We’re basically running over that line that separates Ghana from Togo. “Faster faster, the border is closing!” and “Write quickly, you’re late” is chasing us while we’re filling out the immigration form.
It’s 21.30 and the border is closing in 30 minutes, the guy who hands out the visas has already gone home, it’s dark, people speak french. Everything is exactly as it should be. Our bus ride from Accra took a little bit longer than we expected. Luckily we’re still allowed to spend a night in Togo without visas, so we end up at this very french place called Le Galion where everyone is drinking red wine, smoking cigarettes and eating baguettes. For real. Togo is a very different place from Ghana, we will soon come to realise.
First of all, it’s so clean everywhere. And quiet. Quiet. No taxis, no big speakers pounding the beloved Nigerian top 10 songs that we’ve become so familiar with. Togo is just what we needed for a weekend.
We spend the first day in the capital, Lomé. Picking up our visas and visiting the market, buying textiles and just wandering around. Lomé is really pretty and we only saw a little part of it, but because of our tight schedule we decided to leave for some mountain air and trekking already on Friday afternoon, ending up in wonderful Kpalimé, about two hours north of Lomé. We straight away met Mawuko, who offered to be our guide for the next days trek. And that was probably the best thing that could have happened to us.
Waking up around eight on saturday morning we had breakfast at our guesthouse and then left on a few motorbikes up the hill (again, no taxis in Togo, only motorbikes). Just the drive up to the village from where we would start our trek was incredibly beautiful. Mawuko then took us through the village and up on small paths in the landscape. On the way he showed us all the different fruits and plants we could find on the way, telling us about how he used the plants for healing and curing of diseases. We ate cocoa and passion fruits that we found on the way and picked ginger while all these pretty butterflies were sailing by our eyes.
After a couple of hours we reached this majestic waterfall surrounded by green cliffs as walls. We were the only ones in this little green room of ours and we stayed here for a while, swimming, eating avocados and pineapples.
After a while we started walking back to the village where we started, and when we got there we decided to have a little after trek at a small bar overlooking the mountains.
Since this day was so amazing we decided to get up with the sun to do a early morning trek on Sunday too, before the long trip back to Ghana. Mawuko took us to what used to be this old German village surrounded by mango trees back in the colonised days.
This trip turned out to be all we had hoped for and more. We’re already talking about going back and do a longer camping trek with Mawuko. If you ever get the chance TO GO TO TOGO, GO! Make sure you travel with someone speaking french though, without Annas’ it would have been a bit more challenging. THANK YOU Maria, Pernille, Peter, Anna, Heidi and Mads for this amazing weekend!! I wouldn’t mind spending 100 hours (instead of 10) travelling to places with you guys when it turned out this good.
Elin