We were down in Cotonou last week to apply for our new residency cards. Hopefully these will be 3-year ones, as we have to both apply in person and pick them up in person, and with Cotonou being a two-day journey from home, that's a lot of time on the road!
I took this photo of Cotonou. Probably not one that they'll be using for their next tourist brochure, but it does show all the cranes working on the new port extension.
It is already an extremely important West African port, bringing goods in for Benin but also for the landlocked countries beyond - Niger, Burkina Faso and even Mali. And anything going to Niger comes up the road in front of our house, on the back of lorries. No wonder the road deterioates so fast! And unfortunately the lorries don't always last long either - this is not an uncommon sight when we are travelling:
The long journey down isn't much fun, especially the Parakou-Cotonou day, which includes about six and a half hours of driving. So we try to enjoy ourselves when we are in Cotonou, getting some shopping done and treating ourselves to meals out, for example this restaurant on the beach:
I took this photo of Cotonou. Probably not one that they'll be using for their next tourist brochure, but it does show all the cranes working on the new port extension.
It is already an extremely important West African port, bringing goods in for Benin but also for the landlocked countries beyond - Niger, Burkina Faso and even Mali. And anything going to Niger comes up the road in front of our house, on the back of lorries. No wonder the road deterioates so fast! And unfortunately the lorries don't always last long either - this is not an uncommon sight when we are travelling:
The long journey down isn't much fun, especially the Parakou-Cotonou day, which includes about six and a half hours of driving. So we try to enjoy ourselves when we are in Cotonou, getting some shopping done and treating ourselves to meals out, for example this restaurant on the beach:
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