundred yards of walking along a concreted street, where people were selling things out of purpose built retail units, we turned down a street to take us down to the waters edge. Here the concrete turns to sand, and the permanent units turn into piles of goods on the ground with sellers under sun umbrellas. For a couple of km this market stretches along the river, and a couple of blocks inland. A Maelstrom of tooting horns from the bikes passing through, noise from sellers trying to attract your attention, thousands of men women and children gathered together to sell, buy, exchange and catch up with each other.

Market life

People seemed happy to see us, and curious. A couple indicated they did not want us taking photos but most did not seem to mind and actually wanted to talk to us. There were some boats fishing on the river, some kids playing football on the beach, mother's with tiny babies in hammocks on their backs, people carrying impossible loads on their heads, tuk tuks squeezing through impossible gaps. We also had a lot of people offering to take us to various places, and were not quite believing why we would want to walk, and explore for ourselves. It was a definite assault on the senses.

We then came to a part of the market which is undercover in a three story building. Here we were spotted by none other than the ‘market secretary’ who said we could not take photos unless we had a permit, but he would show us around. So we then had an ad hoc tour around the dark alleys within the building, in which people seemed to be selling much the same as outside. He kept saying we should go to the fetish market which supplies items for people who follow and practice voodoo, but we declined as we are visiting one in another place in a few days.

Arrest seemed imminent

At this point, we decided to walk back to the hotel and chill out for a while. We left our impromptu guide and found our way back to a road where we stopped at a busy junction to get our bearings. Whilst taking a few photos of the manic traffic at the junction, we were stopped by the police. He was trying to ask us why we were taking photos and did we have a permit. We explained, we were tourists, and we were taking photos of the crowds and buildings etc as they were not like we were used to at home. He did not seem to understand, and was not happy with our explanation, so we were taken to a hut, where we were asked to produce our passports.

We only had copies on our phones. We told him the originals were at the hotel. He looked at them and asked another officer what he thought, and then tried to get some bloke on the street to translate. Suddenly he seemed to change tack, and started talking to us in basic English after having made out he could not speak or understand English, saying “what are you going to give me”. We then thought he was angling for a bribe to let us go. A few minutes of diplomacy later, an international incident was avoided, and he let us go when we had given him our phone numbers, and assured him there would be no more photos taken!

Back at the hotel, chilled out in the afternoon with a couple of Beninoise, the local beer. Tomorrow we will visit a local stilt village in the middle of a lake, and then hit the road, to start our road trip through West Africa.