{"id":449,"date":"2012-07-08T10:13:45","date_gmt":"2012-07-08T10:13:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/?p=449"},"modified":"2014-06-18T02:55:45","modified_gmt":"2014-06-18T02:55:45","slug":"abomey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/?p=449","title":{"rendered":"Abomey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Abomey is the historic heart of Benin, it is where the Dahomey Kings reigned for 4 centuries from the early 1600s. \u00c2\u00a0We ended up \u00c2\u00a0setting up camp at Chez Monique, a\u00c2\u00a0 backpackers complex spread out over four adjacent properties that offers camping in a garden full of sculptures where craftsmen work every day. \u00c2\u00a0It sort of varied between fascinating and scary.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 We cooked ourselves an Italian dinner with wine and were witness to a steady parade of locals and backpackers going by.<\/p>\n

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Images from Chez Monique<\/p><\/div>\n

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More Imaghes from Chez Monique<\/p><\/div>\n

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Abomey has many, many palaces in varying stages of decay or reconstruction , the main palace is a walled area 14 hectares in area. \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0We hired a guide out of Chez Monique for two hours in the morning to show us things other than the museum in the main palace because the admission includes a guide.\u00c2\u00a0 Two hours is not very much time but he took us to an older, quasi-restored palace on the outskirts of town.\u00c2\u00a0 Here one could see some of the same structures that had been present in the Palace of Tofa I.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The element that this visit most drove home to us was again the link between the past and present.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 In this case it came in the form of the respect which the guide showed for the king that had been dead for 4 centuries.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0It is traditional that anyone visiting the king visiting room has to take off his shirt, partly as a sign of respect and partly to show he has no concealed weapons.\u00c2\u00a0 They excuse tourists from this requirement, but any Beninois to this day takes their shirt off when they go in.\u00c2\u00a0 Our guide was not the only one to do this.<\/p>\n

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Jonathon and our guide Marc at a Dahomey Palace<\/p><\/div>\n

The visit to the palace was not an altogether positive experience. \u00c2\u00a0The site included a cage for two sick looking lions and a pretty disgusting pit where they kept a pitiful-looking crocodile.<\/p>\n

Afterward we took our guide for a slow lunch that took up any time we might have to spare for the museum before we had to leave for our next Dassa, the next destination in our journey north.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Dassa is only a stopover on a long journey to Nattitingou, which holds both enthnocultural (the Tatasomba houses) and natural (Parc national Pendjari).\u00c2\u00a0 After numerous unsuccessful visits to ATMs and filling stations we were able to get some CFA (French West Africa francs) and some diesel before we headed north out of town. \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0The bank that worked for us was the Bank of Africa, which we have not used before but seems to have many branches so we can relax a bit about cash flow.\u00c2\u00a0 We are actually not spending very much money at all: diesel is cheap, our accommodations are not expensive even when we go to a hotel, and we make most of our own meals.\u00c2\u00a0 Guides and souvenirs are likely to be among the greatest expenditure we have.<\/p>\n

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Abomey is the historic heart of Benin, it is where the Dahomey Kings reigned for 4 centuries from the early 1600s. \u00c2\u00a0We ended up \u00c2\u00a0setting up camp at Chez Monique, a\u00c2\u00a0 backpackers complex spread out over four adjacent properties that offers camping in a garden full of sculptures where craftsmen work every day. \u00c2\u00a0It sort […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[25,27,13,24,14,15,22,21,23],"class_list":["post-449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-west-african-wander-taking-it-on-the-road","tag-africa","tag-benin","tag-defender","tag-expedition","tag-land-rover","tag-overland","tag-overlanding","tag-west-africa","tag-wheatcroft","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449","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=449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}