After Grand Popo, we moved westward to the administrative capital of Benin, Porto Novo, on the western border of Benin. Porto Novo is a sleepy little town famous for satellite villages on its lagoon that are built entirely on stilts. These villagers have elevated shacks were they sleep, but the rest of their lives are lived on boats. The lagoon is their living room, highway to the outside word, food source, and also unfortunately their toilet. A Japanese relief organization built some elevated latrines a few years back but it seems it's easier to hang your butt over the side of the boat than it is to paddle over to the public restroom. Porto Novo itself has a distinct South American flavor owing to it's resettlement by freed slaves from Brazil. It is also home to the mattress that made me itchy all over. It may be lice. I don't feel too sorry for myself since I just ran into another traveler who discovered she had worms when one burrowed its way out of her belly button.
From Porto Novo we made a brief 12 hour stop in Benin's economic capital, Cotonou. If Poto Novo is like Albany, then Cotonou is like Manhattan. The city is a sprawling mass of humanity choking on it's own pollution, traffic, and bad attitude. Cotonou was very accurately described by my Lonely Planet guide as "like being locked in a car with a chain-smoking speed freak". Once again finding that the only accommodation in our price range was an apparent brothel, we hightailed it out of there. We took a bus to Niamey, Niger (the next stop on the tour) which left Cotonou at 1 a.m. and was arrived in Niamey at 7 p.m. the next day. As you can imagine, that really sucked. It was a typical third world bus scene. Too many people, not enough seats, luggage blocking the exits, stifling heat, and alarming levels of diesel fumes making their way back onto the bus. It was at this Benin-Niger border crossing, my fourth border in one month, that it finally dawned on me that "unemployed" is not what immigration officials want to hear when asking about my profession. Apparently in their world "unemployed" is synonymous with "drug dealer" or "bank robber" or "troublemaker". I have since changed my answer to "teacher" (leaving off the "former"). I think things should go a little more smoothly for me now.
While Benin is the wealthiest country in West Africa that I have visited, Niger is the poorest with a per capita income of 260 USD. Note: all my per capita income info is coming from from a 2006 World Bank survey. This is a very interesting list. Check it out here, and notice that the US is only seventh, behind Ireland among others. Are the guys from U2 are single handedly skewing the statistics? Or maybe nobody at the World Bank ever read Angela's Ashes. The US is probably even lower on that list than it was in '06, and since then the dollar has dropped to roughly the value of monopoly money. Bermuda shares the top spot, which I'm sure has something to do with rich people avoiding paying taxes. All the other US-beaters are really cold countries. All the poorest countries are really hot. Hmmmm. Time to re-read Guns Germs and Steel.
Niger should not be confused with Nigeria, which is south of Niger and east of Benin. Nigeria is probably more familiar to most people for it's oil and as home to the musician Fela Kuti. Niger isn't known for much although has gained modest wealth owing to oil, gold, and uranium deposits. The country is enormous and geographically dominated by the Air Mountains and Sahara, Tenere, and Bilma Deserts. I hear these areas are beautiful. I didn't make it up there since the region is troubled with an ethnic uprising and land mine explosions are not unheard of. Instead I spent all of my time in Niger near the capital, Niamey. Niamey was fabulous. I mentioned in my last post the correlation between poverty and hospitality. Theory confirmed. Niamey is an infrastructural train wreck, but a nicer city folk I may never meet. Even the cab drivers are nice. It's about a zillion degrees year round. This encourages napping, which I imagine is good for the soul. It also decreases productivity, which is bad for other really important stuff like health care and education. You can't have it all I guess.
A few days ago, we took a field trip from Niamey to a nearby village called Koure where we saw a heard of giraffes. That was wicked. Next up, I pass back through Burkina to pick up some visas and make some attempt to float up the Niger river (in a boat where I hear you have to relieve yourself over the railing of the deck) in Mali and hopefully arrive in Timbuktu. I hear Timbuktu is hard to get to and not all interesting, but worth going to just to say you've been there.
No pictures this time. Technical difficulties.
From Porto Novo we made a brief 12 hour stop in Benin's economic capital, Cotonou. If Poto Novo is like Albany, then Cotonou is like Manhattan. The city is a sprawling mass of humanity choking on it's own pollution, traffic, and bad attitude. Cotonou was very accurately described by my Lonely Planet guide as "like being locked in a car with a chain-smoking speed freak". Once again finding that the only accommodation in our price range was an apparent brothel, we hightailed it out of there. We took a bus to Niamey, Niger (the next stop on the tour) which left Cotonou at 1 a.m. and was arrived in Niamey at 7 p.m. the next day. As you can imagine, that really sucked. It was a typical third world bus scene. Too many people, not enough seats, luggage blocking the exits, stifling heat, and alarming levels of diesel fumes making their way back onto the bus. It was at this Benin-Niger border crossing, my fourth border in one month, that it finally dawned on me that "unemployed" is not what immigration officials want to hear when asking about my profession. Apparently in their world "unemployed" is synonymous with "drug dealer" or "bank robber" or "troublemaker". I have since changed my answer to "teacher" (leaving off the "former"). I think things should go a little more smoothly for me now.
While Benin is the wealthiest country in West Africa that I have visited, Niger is the poorest with a per capita income of 260 USD. Note: all my per capita income info is coming from from a 2006 World Bank survey. This is a very interesting list. Check it out here, and notice that the US is only seventh, behind Ireland among others. Are the guys from U2 are single handedly skewing the statistics? Or maybe nobody at the World Bank ever read Angela's Ashes. The US is probably even lower on that list than it was in '06, and since then the dollar has dropped to roughly the value of monopoly money. Bermuda shares the top spot, which I'm sure has something to do with rich people avoiding paying taxes. All the other US-beaters are really cold countries. All the poorest countries are really hot. Hmmmm. Time to re-read Guns Germs and Steel.
Niger should not be confused with Nigeria, which is south of Niger and east of Benin. Nigeria is probably more familiar to most people for it's oil and as home to the musician Fela Kuti. Niger isn't known for much although has gained modest wealth owing to oil, gold, and uranium deposits. The country is enormous and geographically dominated by the Air Mountains and Sahara, Tenere, and Bilma Deserts. I hear these areas are beautiful. I didn't make it up there since the region is troubled with an ethnic uprising and land mine explosions are not unheard of. Instead I spent all of my time in Niger near the capital, Niamey. Niamey was fabulous. I mentioned in my last post the correlation between poverty and hospitality. Theory confirmed. Niamey is an infrastructural train wreck, but a nicer city folk I may never meet. Even the cab drivers are nice. It's about a zillion degrees year round. This encourages napping, which I imagine is good for the soul. It also decreases productivity, which is bad for other really important stuff like health care and education. You can't have it all I guess.
A few days ago, we took a field trip from Niamey to a nearby village called Koure where we saw a heard of giraffes. That was wicked. Next up, I pass back through Burkina to pick up some visas and make some attempt to float up the Niger river (in a boat where I hear you have to relieve yourself over the railing of the deck) in Mali and hopefully arrive in Timbuktu. I hear Timbuktu is hard to get to and not all interesting, but worth going to just to say you've been there.
No pictures this time. Technical difficulties.
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