Togo

February 2009

As mentioned in the Ghana-chapter, a visa for Togo can be obtained in advance in one of the neighbouring countries or, for seven days, at the major border with Ghana at Lome – NOT at a smaller border post. This seven-day-visa (around 15000CFA) can easily be extended at the immigration office in Lome, for 500 CFA, 3 passport photos and a form that you have to fill in three times. But for this hassle, you get a one-month multiple-entry visa. As you see: it’s CFA again. There are some ATMs in Lome, and they are working. The immigration office (in the GTM building) is quite out of the city centre, but once you’re there, check out the area, there are some restaurants, a pharmacy and at least one bank there and you can get passport pictures taken for cheap.
It’s quite easy to get a visa for Ghana in Lomé.

Due to the priorities the president sets, roads are generally in bad condition (maintenance is not on top of the list) what doesn’t prevent from driving people in the apparently typical African style: as fast as possible. A lot of second-,third- or tenth-hand cars from Europe is shipped to the harbor of Lomé to serve for the rest of their “live” in Africa where exhaust regulations seem to be unknown as well as proper service. Few cars are private cars, most are taxis. We figured out that there are two tariffs in Lomé: the cheap one where you hop on a taxi doing a regular route when you can end up cramped with three people (including driver) in front and at least five in the back, children, shopping bags and chicken excluded; and the expensive one where you hire a taxi all for yourself that brings you to your destination (that can be ten times as expensive).
The area that hosts the market in Lomé close to the beach (around the Grand Marché) is some kind of hub for the various taxi lines, so you can change here or give this place (Champion or Marox supermarket) as destination. If you like some adventure, try a ride with a motorbike-taxi.
We didn’t encounter any police checkpoints, but the road from Lomé to the north is a toll road (the money is apparently not used for road maintenance).

What amazed me was the number of huge posters with AIDS-related content: about condoms (the local condom is called protector and comes with BANANA flavor – no joke!), information about HIV and anti-stigmatization of HIV-infected people (seems that they want to prevent and avoid the problems in South Africa where AIDS is a taboo) and education to prevent HIV. One can only hope that these campaigns are successful.

Because we had with Chez Alice a good place and great help, I decided to ask my parents to send me some stuff I considered useful for a journey around Africa (when I started I thought I’d be back home soon, and I didn’t have so much space in my backpack). With normal post a parcel can take between two and four weeks and it is traceable through DHL, but I think that feature is a German special. DHL is present all over Africa, but has its own offices and is very expensive (sending documents is fine). So, after some time, we checked in the internet where my parcel was: in Lomé, but there hasn’t been any notification from the post office. So we decided to go there and ask. We found out (without much difficulty) that the parcel was still at customs, but that we could get it; we paid 5000 CFA, got some papers sorted out, rushed into the customs office and out we went with the parcel which contained cheese (don’t send that!), books, magazines, clothes and my hammock! It is very, very, very important to get active by yourself and not wait for any notification from any post office in Africa. Otherwise you will be waiting for ages for your letter/parcel.

 

To our shame, we only hang around in Lomé and visited the Mount Agou where a friendly soldier showed us the radio station located on this, ahem, mountain (1000 meters above sea level). Togo is tiny, Sarah claimed it is as big (or small) as the Kruger National Park in South Africa, but there is more to do than we did. For example, visit some other towns (we crossed Kpalimé and that looked nice) or the voodoo market near Lomé. The landscape is very beautiful, the area around Kpalimé is hilly and green, very nice. Roman and Almu were in the North of Togo and visited a traditional village and judging from the photos they had a very good time.
In Lomé and surroundings, it is absolutely NOT adviceable to have a swim at the beach: people use it as a toilet and it is terribly disgusting.

 

The people we encountered were very friendly. The guy at the small border post at Kalme/Klouto seemed a bit weird and asked us if we had firearms with us (?), next time when entering from Ghana his colleague was a bit uncooperative, but after we said that the traditional broom in our car was a gift from Alice, everything changed to positive. People in Lomé are used to Europeans but regard them as co-residents, not as easy-prey-tourists. So we walked through the mess called market searching the main post office without any problems (apart from orientation). As you would have guessed by now, people are wearing either European-style clothes or the traditional tailored dresses. Vlisco is a special Togolese brand of wax fabric and one of the best quality.

 

We feasted on excellent Swiss food at Chez Alice, but cooking for ourselves was almost as much fun. There are three supermarkets in Lomé, quite close to each other, and we always went to Marox where we had safe parking (although it was easy to go there by taxi which we often did). Don’t forget to tip the guard. Milk is, like everywhere in western Africa, expensive, but at least available, and so is yoghurt and cheese (if you are willing to spend a fortune on this). The supermarkets are at the beginning of the big market where you get everything, and the food department is right in front of these supermarkets. We could buy almost any vegetable we wanted, cheaper than in Ghana. I can’t recommend the avocados because they are a sweet sort, and I like more the “neutral” ones. Fish comes in Lomé, being a port, fresh from the sea and next to the harbor there are women selling it.
Lomé has a local brewery, too and it offers not only beer but yummy soft drinks like grapefruit lemonade (Pampelmouse) or something they call cocktail des fruits. Tonic water is available, too. The beverage called Pom Pom tastes, well, awful. Unless you like artificial apple flavor.
Peeled papaya-slices are sold as a street treat and cheap restaurants are everywhere; Timo and Max went to one opposite Chez Alice and said it was good (fish and rice for 1500 CFA). Brochettes are popular too.

 

Lomé: We didn’t stay directly in Lomé, but a 200 CFA taxi-ride outside at Chez Alice, a lovely place run by an amazing Swiss lady (Alice). The place is listed in the Lonely Planet under Sights & Activities, but it is a lodge and camping ground, too. The comfy restaurant/lounge is one of the biggest lapa in this part of Africa and at least when we were around there were lots of interesting people, most German or Swiss, there. Some come every year, since twenty years or longer, some even have a house (and girlfriend) somewhere around Lomé and spend at least part of the year in Togo. Chez Alice is also a famous place for individual overland travelers such as Jonas and me. The food is great, wonderful salad, good coffee, baguette, roesti, every evening there is a special dish on the menue and on wendesdays, when there is one of the best cultural dances (a very popular event), you can order fondue bourguignon. Around the hotel there are some other restaurants, several shops selling the typical African clothes and fabrics (one shops sells the fabric and calls a tailor for a dress if you want), a bank and an internet café with a rather fast connection where you can use your own laptop.
Every Sunday we went to the Seemannsheim (Seaman’s Mission) where they serve excellent Black Forest cake. The cheese cake is not so good. You can use the pool for a small fee.

Sokodé: The road from Lomé to Sokodé is a wonderful drive through mountains (with such a lot of burnt-out trucks beside the road that you drive very carefully). We spent the night on our way to Benin in the Hotel Central; it’s nothing to camp for several days because you are on the parking lot, but for 5000 CFA for 2 persons and the opportunity to use a room (why is there a sheet on the door about how to use a condom?) for toilet and shower it was okay for transit. We decided it wouldn’t be comfortable to cook on the parking, so we had dinner and breakfast (the first disappointing, the latter nice) in the restaurant.

 

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