Benin- Easter Holidays

Theses are photos of the train but can't get them to move!!!

 We are incredibly fortunate, we have made amazing friends and over Easter we went to Benin Republic with some of them. We also went with 12 other people who we originally didn't know but who are now firm friends.
I can't describe everything we saw, but the experience of travelling across Benin in a 1920's train and visiting a Voodoo market and shrine will stay with me for ever. Of course the sleeping in an un-air-conditioned room after having had far too much to drink will also stay with me. I woke up at one point and realised how so many white Europeans died in west Africa!! I did think I would actually die of the heat- but sleeping under a mosquito net in a room with no windows- just slatted shutters, listening to the roar of the surf on the coast at Grand Popo was amazing!

One other thing I saw which has actually changed me and my outlook was the tree of bats! As you can see my photos are rubbish, but this tree was hanging in the hugest fruit bats you have ever seen and I could capture were these pathetic dots! - so as soon as we got home I bought myself a Canon EOS 600 amazing camera, so from now on expect better quality photos!!

quaint but soooo hot

This guy is making the  brass bracelet I bought for 50p!!!

yes you are seeing correctly the child has his arm on the forge and a knife in his friends hand!

This is an open air forge where all sort of things from shovels to belt clips are made

Benin is very different to Nigeria- the colours are mainly red and it is very dusty also we didn't see a police block or army at all. The other really strange thing is the way of selling petrol- in huge class bottles by the side of the road. Can you imaging suggesting putting 10 litres of petrol in a stoppered glass bottle and standing it in the sun in 36c heat? the H&S people would quite rightly have a fit!

I had just taught this child a clapping game and he wasn't too sure (I also had a bag of sweets!)

We all visited a voodoo market (no photos at all allowed but our friend Victor took a few hiding behind Carl) and there was every dead animal that had ever lived on sale from rats to owls to horrifically gorilla hands and feet. I can't begin to describe it or the smell, there were also so many live animals for sacrifice and food. Cages of kittens, lizards, birds and puppies apart from the ever present goats.

I bought nothing!

One of the trip highlights was the train ride- I think the photos here speak for themselves, but all you could hear were children shouting Hey white foreigner at you and waving- the train rarely runs and when it does it only carries freight.

Even in Grand Popo- a very small place, there is a war memorial- very poignant.