By 5:30 in the morning I was lying awake in bed and ready to go though we weren't to meet as a group until 7:00am. David was up, too, so I cycled with him up the main road looking for a place for breakfast. We found a booth with a young lad who would make us omelets so David left me there so he could get breakfast started. About a minute later the lad burst from his stall and ran up the street and didn't return for about 10 minutes. He had to go buy eggs.

As we started to eat Il mentioned, with concern, that her baguette seemed to have ants. I peered down carefully at mine and indeed saw one or two tiny, red ants milling about. I thought about eating it anyway but then, amusingly (since I hadn't yet taken a bite yet, unlike everyone else) we all broke open our loaves to discover they were actually swarming with ants inside. So David left to find some more bread for us. Suggested slogan for the other vendor's bread:

ACME Baguettes:  Now with 100% Less Ant!

Boy pretending to be a mushroom.

Boats in Bopa.

After breakfast Il, David and I left the others and cycled 20 km down the road to the turnoff for the lakeside village of Bopa. It was just a dotted line on the map but we found it to be under construction to be made in a wide, paved road. As such, the road for the extra 20 km to the lake alternated between each phase of road-building: grading, digging, flattening, gravelling, tarring and paving. Not quite the beaten track I half-expected, but it still made for some careful riding.

The village, when we arrived, was very picturesque. We descended a long hill to the water's edge where we could watch clusters of fishermen in dugout canoes simultaneously casting their nets. David hadn't encountered this kind of group-fishing technique before and so the detour was made worthwhile for him.

Loading the boat.

Being poled across the lake.

I wasn't interested in climbing back up that hill so I persuaded David and Il to hire a boat to take us across the lake where the road continued to Ouidah. They were both ambivalent but I was kinda excited and offered to pay for the three of us and our bicycles to cross, which cost 6 bucks total for the hour trip it took for the... um... "poler"? ... to push us across the shallow lake. (The boat showed no signs of leaving until we came along, at which point others came aboard. Obviously the trip is much more lucrative when Yovos are involved. Undoubtedly the trip is much cheaper for the locals.)

Fishermen in dugout canoes.

Dirt biking.

On the other side of the lake the road was much more interesting: narrow dirt. As we rode the winding, sandy road we saw some interesting Vodun objects such as altars to ancestors. People were also very friendly. Along the way a large group of schoolchildren on their way home from school made a game of happily pursuing us down the road

After all this fun, dirt-road cycling we suddenly came up to a main road in the outskirts of Ouidah. We had managed to completely avoid riding on the main, busy (and boring) coastal highway. (Which, as it turns out, the Germans did as well by taking a car the remaining 28 km from Comé).

Being pursued by schoolchildren.

Two men playing a game.

The day/town is hot and humid so after showering David and I snoozed in our room by the oscillating fan until 3:00pm when we left on foot for the museum. The museum is a restored Portuguese fort which was built in 1721 to facilitate their slave trading. Nearby is also a basilica where they presumably prayed to God that they'd receive a handsome profit on their human cargo.

Items for sale in the market.

Cycling to the ocean.

After that we got on our bicycles and rode the sandy street towards the ocean where we passed by various monuments as well as a full motorcade of BMWs carrying Brazilian delegates doing some tourism as a day-trip from Contonou.

The ride culiminated with a huge monument by the ocean called the "Port of No Return"—the exit point for slaves being stowed on ships for various destinations during which half would die. (This is how Vodun ("Voodoo") spread to Haiti and elsewhere.)

The Portal of No Return

Ouidah from our hotel rooftop.

I was surprised to see so few tourists here or even tourist infrastructure since Ouidah is billed in the Lonely Planet guidebook as the 2nd most tourist-ed place in Benin but David explained that few stay here—Europeans just make it a day-trip from Contonou as they would with Porto Novo.

Dinner was the usual rice-with-stuff at a nice outdoor Buvette. I tried to pay for two drinks with my 5,000 CFA bill ($10) but no luck—these and the larger 10,000 CFA note are damnably hard to get change for outside of the capital cities.

Gratuitious Christian symbolism.

Making sauce for dinner.

Meanwhile, our hotel room is positively steamy with heat and humidity. Annie gave up and upgraded her and Il to a room with air conditioning.

Lucky them.

The Ouidah Museum of History sez: Ouidah is best known for its central role in the slave trade during the 17th , 18th , and 19th centuries, during which time nearly 1,000,000 individuals were boarded onto ships from the beach at Ouidah and were transported across the Atlantic. Originally, however, Ouidah (once Gléwé) was a small village in the small Xwéda kingdom that supported itself through agriculture, hunting and fishing in the coastal lagoons – the inhabitants had very little to do with the sea and its treacherous tides. Ouidah is a center of the Vodun religion in Benin , and arguably the world.

---