Outside of a quick visit to the huge Dantokpa Market including yet another walk through a Fetish Market (we saw a complete hippopotamus head drying on one of the stands!) our day in Cotonou was largely a day to clean-up, repack, and rest in preparation for the long journey home (which kicked off with a red-eye flight from Cotonou to Paris). Just to ensureStanding in an airport lineup where movement was barely perceptible served to ensure that we would not soon fo...

Today we finished off our last chaotic border crossing. I've got to think that running the gauntlets that are major West African border crossings gives one a preview of a Mad Max apocalypse in motion. People running in all directions, everyone shouting instructions and no one actually listening, overloaded vehicles just daring a customs official to undo the one rope holding all of the legal and illegal cargo in place, livestock desperately searching for grass...