Monastery & Mountain Biking (Kpalime - Dzobegan - Atakpame)

End of the "road" from Dzobegan behind us

Yesterday we biked up into the mountains, which were way bigger than we thought they were going to be.  We were exhausted when we finally got to the monastery where we stayed.  I didn't like staying there.  It was too quiet and serious, and dinner was too late.

This morning when we were trying to figure out the right direction to  go we asked a person which route to take and we ended up having 16 people, two dogs, and five goats all crowded around us to figure out which direction to go!  The "road" that we chose was more of a mountain bike trail than a road and it took us a lot longer than we were expecting.  The ride was pretty hairy with all the stuff we were carrying. All the jolting bumps on the trail caused Dad to lose the screw holding his bike rack on. Luckily we had a spare screw to secure it again.

Once we were out of the mountains and on the main road I was tired and we started looking for a vehicle that could take us and our bikes to Atakpame.  After riding about half way, we finally found a person with a pickup truck that was willing to drive us there.  Good thing!  The road from that point on was terrible and most of the drive was in the dark.  

- Brook