Cultural Discovery Tour In Benin & Togo

Join your tour in Lome, the vibrant capital of Togo. Depending on the schedule of your flights you may be able to start exploring this esoteric city, before meeting the rest of the group coming from London in the morning on day 2.

Overnight Standard Hotel

Our trip starts with a sightseeing tour in Lome, the vibrant capital of Togo. Being the only capital city that has been colonized by Germans, British and French and because of its position bordering Ghana, Lome has developed a peculiar identity which is reflected in its culture and architecture. We visit the central market, the colonial building and administrative quarter and the fetish market. We then transfer to Kpalime, surrounded by tropical forest and visit the "centre artisanal" where local artisans produce interesting artefacts.

Overnight Simple Auberge Included meals: Breakfast

Today we spend a full day hiking in the rainforest accompanied by butterfly expert. We admire the majestic trees and flora of the forest, meet the cheerful people living in the area and listen to the echoes of animals.

Overnight Simple Auberge Included meals: Breakfast, Lunch

Today we head north to Sokode. On our drive we get a good insight into the country's culture as we visit local villages and experience the smells and sounds of the colourful markets. In the evening we witness a traditional Fire Dance. Dancing to the hypnotic beat of the drum, the dancers eventually leap into the glowing embers. They then pick up burning coals and pass them over their body and mouth without showing any pain or injury. Whether it is a matter of courage, magic or auto suggestion, witnessing these rituals is a real priviledge and a truly interesting experience.

Overnight Standard Hotel Included meals: Breakfast, Lunch

Today we drive further to the West and enter the region inhabited by the Bassar people. The Bassar live in traditional large clay houses with conical roofs and produce iron following an old traditional procedure. Strict rules have to be followed: only old women should provide the coal needed, which they collect from the mountains surrounding the villages. According to their belief, the iron would only melt under particular circumstances and if a strict code of conduct is observed. We also meet traditional chiefs who will talk to us about their role in the society.

Overnight Standard Hotel Included meals: Breakfast, Lunch

We start our day visiting villages ad markets in the Kabye region where we meet blacksmiths and women who produce traditional pottery. In the afternoon we reach the Atakora Mountains, a chain of mountains that starts in south east Ghana and cuts through Togo and Benin and have offered a refuge for the Tamberma people for generations. The Tamberma leave in fortified dwelling and still hunt with bows and arrows and practice traditional initiation rituals. This architecture developed when people living in the region were hunted as slaves and the buildings resemble something more akin to a medieval keep than a residential home. The towers were designed to store grain, whilst the large central entrances provided a shelter for their livestock in the event of an attack. With phallic shaped fetishes adorning the entrance to the house and surrounding wall representing the spirits of their ancestors, these isolated homesteads could feasibly hold out in a siege situation for some time and certainly represent some of the most beautiful examples of traditional African architecture left. Their style impressed Le Corbusier, who described them as "sculptural architecture". We cross the Benin border late in the afternoon and arrive in Koussou where we spend the night.

Overnight Basic Village House Included meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

We spend today walking in this remarkable region, discovering some of the villages in the Atakora mountains, cultures and traditions. We meet the Somba (this word means "nude" in the traditional language) whose traditions have not yet been contaminated by outsiders, due to their geographic isolation. In certain isolated villages people only wear a simple cloth and women are covered with amulets. Similar to the Tamberma architecture, the Somba architecture is characterised by dwellings that resemble a three storey castle. These beautiful fortifications are separated from the others depending on the ownership of fertile land.

Overnight Basic Village House Included meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner

Today we drive to Natitingou where you have time to discover the town or relax by the pool in the hotel. The town hosts a market and an interesting museum about the people living in the Atakora mountains. The museum is located in a French colonial house built in 1915. 

Overnight Standard Hotel Included meals: Breakfast

In the morning we walk for approximately 4 hours over the plateau of Taneka, to discover the ancient villages of the Yom, situated on the homonymous mountain. People live in round huts covered with conical roofs and decorated with terracotta vases. The upper part of the village is inhabited by fetish priests, dressed in a goatskin and their young initiates. The first settlement in the region dates back to the 9th Century A.D. when the Kabye people built the first village. Although other populations joined the village later on, every tribe has maintained separate rituals whilst sharing common cult practices at the same time. In the afternoon we transfer to the South and stop at the fetish village of Dankoli which is the gateway to the voodoo world. Pilgrims arrive from other regions to attend voodoo rituals and plant wood sticks as a prayer to the voodoo divinities. They often accompany the rituals with the sacrifice of a goat, a chicken or a cow. We transfer to Dassa where we spend the night.

Overnight Standard Hotel Included meals: Breakfast, Lunch

We start our day with a moderate walk (2-3hrs) to visit the Royal Palace of Dassa. The palace used to belong to the Omodjagoun dynasty. According to the legend, Djagoun Ogoudou, who belonged to this dinasty, was a horrible tyrant and ruled for such a long time that the population of Dassa decided to throw him in a granary, where he turned into a snake and escaped to the forest. In Dassa we also attend a traditional Egun mask performance. According to the local tradition, people perform the rituals not only represent but also embody the spirits of the ancestors. Dressed in bright, colourful costumes, they emerge from the forest and form a procession through the village streets.

Overnight Standard Hotel Included meals: Breakfast, Lunch

The town of Abomey was once the capital of one of West Africa’s pre-colonial kingdoms and a fabulously atmospheric collection of narrow alleys and fetish temples. Visiting the Royal Palace we discover the ornate majesty that was once the Dan-Homey dynasty. Once a complex of some 12 palaces, until its destruction by the French in 1892, the Palace today has been reduced to just two, but this UNESCO World Heritage site still invokes a feel for those halcyon days of precolonial glory. Now a museum, the Palace walls are still decorated with bas-reliefs representing the symbols of the Dahomey kings and its halls and rooms hold the thrones and altars, statues and arms of a kingdom that lived in a perpetual state of war and built its greatness on the slavery of its neighbours. In the centre of the royal courtyard is the House of Pearls, a temple built by king Glele to honour his father’s spirit, the walls made from a mixture of clay and human blood! Walking amongst these now derelict building evokes powerful feelings of a once mighty, but brutal regime, which challenged the might of Europe’s colonising nations. This evening we also have the opportunity to visit a Gelede mask ceremony. A cult to the great divinity Oudua, the earth mother, Gelede is a cult, a secret society and a type of mask all at the same time. The brightly coloured masks represent the bridge between the society and the ordinary villagers and are comprised of a head with large eyes and sensual lips over which are an animated collection of characters and objects that tell stories, to the accompaniment of a choir and an excited audience.

Overnight Standard Hotel Included meals: Breakfast

The Lama forest is a semi-deciduous forest with an interesting variety of plant species such as the Afzelia africana, Bombax buonopozense, Ceiba pentandra, Mimusops andongensis and many others. We meet the Holis, who have been living in the area for centuries and are involved in the reforestation of the area. In the afternoon we reach Ganvie, the largest stilt village in Africa. Settled by the Tofinou people, fleeing the slave traders of the 16th century, the village today is an atmospheric setting of thatched huts, balanced on stilts of teak, where daily life is still very much conducted on the waters of the lake. Fishing is still the principal activity for the inhabitants and every day the men go about their business, whilst women deliver their goods to the floating market and children go to school and play from the backs of open pirogues. But even amidst this tranquil aquatic idyll voodoo plays its part and this evening we will meet a local Bokono oracle, a village soothsayer who guides the lives of these traditional people through the drums and dancing of voodoos haunting rhythm.

Overnight Simple Stilt House Included meals: Breakfast, Lunch

Returning to shore we make for the town of Ouidah, considered to be the spiritual home of voodoo. Once an infamous part of the old slave route, Ouidah was the site of one of the largest trading posts, supplying slaves to Europe and its outlying colonies. The echoes and ghosts of those infamous days still reverberate today, in its Afro-Portuguese architecture. We aim to spend some of our time here visiting the museum at the old Portuguese Fort and taking a walk along the slave route to the beach, where the unfortunate victims were loaded aboard the slave ships. Bruce Chatwin’s book, The Viceroy of Ouidah, described something of life here back in those troubled times. We also aim to visit the remarkable Python Temple, where Ouidah’s ancient snake cult is still very much in evidence. Snakes are still an important feature of many voodoo rituals, believed to be able to imbue vitality and protection. Later we head east to the shores of the Gulf of Benin at Grand Popo.

Overnight Standard Hotel Included meals: Breakfast

Taking motorised pirogues up the Mono River we visit villages where salt is still extracted using traditional methods. The government of the region stipulates that during the packaging stage, iodine is added for its health benefits. The river takes us in a random and constantly changing route across a landscape of sand dunes, palm trees, patches of mangroves and little fishing villages constructed with the branches of palm trees. It brings us to the estuary where the Mono river meets the ocean. We then reach a village to attend a Zangbeto dancing mask. This ritual mask is very tall and covered with coloured straws representing the spirit of divinities. The people who wear the mask keep their identity hidden and are part of a secret society. The appearance of Zangbeto is an important event for the village as this performance guarantees protection against evil spirits. The rest of the day is at leisure with time to relax on the tropical beach.

Overnight Standard Hotel Included meals: Breakfast

Heading west towards Lac Togo and the high grasses of the Savannah, today we have the priviledge to attend a real Voodoo ceremony and to see traditional dancers falling into a deep trance at the hypnotic rhythm of drums. After the ceremony we meet a traditional healer who treat the patients with voodoo rites and herbs. Late in the morning we reach Lome where our tour ends.

Included meals: Breakfast