Benin

Happy New Year Everyone!

We celebrated the New Year in the Republic of Benin. This time we travelled by boat, so crossing the border was much much nicer. We started off the trip with an early morning boat ride. It was actually cold, because of the fog and harmattan. Something most of us are not used to here.

The boat ride was a very nice way of travelling, here are some of the sites on the way.

tug towing small boats loaded with sand collected from the creek - used to make concrete

We had to stop in Porto Novo rather than Cotonou as the water level was too low and we risked getting stuck in a sand bar. When we approached the boat jetty, there were two big boats full of people. They were all singing, clapping and beating drums. It sounded so cool. A woman on the shore told me that they've just come from mass and were still celebrating.


We hired a couple of cars to take us to Grand Popo and were on our way! Along the way we saw so many goats either for sale to be slaughtered, just slaughtered or on there way to be slaughtered. I guess in West Africa you eat goat to celebrate the New Year. We ate seafood. This goat was still alive, we think he was on his way to a New Year's dinner.


We also saw a huge Boa Constrictor for sale on the side of the road, but sorry folks, didn't get my camera out on time.



We brought in the New Year with games, booze, a plate full of sea food, an african drumming band and of course friends.



The hotel manager planned this big party for New Year's that none of us were expecting. New Year's eve they anounced that that evening we would ALL participate in different games. Each team of five were to compete for prizes. The first game was a slip and slide set up on a ramp. Each team had to run up the ramp, fill a bucket, slide down the ramp and try and fill a bigger bucket, then pass off to the next team member.

Ryan trying to beat a little girl!

Little girl beating Ryan up the ramp!

The second game was the ol' spin around the bat and run to the pole .

Check out the VIDEO!





The third game was a little harder. It involved getting wet. One team member had to swim to one side of the pool and pick up the raft, swim with the raft and pick up the remaining team members. One team member had to be standing on the raft while swimming back. We did really well at this one and I still believe that we were cheated in our times.



Here are the festivities that took place pool side that night!

PEACE OUT DUDE!