DAY 2: Sunday, October 11
Starting location: Cotonou, Benin
Ending location: Malenville, Benin
Modes of transportation: taxi-moto (motorcycle), chartered car
Our plan for day 2 was to take a bus from Cotonou, which is basically along the ocean, up to Malenville, which is the town on the Benin side of the Benin-Niger border. We didn't have times for buses on Sunday, and we knew the trip should be about 12 hours. Buses for those long treks tend to leave really early--like between 4 and 6 am, so we thought we should get up super early to try to call about timing. So, at 2:45 am, my alarm went off and I tried to call three different bus companies about times. None of them answered (go figure!), and after trying again after 3 hit, we decide to sleep a few more hours and hope we didn't miss the bus. We woke up around 5:30 and went to try to ask the hotel guy how we should get a bus to Malenville. He told us that we had to take taxi-motos, the motorcycles, to the bus station. We were rather concerned about riding them, partially because no one even wears helmets, partially because I had a huge frame pack on and thought I might fly off on the curves, and mainly because none of us had ever been on a motorcycle before! I tried to use my broken french to explain that we did not want to take taxi-motos, we wanted a taxi-car, but the man insisted that that was not possible. We went outside with the intention of hailing a cab, but quickly saw that there were indeed no taxi-cars, just taxi-motos zooming by on these city streets.
With a little reluctance and lots of nervous laughter, we each climbed on the back of one of the three taxi-motos that the hotel guy hailed for us, and took off through the streets of the capital of Benin on motorcycles.
Oh, it was fantastic. I wanted to take pictures so badly, because it was just so exhilarating. I don't know how to describe it. The streets were fairly empty, because it was so early, and so we just zoomed up little hills and around corners, from paved streets to dirt roads, our three bikes passing each other at random times. Ahhh it was just refreshing and wonderful. I've never been a fan of motorcycles in the US because they seem so unsafe, but I have to admit, riding them just a few times already has me hooked.
After our wonderful wake-up of racing through the streets on motorcycles, we made it to what we had thought would be a bus station. However, there were no buses around. Instead, it was a dirt lot surrounded by little stalls and many many cars. There were some guys standing at the entrance, so we asked them about the buses. Luckily, one of them spoke a little bit of English, so we were able to communicate fairly well. He informed us that there actually were no buses on Sundays, and that we would have to charter a car for the trip. We were worried that a car would be insanely expensive, but it turns out the cost for each of us was not more than the bus would have been. They had a car almost ready to leave with two other passengers, so they said we could hop in that one. So we did!
In my experiences with West Africa, they try to cram as many people into a vehicle as possible, I'm sure to make more money. Luckily, for this leg of the trip there were only going to be the five passengers and the driver. The driver and other two passengers sat in the front, so it was just me Whit and Hols in the back. The car was decently big and pretty comfortable, even with three tall girls sitting in one row.
After that ride, I am convinced that Benin is one of the most beautiful places in the world. Even though we were just sitting in a car, the leg was one of my favorite parts of our trip. We passed rolling hill after rolling hill, saw the most gorgeous trees in the world, saw mountains with red rock slopes on one side and bright green foliage on the other. Amazing amazing amazing. We kept taking pictures and the driver and other two passengers, who I don't think spoke any English, kept laughing and laughing at us. It was just so gorgeous, I don't even have the words to convey it.
That first leg was about 7 and a half hours. It passed by pretty quickly, with all of us napping a lot. We eventually pulled into a car/tro-tro station in Parakou, which is a little farther than half way up Benin. We hadn't been told that we were going to have to switch cars, but we got the idea when the two other customers got out and the driver opened our door. They led us to another car, which we climbed into the back of. This car was much smaller and only had two doors. Then the fun part started! The driver started to tell us that we had to push over, because a fourth person was climbing in the back with us. We kind of erupted, all yelling "No!" I kept saying "Ce n'est pas possible!" (It is not possible!). The driver went back at me with "C'est possible! C'est possible!" We tried to ask him where another person was going to sit, and he just kept telling us to squeeze. We then explained that we were three large girls, and no one else would fit. He would have none of it. We basically just refused to move Eventually he closed the door and drove the car out of the lot. We thought we were leaving, but no, he drove back into the lot and got a guy that could speak English come over to explain that they needed to fit a fourth person in our car. We told him that no one would fit, and he said if we couldn't make room, we could pay the price of a fourth seat. We refused, saying we had already paid for our trip with only three people in a row, and we would not have enough money for our hotel if we paid for an extra seat. This was a big mistake on our part, as we soon found out.
After what was probably 20 good minutes of arguing, we got back in the car, the driver and three other people climbed in the front row, and we took off. About half way down the street, the driver stopped, pushed his seat forward, and this incredibly large African woman is standing there. They said, "PUSHEZ PUSHEZ!" They all motioned for us to squeeze together and move over so the lady could fit next to Holley. We looked at the driver and the lady, aghast, and just kind of shrugged to indicate that we thought they were crazy, that we had no idea how they expected this lady to physically fit in with us, and that it was simply not going to happen.
They didn't seem to believe us, because the lady started to climb in the back seat. We all shrieked a bit, and squeezed together as best we knew how. We were right--there was no room for the lady. And yet, somehow, she got in. I could feel Whitney and Holley's hip bones hitting mine as we tried to get closer, but bones don't bend. The large (and when I say large, I'm trying to be kind) lady could not even sit back against the seat, but had to lean forward to fit. She was not pleased. She kept yelling at the driver, who in turn would turn to us and yell "PUSHEZ PUSHEZ!" We didn't really know what to do, so we showed them we were trying to squeeze, but couldn't move anymore.
This little exchange of them yelling and us hopelessly squeezing lasted for about 20 minutes. I forgot to mention that at this time, our legs were all crammed in these awful positions with our bags stuffed down by them. I still have bruises on my shins from them, and Whit's knees were being shoved into the seat in front of her. It was totally understandable when, 20 minutes into the hellish ride, she shifted.
It was like the awful lady had been waiting those whole twenty minutes for one of us to become slightly dislodged. She pounced. Somehow, she shoved herself back so that she was taking up about a third of the seat and comfortably sitting with her back flat against the seat. And somehow, Whitney lost all space and ended up hovering over top of me. For the rest of the trip, Whitney was sitting on either my or Holley's lap. When I say the rest of the trip, I mean 6 hours.
It was awful. All of us had bruises on our legs, Whitney hit her head on the roof of the car more than once while we were going over bumps, and the big african lady kept glaring at us. We only stopped once or twice, and had barely any food. All of these days that we were traveling, we barely ate or drank, partially because we didn't have much with us, and partially because we didn't want to have to use the bathroom too much. Bathroom breaks along the way were mainly just using the bushes by the road, so we were hoping to go as rarely as possible.
The ride should have only been 5 hours, but it took about 6 and a half total. About the only good part about this ride was the stars. As it got dark, we were driving through areas that were completely black except for the stars. It felt like we could see every star that ever existed...I don't even know how to describe them, but they were what kept us slightly sane for the last two hours of our trip.
When we finally pulled into Malenville, our driver asked us which hotel we were staying in. When we told him the name, he said we had already passed it but he would take us back in a few moments. We stayed in the car a few more minutes, until we pulled into the trotro station, at which point he told us that he would take us back to the hotel for another 1000CFAs. We freaked out and climbed out of the car, because he had already told us he would take us to our hotel. It took him about 10 minutes to finally get that we were not going to pay to be driven to our hotel and to take my bag out of his trunk. Finally we had all of our possessions, and stormed away to find some taxi-motos. The ride on the motorcycles was incredibly refreshing after being stuck in a car all day, and we got another fantastic view of the stars. We finally pulled into our hotel and ordered some food. Spaghetti and french bread revitalized us so that we didn't even really mind the fact that our hotel was basically covered in bugs on the outside (and several on the inside) and rather hot. We had a mosquito net to keep the bugs away and had just eaten--it was all good.
The night would have probably stayed good, except Whitney got a call saying that her grandmother had died. I cannot imagine what that night must have been like for her--we ran out of phone credit so we couldn't call anyone, we were all stiff and broken from the long car ride, and we were stuck in a hot room with bugs. It was awful. All I can say is that I admire her ability to push through the rest of the week--because believe it or not, the 6.5 hour car ride we spent crammed into the tiny car was by no means the hardest part of the trip.
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