Côte d'Ivoire

This was my fourth trip to West Africa which I like much and is as complement to my ”love” to the desert. Complement – I mean the rain forest verso the desert. 

Only that in CI it was less of rain forest, unfortunately they were diligent to clean it for to make place for palms, rubber tree, coffee and cocoa. So it was more as savanna, only here and there a little of forest, apart from Tai of course which I not succeeded to visit due my lack of French language, i.e., not one word apart from bonjour etc.

 

We have rented the car despite everyone's warnings not to go alone without a guide or driver, as it is dangerous to go there alone, partly because of the way police check points, partly because of road pirates.
It turned out that there was no danger of anything, just a bit of bad roads, and thus it took longer to run. While we got to see more on the road and made several stop. We went no longer than a maximum of 150 km per day. 

The second trouble was only just lack of French so we missed certainly lots of things, on the other side it was instructive nonetheless, but people were helpful and had lots of fun for us to go to a country where we do not understand a single word LOL.

We made a round trip from Abidjan to Grand Bassam, then to Yamoussoukro, Daloa, Soubre, Sand Pedro, Sassandra and back to Abidjan. Originally I wanted  to go to Man too, but gave up just because of bad roads and not much time anyway and did not want to spend the whole time sitting in the car. And since I'm not mountain woman I would still not go up the mountain, though it would be wonderful to see it, but ... hoped to visit Tai, but as I said even that did not happen, even though I tried to get information in Soubre but could not make myself understood.

In Abidjan we not stayed long time, only one day for to pick up the car and next day we were going to Grand Bassam.


It was not so big town, old French capital with a lot of old colonial houses to see, but mostly destroyed, of course. 






Nice walk on the streets looking at the people what they were doing, like this woman, who tried to get fire to her grill.











To sit there near lagoon and enjoy the warmth, piroges, take a cup of coffee, was enjoyable.

On the water it was life also, people was paddling the piroges, fishing, some children played there and splashed water at each other.

We stayed there at hotel over New Year and also did a couple of trips around, towards Assinie, but never arrived there because we were held up by two women who walked there and stayed with us. We tried to talk and it was fun, because we could not French, not their language of course neither, and they could not English. But it was possible to communicate in some way anyway. We liked it, it was more fun than going to Assinia so we skipped going there. I dared not take pictures of them, thought it would be embarrassing to ask them too, so finally I took picture of them when they went on their way.

After a couple of days we continued to Yamoussoukro, present capital of Côte d'Ivoire. From Abidjan to there it was highway, a little boring, around was not so much to look at, only the road. When we arrived to the town I was really surprised over to see cows going on the street, funny to see such picture in capital. It was not so big, very small actually. What a difference from Abidjan which was really big, with so many people and cars of course.

We stayed there only 2 nights, it was not much to do there apart from Notre-Dame de la Paix. It was wonderful to see this, difficult to imagine that it was the largest church in the world, bigger than Saint Peter's Basilica in Vatican. But it was because it stay in middle of nothing and proportions as well as disappears in some way or how I express myself. 

In the lake there were sacred crocodiles and it was also interesting to see Grand mosque.

We continued our travel now towards Daloa. The road was quite bad so we drove right slowly. Pity it was not so much to see around, only grass and palm here and there.

We drove along Park Marahoue without to visit it because I thought still we will see Tai.

In Daloa we ran into a police officer who did not find among car papers any patents and we got stuck in an hour before everything was cleared up. Got to call to Europcar for police "threatened" that we have to leave the car there and so on. But he was kind and to end he let us continue anyway. Probably he wanted have a small backsheesh, but we not gave him anything of course.

in Daloa

Next stop was Soubre, one small nice town where it was a wonderful landscape with big river and we were driving there a little on small piste here and there. Stayed at Campment hotel where I tried to have information about Tai, but …due our lack of French was no Tai.

nice carpark

Campment hotel

Along the road we saw many larger or smaller graves, then they have the same habit here as it was in Cameroon where there were graves at the roadside, too.










In San Pedro were there so many streets crisscrossing, chaotic city. It was a little difficult to find right street going to the hotel we would stay over in a couple of days. But one nice guy helped us to find.

Many people of course everywhere, but we enjoyed all there much. We have eaten also on one local restaurant to be served from pots standing on the ground where the woman have cooked and stirred the pot, it was a spectacle almost.
 

I even tried to swim in Atlantic but it was so big irregular waves, difficult to count out when it will be smaller waves, so it was only to jump there without to really swim.

In entrance there it felt a really very bad smell of to burnt garbage, smoke and smell. I think almost it was garbage they have burning here. 

If they do not have burned and made carbon, of course I know not, but wonder if it was not.
 
I was “very proud” over me to make one round trip through the city, find back to the beach and hotel from the city and then even find out on right way toward Sassanda, when we would continue our trip. LOL

Next stop would be in Best of Africa, 35 km after Sassandra.

There, I thought to stay, more days and enjoy, go also to the Parc naturel de l'Ile de Gaoulou etc. After to go on piste a couple of kilometer we came to Best of Africa. Destroyed it was, overgrown, the bungalows were barely visible in the bushes and grass. But, it was wonderful there, the beach, a fairy tale.

Later we were told that most likely was that the nearby village destroyed it all, so they did not get stick around despite the fact that the French couple who owned Best of Africa resort arranged electricity for them well.

  

So we went back to Sassandra, the hotel Poulett,
not so very good but not bad either,wonderful view we had from the balcony. 

Nice city it was also, old colonial house we found too and many many pirogs.

And had luck because there at the hotel was a French couple who could English, jippi (yay?). Got a lot of information and that in Grand Lahou is the hotel La Ravine, bungalows and even there is a park so we decided to leave Sassandra and went there the next day.

Which good choice! Self city was nothing to see,

but bungalows and surrounding was nice. 

 

And nature park was there too, a chimpanzee also so the next day we took the tour to the rain forest and visited the chimpanzee and like good tourists we fed him with bananas. 

Nice lagoon were there too, and so I found on the beach a little further away a dilapidated hut with three rooms so I "bought" it LOL.

Then it was time to go back to Abidjan and home. We made stop some kilometer after Dabou where I got the strongest coffee I've ever drunk, in one little village near lagoon there, not remember the name but it was one little nice village a little in French style.

It was nice trip, interesting and I am satisfied to see this country even if there is not so much of the rain forests. I was impressed and surprised that it was no problem somewhere, good traffic even a little hectic in Abidjan, but they followed the rules anyway and it ran fine. And at airport, it was perfect no chaos, everything was going good, through the pass control etc., so unlike Sao Tome or Cameroon.

Advice from my trip is – don't be worry to travel alone, to rent the car, to be afraid of something. Road police were absolutely without problems, every time they rolled just remove those tagged items (do not know what it is called right in English) and waved at us.

We ate mostly on the local restaurants and the food was only good - I liked attiki which was tastier than in Cameroon.

And the people, happy, helpful, nice.

 

the way to Best of Africa which not exist any more