Where to Next?: June 16 – Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire or Ivory Coast

Weather

St Paul's with Chris wandering

– 29º, a bit overcast

Steps – 9,244

Humidity – 78%

Country #100! WOW!

Côte d'Ivoire (or Ivory Coast), a former French colony, is in west Africa pop: 32 mil. We are going to Abidjan, which is the largest city, pop: 6.3 mil. Although the official language is French, (we

St Paul's stained glass

could understand a bit) there are 78 languages spoken – wow! Not atypical in the countries we’ve
visited, but still…wow!! 42% are Muslim, 39% are Christian. Education and healthcare are free.

walk-through Banyan tree

Chris and I were discussing poverty last night. It’s an unavoidable issue when visiting this part of the world, but what defines it? Who defines it? None of the guides have really discussed it, until today and even today all we learn is that some people here eat one meal a day. However, that puts things in context a bit.

It is rare that we pay for a tour on Regent, we figure the included ones are fine, unless we really want to see something. All of the tours today were pay ones – very atypical.

Adam and the ant thingy

The for the third day in a row we prepared for rain, thankfully today none came. It rained as we sailed in but once docked…thankfully dry.

Today’s tour was awesome. Not because it was a pay tour, but because it was my kind of tour. My kind of tour included a little taste of a few different stops. We got on a 3x2 bus…I have NEVER seen that before. We made our way to the very back and had the entire 5 seats to ourselves. In fact, we had the last 3 rows to ourselves. The mic worked (including some sweet reverb) and so did the AC.

giant mushrooms growing

Oofi, our guide, had plenty of interesting info to share with us along the way. Plus, no one felt the need to talk over him. He was pretty funny. Throughout the entire 5 hours we were with him, he must have said: “Are u listen to me? Are u follow me? about a hundred times. I’ve been there!

We started with a stop at St. Paul’s church. This place is huge. 5,000 capacity – 3500 seated, 1500 standing. We were only here to wander a bit and take some photos.

thief head punishment

Next, we headed to The Botanical Garden of Bingerville – Bingerville is a suburb of Abidjan. This garden is very natural, with some unpaved paths. We followed Adam, the garden’s guide, who showed us various plants and trees. We saw mango trees, a huge termite hill, and bamboo trees.The most interesting being a fire tree, named because matches are made from its wood, this tree had a huge formation made by ants. There were some large banyan trees, one of which we could walk through!

chief dying after 7 years

The Combes Museum was next on our itinerary. This small museum is in the artist Charles Combes’ former studio. It is filled with busts showing of Ivory Coast history. One showed the punishment thieves would receive – there were no jails, but the offender was fitted with a sort of head piece to show the community he was a thief.

corridor of busts

Chris and I were at the back of the last bus – meaning we were the last to enter the museum. This worked in our favour, as by the time we got there (really only 5 minutes after the first people) most everyone had lost interest if they were ever interested in the first place. We were able to follow Sam, as he interpreted what the guide was saying to only about 5 of us who cared - don't forget this was an extra pay tour!

mancala

The tiny museum was super interesting. There was also a game Sam described as being played only in Africa…ah, beg to differ Sam. I’ve played Mancala with kids at school, I seem to remember it goes along with a book. Any of my school friends remember

typical street scene

or still play this? We almost bought one when we went to the market.

We learned about tribal chiefs who after their 7 year reign, were killed…that was part of the deal.

orphanage

Next was a visit to an orphanage. I wasn’t at all pumped about this visit, but it turned out to be mostly information about the history, who is there, and why. Then we had a short cultural show.

Lastly was a 30 min stop at a Market. This place was quite nice, with mostly authentic items, and the artists working on the spot. As usual, we were determined to find a local beer – mission accomplished. At the entrance to the market was a stall with drinks. We found

the band

a Bock and a Beaufort – both from Ivory Coast. $2USD each we gave them a $5 and were happy! Even $2.50 for a beer is a steal! We were able to walk and drink and browse. It wasn’t a big market and was filled with Regent people. This is where I like to be a small fish in a little pond, filled with many other fish.

dancer

We have essentially bought NO souvenirs from this trip. We are very un-souvenir people. However, we thought this market was the perfect spot. All of the people approached us but were very unaggressive. We saw a couple of bronze sculptures we liked, we tried to

bargain with one guy who wasn’t interested. Then we found Salimata, who promptly claimed me as “my sister!” - what a sales person!

huge toll bridge

She was lovely, we haggled for a bit and then agreed on $50, plus $5. For some reason she liked the plus part. It wasn’t $55, it was 50+5…ok, sold.

Africa has been relatively calm on the hawkers/sellers front. Other than in

market beers

Madagascar, there has been no where, where sellers are aggressive or even around. We’ve been in other places (India!!!) where sellers know the bus is coming and we have to run a bit of a gauntlet – there has been little to none of this.