I was in the LCBO the other day picking up a bottle of wine for dinner when the person in line next to me, a "hipster" in his early twenties, asked his friend to grab another bottle of wine. He then snidely uttered the following blasphemous statement: “Nothing from Ontario!”

The bottle I had in hand was indeed an Ontario wine. I couldn’t help but glance over at the bottle he already had to see what superior vino he was purchasing. It was, unsurprisingly, a bottle of hugely popular Yellow Tail Chardonnay.

But that’s really beside the point—popular doesn't mean bad.

What irked me was the implied blanket statement that Ontario wine, as a whole, bites. That would be tantamount to judging the whole of all Australian wine on the basis of the very existence of the popular, ubiquitous Yellow Tail, Little Penguin and other [Insert Crazy Animal Named Wine Here] brands. In fact, the Australian wine industry is trying to distance itself from the very oaky, jammy, vanilla-infused brands and “style” that have been popularized there because Australia does make many very different styles of wines. So if you don't like Yellow Tail, they have a lot more to offer.

The group shot, minus Annie! (Photo, however, by Annie.)

The Lomé side of the border where we left them was not very busy and apart from a money changer holding a large wad of bills (who I joked with, asking him if it was a "cadeaux" for me) we were left entirely alone. Hopefully the Ghanan side went equally well for them.

The three of us then rode around town for a little bit, stopping at a couple of grocery stores attempting to find some Togolese hot sauce as gifts for friends back home—but without any luck.

Sunrise!

We all decided to make a side trip to Togoville, although the Germans were going direct while we went a further route so as to pass through Vogan which has the largest market in the region.

The cycling on the secondary road there was nice, although we arrived at Vogan so early that the market was only fractionally full. Still, it was interesting and easy to cycle in and around the stalls.