 |
| Farewell to Mere, Roger, and Matthieu |
Upon getting off the bus in Cotonou we were met by Evariste, who was a young boy living next door to the house in Parakou that I lived in before moving out to Thian. Fun to get to know him now as an adult. Evariste showed us around Cotonou for two days, driving us everywhere. Like Parakou, this city has grown enormously since I left here in 1989.
 |
| Vendors crowding our Cotonou bound bus |
We then headed back into Togo, this time along the coast, to the capital, Lome. We've read that Governmental mismanagement and corruption has kept Togo from prospering as much as it's neighbors over the past two decades, as this was evident in Lome, which did not have the sparkle I had associated with it in my memory.
- John
Our taxi ride from Cotonou to Lomé was terrible! Evariste dismissed any idea of us taking a bus to Lomé. He said that it was such a short ride that we should take a taxi. From our taxi, we were wishing that we had not listened to Evariste and that we were on the nice comfortable buses that were passing us.
For long taxi rides, you don’t get your own car unless you pay for all the possible seats in the vehicle. The taxi driver puts more passengers than there are seats in the car before leaving. Our taxi was way too small. There were six of us in this beat up sedan for six hours. Two people were squished into the front passenger seat. The car smelled like gas. There were at least 5 mystery stops along with way. The driver ignored our questions about what was happening when he was inching up to police checkpoints at about two miles per hour for no apparent reason. It was an unpleasant ride and unpleasant ending when the driver tried to get more money out of us than we had agreed to.
- Brook
 |
| Evariste |
Our taxi ride from Cotonou to Lomé was terrible! Evariste dismissed any idea of us taking a bus to Lomé. He said that it was such a short ride that we should take a taxi. From our taxi, we were wishing that we had not listened to Evariste and that we were on the nice comfortable buses that were passing us.
For long taxi rides, you don’t get your own car unless you pay for all the possible seats in the vehicle. The taxi driver puts more passengers than there are seats in the car before leaving. Our taxi was way too small. There were six of us in this beat up sedan for six hours. Two people were squished into the front passenger seat. The car smelled like gas. There were at least 5 mystery stops along with way. The driver ignored our questions about what was happening when he was inching up to police checkpoints at about two miles per hour for no apparent reason. It was an unpleasant ride and unpleasant ending when the driver tried to get more money out of us than we had agreed to.
- Brook
No comments:
Post a Comment