I got up and went to check out of the Date Hotel at about 8am. The guy from 2 days ago was at the desk. Two days ago, I told him I'd like to reserve a room from the December 12th through the 15th. He said he'd make a note of it. When I checked out, he asked me if I still needed a reservation. "Yes, from December 12th to December 15th". There is a calendar on the wall. He flipped to the December page and drew a circle around the 12th of December. I thanked him. But somehow, I don't really trust their reservation system. I hope they have vacancies when I return to Accra.
Then I headed out. I didn't have to walk more than a block when a taxi came by. GH¢3 to Tudu station. We made it to Tudu and people started shouting city names through the window. The Lomé guy pointed us to the Lomé section. I was expecting a minibus, but actually it a car holding 4 people. Better than a sept-place since you only need to wait for 3 other people. And I was already the third. The tickets are GH¢9. Not too bad. The station people grabbed my luggage from the taxi and hauled it across the street and placed it into the trunk of the car. I got in and waited. The 2 guys who hauled my luggage came and asked for something. I gave one guy GH¢1 and told them it was for both of them. But the guy took off as soon as he had the bill leaving his compatriot. This guy then asked for something. I told him he should get his half from the other guy. "But he's already gone." "I told you guys it was for the both of you." "Can't just just give me a little something? It's Sunday." Oh yeah, appeal to the religious sense of an atheist. Ha! "Sorry, but I'm not going to pay GH¢2 to have my luggage carried across the street." He kept trying, but no luck. In the end, he wouldn't get anything. Sorry guy.
It was only about another 5 minutes when a fourth guy came and we were off. Probably not even 8:30. It's about 185 km to Aflao which is the border town a couple of kilometers from Lomé which is practically where the Togo-Ghana border meets the Atlantic Ocean. I had moved to the middle seat since the last guy looked kind of big and probably would suffer there more than I would. It was pretty uncomfortable. The road was pretty good for the first half. Then we started encountering potholes and construction. There were even some places where the locals fill in the potholes with dirt and then shout at the passing cars to give them some money for the effort. Our driver didn't. The police checkpoints weren't a problem. We were just waived through half of them and we didn't even stop at the other half. Finally about about 11, we got to the border.
The car was surrounded by people. Two women moved my luggage into a basket. I went to grab a piece and the woman grabbed it and moved it to her other side. "Why can't I have my luggage?" I guy asked if I needed a taxi to Lomé. "Yes. How much does it cost?" It became apparent this was a team. Two men--one in a white robe--and two women. The guy in the white robe was doing the talking. "We'll decide on that later." Ah ha!
If West Africa is dinosaurs, then Ghana is Barney and Francophone Africa is Jurassic Park. I was among velociraptors again. Yay! No more big purple dinosaurs! It felt good. Yes, it's frustrating and expensive, but it's a lot more fun going mano à mano with T. rex. Travel in West Africa out side of Ghana is a contact sport. It's the black team vs. the white team. The black team knows the rules (and changes them as it goes along) and the white team is still figuring them out. The object of the game: the black team tries to get as much money as possible from the white team using any means necessary short of theft.
We were close to the border. I could see the two border posts. "I won't pay more than GH¢1 for all the luggage" I said causing one women to dump her load on the other woman. I guess she thought I wouldn't be good pickings. They asked if I need CFA. I told them I had enough. We walked toward the Ghana police. I went up and filled out a card. A woman looked it over and then sent me into an office with the card and my passport where I got my exit stamp.
Then we went over to Ghana immigration. I handed the guard my passport. "Are you going to Bamako?" he asked. Bamako? "No, I said, I'm going to Lomé." "Will you be returning to Bamako?" "No." "Will you be returning to Accra?" "Yes, by plane from Douala, Cameroon." "Accra is great, isn't it?" he asked proudly. I smiled. "Yes it is." Then he let me through. Then I realized that I didn't have sunglasses. I went back to look for them, but couldn't find them. Oh well.
Now it was off to Togo. The guy in the white robe said that we had to go through Togo customs. And that would take 1 CFA. I said I didn't understand. He said I would 1 CFA to clear customs. I told him one CFA is worth practically nothing and he needed to tell me what he meant. He asked me "do you know CFA?" "Yes, I've been to Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, and Burkino Faso. I know CFA. I don't know what you mean by 1 CFA." "Ten CFA." "Ten CFA? I still don't know what you mean." "Ten thousand CFA. We need ten thoudand CFA to get through customs." He was doing Cedi math. In Ghana, there are two money systems, the Cedi and the Ghana Cedi. A Ghana Cedi is equal to exactly 10000 Cedi. He was saying 1 CFA when he meant 10000 CFA.
Of course, CFA 10000 is like US$20 and there's no way that I would need to pay that to get through customs. We went up to the Togo police. I filled out a paper form with parents names' being the oddest question though I've had to answer that one several times so far. But mostly straightforward stuff. Then they gave me my stamp.
I went out and they directed me to a taxi just before Togo customs. The people carrying my baggage put it into the trunk. OK, now how much for the cab ride? "3000 CFA" he said. "No that's too high. I'll pay no more than CFA 2000." "They wouldn't budge." "Fine," I said. I tried to pay the baggage woman GH¢1 and she wouldn't take it. "That's no good," she sneered. The guy in the white robe said I needed to pay more. "I told you way back there that I wouldn't pay more than GH¢1 for all the baggage." "We had to wait for you a long time at the border stops." It didn't take any longer than it would take anyone else. "No!" I said, "If you needed more than GH¢1 for the luggage then the time to tell me was back when I said I wasn't willing to pay more than GH¢1 for all the luggage." "Just a little more." "The time to negotiate this was over way back there! It's finished!" I got into the back seat where they had opened the door. "Just a little bit more," he asked. I reached into my pocket and got out another GH¢1. I held one in each hand. I made him beg for it about 2 more times telling him that the same stuff over again. In the end I suppose he thought he won since he just had to beg for GH¢1 for about 2 minutes while I told him that he wasn't doing business properly. I felt pretty good because I got his hackles up. And they were up as I would soon find out.
We were just a few feet before the customs station. Then the guy in the white robe got in the front seat. "Wait a minute! What are you doing in here!?" He said he was going to help me through customs. I opened the door and got out. He got out. "No! I've been through customs in Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea-Conakry,"--I ran out of breath and got lost--"and a few other places! I've done this before! And I've certainly never paid CFA10000 to any customs official! Ever!" I didn't tell me about the Faramoya customs guys who extorted €30 out of me, of course. I turned to the taxi driver. "Give me my stuff! I'm going to do this by myself!" The white robe guy realized he wasn't going to sucker me out of much more money. "OK" he said, "just get back into the cab and we'll call the customs guy over." The customs guy had been sitting there the whole time just watching this whole scene. The cab driver popped the trunk and he came over and looked at the contents for about 10 seconds. Then the trunk closed, the driver got in, and we started to take off.
I wasn't sure what was happening, but the cab driver and the guy in the white robe got into a shouting match. It lasted about a minute. I wasn't sure what this was about. But I was happy to see that the guy in the white robe wasn't having fun. Finally after a minute, the taxi driver passed him a few coins and started to drive away. Then guy in the white robe followed shouting some more with the driver. The drivers stopped again and handed over a few more coins. Then we were finally on our way.
"He wanted CFA1000 for bringing you to me. But I refused--I only gave him 400." So the guy in the white robe, the young man, and the woman made a total haul of GH¢2 and CFA400. Not much over US$2.50--and they had to scrap hard for that, even. The taxi driver got the best of it getting CFA 2600 to take me into Lomé. But, I was pretty happy. Back among the velociraptors. We were off to the Hôtel du Boulevard. We went along the beach. There are a lot of people on the beach--not sunbathing or swimming. Just sort of loitering. We went all along the beach until we got the far end of the boulevard and turned up to my hotel. Lomé has an interesting setup. The Boulevard is a semicircular street that takes about 30 minutes to walk from one end to the other. Pretty big. Then the beach road goes along the diameter. My hotel is on the Boulevard at the other end of Lomé.
We arrived. "Avez-vous une chambre pour deux nuits?" Yep, they have a room. Only CFA 6000 (US$12) per night. They took my passport to fill out the fîche for the police while I freshened up a bit and looked at the map in Lonely Planet to figure out what I would eat for lunch. It was getting close to noon. I went back down and paid and they commented that I was much much fatter in my passport picture.
Then I headed out and went along the Boulevard to the west. I got almost to the end and decided to stop in a place with a lot of people called Nopagali Plage or something like that. I got a Star. The woman asked if I wanted food. I said I would. She asked what I wanted. I asked if there was a menu. She shook her head. "Poulet, poisson, riz?" "Avez vous frites?" "Non." "OK, je voudrais poulet et riz." She asked something else but I didn't understand. Finally I guess she figured I'd just eat and pay for whatever she put in front of me. And that was my plan.
I had my journal and started writing into it and thinking about things. I noticed something interesting. I've been in West Africa for a bout 3 months now and for the first time, I'm beginning to find larger and larger numbers of women to be sexually attractive. I was never into the black girl look before. Of course, there the ones that are super-hot like Halle Barry. But she's part white so maybe she doesn't count. I don't know if it is just the time I've spent here or maybe because I came through Ghana where the women just look healthier than in the rest of Africa and basically lead a middle class lifestyle with middle class looks. Maybe since I'm now out of the Muslim area, the women act and dress more to American tastes. They certainly do a lot with their hair down here whereas in the Muslim countries they tend to cover their heads. One woman came in and went over to a table of men and one other woman she was meeting. She was gorgeous and had recently coiffed hair. Nice jewelry, perfect makeup. All the men in the place watched her come in and take her seat. She was hot. Later I saw a woman with a really neat hat. She was hot too. I ordered more beer. A group of three young women--maybe early 20's came in and sat at the table in front of me. They glanced over a few times and caught me checking them out. We all smiled.
There were ambulant merchants walking by. I was keeping my eyes out for one with sunglasses. Finally a guy with dozens of pairs of sunglasses came by. I jogged up to him. "J'ai besoin des lunettes de soliel." I found a pair I liked and he cleaned them for me. I tried them on. Not as dark as the other ones but when I stepped out of the shqde and into the sun, they seemed pretty good. He asked CFA 3500. I offered CFA 2500. We settled on CFA 3000 (US$6). While I was buying, another guy came up and bought a pair of sunglasses, too. A good stop for the vendor.
Finally, I paid my bill and headed out. There was a slight misunderstanding. I thought the bill was CFA 8000, but it was CFA 5000. So I didn't understand why I got so much change back. A happy misunderstanding.
I came back to my room to rest and then decided in the evening to go the other way. I went all the way to the other end where I stopped in a Chinese restaurant. I refused the eggrolls (nem in French) because they were CFA 2000 (US$4) and I'm sick of getting ripped off by overpriced a la carte things that should be cheap. I did get a CFA 1500 egg white soup, though. I also got sweet and sour pork and some spicy vegetables. It was pretty good, but not spectacular. The bill came to CFA 12000 or so (US$24). Now it was dark, but the Boulevard is lively and there is enough light to avoid falling into a hole. I passed one guy sleeping on the street. Lomé has muggings and pickpockets, but this won't be a target of them. He was buck naked. Not a stitch. No wallet, no shoes, nothing. I don't know what he does when he's not sleeping, but he sure doesn't seem like a guy with a lot of options. I made it back and tried to sleep with my underpowered fan whispering air onto me.
Monday, October 27, 2008 8:04 Togo local time
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