{"id":417,"date":"2012-06-30T11:49:57","date_gmt":"2012-06-30T11:49:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/?p=417"},"modified":"2014-06-18T02:18:51","modified_gmt":"2014-06-18T02:18:51","slug":"agou-petsi-falls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/?p=417","title":{"rendered":"Agou-Petsi Falls"},"content":{"rendered":"

We left la Part du Chef right after breakfast bound for the capital city of Lome.\u00c2\u00a0 Out of curiosity we turned at a unction with a sign referring to a “Cascade Themale ” (thermal waterfall) <\/em>but had to stop in response to a whistle and waves from a road side shed where we were asked to part with 5500 CFA ($10.) to visit the mountain. \u00c2\u00a0 We agreed to do so on assurance that the\u00c2\u00a0 Casade Thermales was operational, although the assurance did not include guarantee of a refund it is was not.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The payment was a rather bureaucratic process, we had to fill out\u00c2\u00a0 several forms and the person manning the wicket was not literate.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0 As we drove up yet another steep switchback road the sun broke and we were treated to a great view of the valley below.<\/p>\n

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Vally View off Mont Agou<\/p><\/div>\n

There was another sign to mark the turn into the falls so we were discocerted to find the road suddenly end at what appeared to be nothing at all.\u00c2\u00a0 A number of people surrounded the Defender and gave assurances\u00c2\u00a0 that we had indeed arrived at the cascade.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 No fewer than four “guides” then led us through a village to a well maintained trail to the falls, at which point we learned that, in Togo at least, thermal means healthy, not hot.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 It was very pretty tho’, and the guides articulate and pleasant.<\/p>\n

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Laura and Guides at the Cascades Agou Petsi<\/p><\/div>\n

They told us how they had developed this as a community project and we got into a discussion of how they did nto get any share of the revenue collected at the junction.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 They welcomed our suggestions for how to make the pleasant site moreso (ie. a sign at the end of the road to say one ahd arrived, a place to change into bathing suits, and fewer “guides”)\u00c2\u00a0 We took one of them back down with us to the guichet and reinforced our point that is was the “cascades thermales” that had inspired us to make the turn and pay the money and he seemed quite content with that, there was no pressure to pay more.\u00c2\u00a0 Indeed he seemed quite appreciative that we had helped empower him to take up their cause with the “official” at the shed.\u00c2\u00a0 No doubt the story continues, but we left feeling we had perhaps\u00c2\u00a0 made a modest contribution to the project by helping them assert themselves.<\/p>\n

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Agou-Petsi Falls<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We left la Part du Chef right after breakfast bound for the capital city of Lome.\u00c2\u00a0 Out of curiosity we turned at a unction with a sign referring to a “Cascade Themale ” (thermal waterfall) but had to stop in response to a whistle and waves from a road side shed where we were asked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[16,25,13,24,20,14,15,22,26,21,23],"class_list":["post-417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-west-african-wander-taking-it-on-the-road","tag-4x4","tag-africa","tag-defender","tag-expedition","tag-ghana","tag-land-rover","tag-overland","tag-overlanding","tag-togo","tag-west-africa","tag-wheatcroft","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}