After leaving Cotonou last week i took a bush taxi on a really bad road to Abomey which was the capital of the Dahomey empire. It is a really interesting town, i took a tour of the "Dahomey Trail" with an excellent guide, we zoomed about town on his moto and went to see voodoo temples, the entrance to the old fortified city and the remains of the 60m deep moat that surrounded it, and the palaces of some of the kings, at each place my guide had such interesting stories about the Dahomey people. The one i thought was the most interesting (and gruesome) was of one of the kings who had 200 wives, 2 of the wives plotted to kill him because they were feeling neglected, when the king found out he confronted them and they admitted it and accused him of not respecting women. He ordered to have them buried alive in a standing up position with only their heads above ground and for their heads to be facing each other. He then had palm oil poured over their heads to attract the red ants, the 2 women suffered for 5 days with their heads covered in ants before they finally died! The Dahomey people were a pretty gruesome lot, at the museum of Abomey which i visited after the tour there are a lot of pictures of people being stabbed, heads being chopped off and plenty more like that. There is also a throne room with the thrones of all the kings, one of the biggest thrones is mounted on the skulls of four of that kings enemies. The Dahomey kings also played a significant role in the slave trade, working with the Europeans to capture and sell slaves to them. So i had a very interesting morning learning all about the Dahomey people. By lunch i was starving so went to a buvette (a small pub like place on the side of the road where they usually dish up some sort of food as well) and had a drink and some lunch, there were lots of chickens running around the tables and while i was eating a big one flew up into my face and knocked over my drink, it gave me such a fright! You dont get that happen to you in many restaurants! The food was actually really nice there, it was just rice and sauce and you could have some fish or egg or something with it and it was so cheap. That afternoon i went to a pharmacy to see if i could get some more bandages for my burn but they didnt have any and suggested i go to the hospital. I was leaving Abomey the next day and heading further north so i thought i may as well go to the hospital up there. The following day i took a bush taxi for 5 hours to Parakou, the main town in the north, it was the most uncomfortable journey of my life, there were four of us in the back seat which would have been ok if everyone was of normal size, but there was a very big woman and a very big man that took up the whole seat behind the driver and the middle seat, so me and the 4th guy, who was skinny and i quickly discovered very boney, were squashed in the one seat behind the front passenger seat. I decided that when i return to Cotonou i would take a bus because 5 hours is just too long to spend in a bush taxi, especially when they stop and there is no breeze and you're all squashed and uncomfortable! Got to Parakou and got a moto to take me to the 'Auberge du Parakou', which was the hotel i wanted to stay at which i noticed as my bush taxi arrived in the city that it was well signposted around town. The moto driver didnt know where i was talking about so he asked some people and they told him but he still took me to the complete opposite end of town, we drove all over the place trying to find it, then finally he dropped me at a completely different hotel to what id asked, i said that was fine, paid him and went and checked into that place which was ok and about the same price as what the Auberge du Parakou would have been anyway. The room looked nice and it had air-con, i hadnt had a room with air-con since Greg was here so i thought i was going to have a bit of luxury!! All i wanted to do that afternoon was have a nice cold drink and read my magazine, the hotel bar didnt have anything, not even water, so i went for a walk to find a bar or at the very least a buvette! I walked back the way id come on the moto and literally one minute away just around the corner was the Auberge du Parakou!! There was a massive sign on the side of the road that youd have to be blind to miss, we had driven straight past it and around the corner to the other hotel!! So that was slightly annoying. I went there and had a drink, the staff were really nice and the grounds were nice and quiet.The next morning i went back to the gare routiere to get a bush taxi to Natitingou, after waiting around for about an hour and after lots of confusion and changing cars and drivers and passengers we finally got going. I was orignally sitting in the front seat of a nice(ish) car but got moved to a crap car, but still in the front, i decided i wanted to sit in the front cause it might be more comfortable, well i was wrong! They put this huge man in the front seat with me, he actually took up the whole seat, there was no way he could move over for me he was just so big!! He wasnt fat, he was all muscle, even his legs took up all the leg room. So i sat on the handbrake and the thing you click your seat belt into (surprisingly this car actually had one) and crammed my legs in next to his, which was quite sore cause my burn really hurt. It was a very uncomfortable 3 hours and i decided i was definitly getting a bus next time!!! The worst thing was the guys driving, on the roads here you always narrowly escape accidents but with his driving i really thought we were going to have one!! Finally arrived in Natitingou and took a moto to the hotel, it was basic but nice sitting up a hillside in a quiet neighbourhood (quiet by african standards anyway). After checking in i went back down to the town centre to go to the hospital about my burn, it was really hurting and i was walking with a bit of limp cause every time i flexed the muscle it was painful, and it had been a week since i had got the burn and it didnt look like it was healing at all, it was still all red and bloody and sore, so i decided i better get it checked out, also i was running out of bandages to put on it. I went into the hospital and stood outside what looked like a doctors office and asked a man who was sleeping on a bench where the doctor was, he pointed to some rooms so i walked down and looked inside each of the rooms, it was truly awful, i dont think ive ever seen such a depressing dismal place, it was a stark reminder of exactly where in the world i am right now! I felt really guilty for being there and expecting a doctor to come and treat my burn when there are so many other people here with much more serious problems. I walked past all the rooms and looked in all of them, the people were all friendly and waved or greeted me, i really felt like i wanted to do something for them but i didnt know what, in the end i just went and sat back on the bench by the doctors office i showed the man and a boy my burn and they looked very sympathetic for me. There was no doctor around and even if there was i would have felt really guilty being treated so i just left, it was really depressing, i would hate to be there if i was sick, no one should have to be somewhere like that when they're sick. But i dont think that place would be much different from many other hospitals in West Africa outside the main cities.After leaving the hospital i wanted to find a guide to take me to a town called Boukoumbe near the Togo border for the next day to visit the houses of the Somba people which are like mini castles. The lonely planet says to go to Hotel Tata Somba, which is the flashest hotel in town, so i went there and it was really nice with a clean pool and tennis courts. The hotel manager and the receptionist could speak some english so i told them what i wanted and they sent someone to get a guide, it was quite a mission and after a lot of discussion i was introduced to a moto driver who was going to take me there the next day and find an english speaking guide when we got there. I had also been tempted to visit one of the wildlife reserves while i was up north and was thinking about doing that, but the hotel manager said that its only worth doing it in march/april when the animals gather around waterholes, at the moment i would be extremly lucky to even see anything so that was good advice from him and i decided not to visit a game reserve. The following day my moto driver was at my hotel right on time, we drove for an hour and a half on a gravel road to get to Boukoumbe, the drive was very scenic and we saw lots of Somba houses along the way. Just before we reached the town he stopped by a group of men lazing on the side of the road, one of them spoke a bit of english and took me on a tour through a Somba house, it was really interesting, and it really was like a mini castle made of clay!! After that we drove into the town, i dont think my driver really knew where to take me so we stopped by some men drinking millet beer which a women was serving up for them. They offered some to my driver and i, but i only had a small amount and gave the rest to my driver as the night before i had woken up with really bad stomach pains and i was worried i might have caught a bug so was being cautious about what i ate and drank. So after a drink with them we got back on the moto and headed back to Natitingou, i took some more photos along the way. Back in Natitingou i didnt feel very well so slept all afternoon, skipped dinner and had an early night. The next morning i felt much better, i went down to the gare routiere and got a bush taxi back to Parakou, i was in the front again but with a little old lady so i could actually share half the seat with her. It still wasnt very comfortable, but it was bearable. In Parakou i got a moto to take me to the Auberge du Parakou, luckily he knew where to go! I stayed there Monday night then got up at 5:30am on Tuesday morning, got a moto to the bus station at 5:45am and was there by 10 to 6. The bus doesnt depart for Cotonou until 7am but since i didnt have a reservation i thought i better get there early. Well there was no need to, when i got there it was still pitch black and the town was deserted and so was the bus depot apart from 2 men sitting there on a bench and an empty bus. I went over to the men and asked if that was the bus going to Cotonou and if it was departing at 7am, they both said yes and gave me a bench to sit on. I was thinking to myself, there is no way that in one hour that bus will be full of people and on the road!! But sure enough an hour later i was sitting on the bus and it was running and plenty of people were arriving and loading up their luggage, some women had even come along to set up a breakfast stand. I didnt have a ticket with a seat allocation so got bumped to the back of the bus which was fine, at least i still had a window seat. We got going at 7:30am so that was pretty good time, a girl handed out sandwiches for breakfast and sold soft drinks and i was thinking this is quite a good service, that only lasted for the first hour though. Once the heat of the day kicked in, i realised that despite the fact that the windows dont open, there was no air-con to make up for it, the only ventilation was through 3 air vents in the roof. It became like a sauna in there, it was excrutiating!!! Plus the sun was coming in on my side of the bus, it was soooo hot!!! We stopped halfway at a town so we could get food and drink, on stepping out of the bus you realised just how hot it was inside! The temperature outside was hot, but there was a nice breeze to cool down with, i got some food and a sprite and before long we were going again. The sprite definitly helped rehydrate me!! The next stop we made was in the middle of nowhere for a toilet stop, everyone went out into the bush while the drivers checked the engine. I had been sneezing and sniffling for the whole bus journey, actually the whole time i was up north i was like that, i thought i had an allergic reaction to something or maybe i was getting a cold, but now im back in Cotonou its gone?! Anyway, one of the bus staff members whose job it was to load and unload luggage spoke a bit of english and he had noticed me sniffling so as we stood outside the bus in the beautiful cool breeze he told me he was going to give me something to fix it. When we got back into the bus he came and sat by me and gave me some olbas oil and told me to rub it on my nose which i did, all the women in the back seat took much interest and he had to explain to them what he was doing. It was quite funny, he had to sit in his seat next to me straight upright because the women in the back seat behind him was so fat that her legs pushed his seat back foward so he was sitting on a foward lean, it looked hilarious and all i could think was im glad shes not sitting behind me!!! The last 3 hours were on a potholed road, we made a few other stops, each time we would all get off the bus cause the heat was so intense, it really was like a sauna, i had beads of sweat dripping down my face the entire journey. We got to Cotonou at about 4pm, it was such a relief!! I took a moto to the Hotel Concorde, which is where i stayed last time i was here, when i got to my room and looked in the mirror i couldnt believe how dirty i was, i had black dirt marks all over my face and my arms, legs and shoulders were thick with grit, my skin almost looked black from it!! I had a nice long shower but when i dried myself i still turned the white towel black with dirt!! So now im in Cotonou, feeling a bit cleaner today, but when you're here you cant get away from that layer of dirt that just sticks to you, if you scratch you leg or arm for example you get black grit all underneath your fingernails, even after you've had a shower! This morning i went to see the doctor about my burn, the lonely planet lists a private clinic so i decided to go there. I had a nice woman doctor who spoke quite good english. I showed her my burn and told her i did it last monday and she told me off and said i should have come in last week when i did it and why did i wait so long?! In hindsight i really should have gone to the doctor last week when it happened, but i thought if i covered it up it would heal itself and the pain was bearable, it wasnt like i was bedridden from it, so i just thought id be ok. She didnt think that was a very good excuse and wrote out a prescription for me. She also dabbed some red stuff on the burn and told me to do that every morning and night, i dont know what it is but its called 'Eosine', she also gave me some more bandages to wear when i go out to protect if from the dirt and dust. Im a bit annoyed with myself that i didnt go to the doctor last week and get it seen to, apparently im going to have really bad scarring now. I almost didnt go this morning cause i thought it looked like it was healing but im glad i went, she also prescribed me something for the pain which i didnt get because it doesnt hurt that much anymore. Im staying here tonight and then tomorrow im going to take a bush taxi to Grand Popo which is a small town by the beach about 2 hours west of the city, i'll spend a few nights there before coming back to Cotonou for my flight to Douala on Monday.Well thats about all my news for now, still no photos sorry, there just isnt anywhere to download them, not that i can find anyway...!!!

PS: damn you george, i was wasting precious internet time trying to find the answer that stupid question until i realised it was a trick - the last time there was a "polar bear" sighting in scotland was the last time you (or david) emerged from your cave and someone was blinded by your albino complexion and reported seeing a "polar bear". Greg and i are coming to Scotland over Xmas (so i can brush up on my scottish trivia) and might be stopping in Edin, so would love to catch up but only if you sing 'the winner takes it all', i tried to remind the musketeers of that but sadly they'd forgotten. write me an email!!