Togo and Benin - The Lions on the Road: Cycling London to Cape Town - page 151

Chapter 12: Togo and Benin
ThischapterincludesbothTogoandBeninforthesimplereasonthatIspentliterally
a few days cycling across these countries combined. I never ventured in the north but only
stayed along the coastal highway. The journey was predominately without incident except
for a slight concern I had as I approached the Ghana-Togo border.
I was warned by foreigners and local Ghanaians about the sporadic closures of the
border whenever there was a diplomatic or military dispute between the two countries. The
border crossing was usually the first victim and its closure would happen from either side
without warning. A week prior to my arrival in Togo one such dispute took place. This time
it was a bit more serious when two Ghanaian soldiers were killed by the Togolese border
guards.Thearmiesfrombothsidesconvergedatthecheckpointclosingtheborderandawar
of words and threats erupted. An uneasy truce followed and the BBC World Service repor-
tedthatwithinafewdays,everythingseemed toreturnto'normal'.Thedayaftertheborder
crossingopenedandresumedtraffic,Iarrivedonmybicyclewithsomelapelpinsasapeace
offering if things flared up.
IcrossedintoTogowithoutincidentby4:30p.m.andlefttheareaassoonaspossible
just in case. Within 15 minutes of leaving the border, I arrived at the Catholic cathedral in
Lomé, the capital of Togo. I asked a resident priest if the Salesians ran the cathedral and
he told me that the Salesians ran the parish in the heart of the slums. He then asked a local
parishioner to escort me to the church. Thank goodness he did for we walked about 4 kilo-
metres along several side streets until I arrived at the Parish of Maria Exceliadora. A quick
aside: what I noticed so far about the Salesian schools and parishes in Africa were that they
tended to be in the center of the poorest areas.
Ithankedmyescortandgavehimatipforhistroubles.Imetthepriestinchargeand
he welcomed me immediately and offered me a room. I ate with the community and retired
to my room anticipating an early start the next morning. My goal was to visit the Nigerian
Embassy first before leaving Togo.
After morning prayers with the Salesians, one of the seminarians offered to escort
metotheembassy.Whenwearrived,theclerkrefusedtogivemethevisaandtoldmetoget
it in Benin. So I returned empty-handed and decided to move on to the Togo-Benin border.
I spent less than 18 hours in Lomé and never ventured anywhere else in capital so there was
little to reflect on. In fact, within a 24-hour period, I had cycled across Togo.
My goal for the day was to arrive in Cotonou, the effective capital of Benin but be-
cause of my late start in the morning, I decided to stop just past Comé, a small town 30
kilometres or so past the border and 61 kilometres from Cotonou. Crossing the Togo-Benin
border was the easiest and smoothest I have thus far experienced.