Togo II

First rains after the desert

Dominik at his best

The famous Badou waterfall is actually a few kilometres out of town and about an hours hike into the forest, so we decided to stay in the small village where the hike starts.  We where hoping to get away from the crowd of guides in Badou and to find a little peace and quiet.  What a mistake.  As you drive into the village there was a big crowd of guides sitting and waiting for, and we ended up a big crowd of them trying to show us where the hotel is.  I felt so sorry for the owner of the hotel, he had a mass of people around him, all asking for a finders fee.  Some where even new faces, who only arrived to claim their fee.  It was chaos.  Luckily for me it just started raining, a heavy downpour and the first rains since the desert.  Was fantastic to just stand there and let all the dirt wash away. A moment of bliss in all the chaos.

After the rains and unpacking, the chaos continued with the guides.  Everyone was desperate to get us to hire him for our hike to the waterfall.  In the end we chased everyone away except the guy we spoke to first. He seemed friendly and the least pushy of the lot.  He quoted us a ridiculous amount, and also said that we needed two guides for the walk, doubling the price.  We seriously considered just skipping the whole hike, but in the end we asked him to meet us at sunrise the next morning.

Gorgeous forest

I really liked the owner of the auberge, he was extremely friendly and tried very hard to make us feel welcome.  He just didn’t have any control over the guides.  They where constantly in and out, harassing us for other excursions.  Our peace and quiet was not to be.  Dinner time we tried to eat at the auberge, but the owner said the chicken is still running around, and would take a long time to prepare.  He politely hinted that we should rather get some food in town.  I was flabbergasted.  We are the only people in his hotel, the only tourists in town and he says no to business.

There wasn’t any place to get food, so we stocked up on bread, sardines and spam.  Great bikers dinner.  While we where stocking up we met another guide who was willing to take us on the hike for a third of the current quote.  That was more like it, a reasonable price and we said we would consider it.

While having our five star dinner another new guide came and spoke to Dominique for about ten minutes.  He was supposedly the boss of the guides and he had found out about the counter offer.  So he came to offer us the same price, but we where not allowed to tell the original guy because the boss would take out his cut from what we pay.  Fishy to the max, but we where so fed up with these guys we said yes to get rid of him.  Not 5 minutes later he was back.  AAGGGHHH!!!  With two girls, maybe 15 years old.  WTF!!  He was trying to sell us two kids for the night. Unbelievable.  Luckily they didn’t want to stay either so we politely got rid of them.  I was fuming, but what can you do?

Ants at work

Stunning

The next morning our original guide was in a fowl mood.  He was obviously not happy that his boss undercut him and took a big chink of his pay.  Poor guy.  I felt sorry enough that I took with  a big tip to give him afterwards, but he ended up shooting himself in the foot.  Halfway to the waterfall he told us to just follow the path and took off.  Missing out on his bonus.  Typical for a bunch of guys we didn’t really care and head off for the Waterfall.  Ten minutes later we took the wrong turn off and was lost.  Our quick hike engulfed the whole morning.  Hilarious.  It all ended good though, the peace and quiet was fantastic, and the walk was just what we needed.  Phenomenally nice get away from all the hassle for a few hours.

The waterfall

 Feeling recharged we set of that afternoon for Lomé.  The first part of the road was a nice groomed gravel road winding through the forests and some small villages.  Half way we found a nice wild camping spot for the evening, and the next morning left the hills to join the main road into Lomé.  I really loved the back roads of Togo, especially the last few days in the hills and forests.  It was surprisingly sad to say goodbye to them, and join the tarmac.






Our mission for Lomé was tyres and giving the bikes the big half way service.  The tyre saga continues… Brilliant.