Petr Kadlec's photo galleries

Petr Kadlec's photo galleries

Here are photos from my journey to West Africa in August/September 2004. During this journey we visited Togo, Ghana, Benin and Burkina Faso. In Togo we were in following towns: Lome, Aneho, Kpalime, Aglou, Notse, Atakpame, Niamtougou, Tamberna, Dapaong and Togoville. In Benin we went to Cotonou and Ouidah. In Ghana we visited only Accra for few hours and in Burkina Faso we made a trip to the capital Ougadougou.

The map shows the part of Africa, which I have visited. The red points shows the shows the place, which you can find in the following photo galleries.

Please select from the following galleries:

	Togo: LOME Lome is the capital of republic Togo, in this town we had our 'home base'. From here we made our trips to the other towns and villages. On the question, if Lome is a nice town or not, you cannot answer Yes or No. The town itself is very poor and in particular districts also dirty with a lot of waste on the streets. But on the other site if you get, after some days, used to the reality you start feeling the strong atmosphere of the town. You see all the friendly and laid-back people, you see the typical african 'somehow organized' chaos on the streets, you see how much time all the poeple have and you see, that stress is completelly unknown word in Africa. Main atractions in Lome are the Grand Marché, the fetish market and the long beach. Grande Marche in Lome is the biggest street market in Togo, people are used to go here 'shopping' every day and buy here all the stuff, we buy in supermarket. There are really a lot of people on very small place. The fetish market is the most strange place we saw during our journey. You can get here a lot of dead animal and rests of them. You see here a lot of dried chameleons, heads of monkeys and crocodiles, teeth of sharks and so on. All these are on one side a 'touristic attraction' and on the other side ingredients for voodoo ceremonies. You can take part on voodoo ceremony, where you can buy some voodoos with good spirits, if you like.

	Togo: Togoville Togoville, which is located on the lake Togo is the historical voodoo center of Togo and the influence of voodoo remained to today. In 1884 the Germans signed the peace traty with the chief Mlapa III, this treaty gave the rights of all the Togoland to the Germans on one hand and guaranteed the protection of Togoland by the Gemans on the other hand.

	Togo: Aneho Aneho is small colonial town in the south-east corner of Togo, it is very close to the border of Benin. It was the capitaI of Togo until 1920. It is very nice town between the ocean caost and an inland lagoon called Lac Togo. You can find some old colonial buildings and an old cathedral there. In Aneho we also drank the best cocos nuts.

	Togo: Kpalime Kpalime is a town some 120km north-westly from Lome. It is located in a mountainous and very wet area of Togo. You can do very good hiking tours from Kpalime

	Togo: Aglou Aglou lays on the foot of a nice, green hill. We have visited a wedding of a friend of Just here. The wedding ceremony in Togo is very similar to a european one with the difference, that people sing and dance more in case of african ceremony.

	Togo: Notse Notse lays on the international south-north way in Togo. It is some 60km far from Lome. We have visited a place, where very old voodoo ceremony takes place.

	Togo: Atakpame & surroundigs The next town on our way to the north was Atakpame. It is again a town in the mountainous area. There is a beautiful scenery from a hill over the town. From Atakpame we made a short trip to Tomegbe. Tomegbe is small village 90 km westly from Atakpame. There are wonderfull waterfalls called Akloa Falls close to Tomagbe. The trip from Atakpame to Tomagbe and back was because of problems with our car more the adventurous.The climate is very hot and wet in this area, it is the banana and cacao area of Togo.

	Togo: Kara & Niamtougou Kara a town in the middle Togo is surrounded by beatiful landscape. Niamtougou is village 30 km northly from Kara where we spent a night in a, let say, african hotel.

	Togo: Tamberna Tamberna is small fortified village. In this village people live in special compounds, which consist of a number of towers connected with thick walls. This compounds successfuly helped the people to ward off invasions by neighbouting tribes and later the Germans. Inside the compund there a system of rooms and terraces. Another typical thing in Tamberna are the tree- rooms, these are in the present days no more inhabited. Tamberna is one the poorest areas of Togo, where voodoo has very big influence on the every day's life of the people. Therefore the way of life didn't change too much in the last centuries.

	Togo: Dapaong Dapaong is the north of Togo only few kilometers from boarder with Burkina Faso. The town is located in very nice landscape and has mild climate. We spent here two very nice evenings with friends of Just in their big house.

	Burkina Faso: Ougadougou and the way there Ougadougou also called Ouga was the aim of our trip. After spending 6 hours on the boarder between Togo and Burkina Faso we started at 4 pm to Ouga. We arrived at 10 pm to Ouga and noticed, that there is a congress of all African presidents and therefore all hotels are full. Burkina Faso is one of the poorest countries of the world even so the Burkinebe are very friendly people. They are also very proud being Burkinebe. In Ouga you don't see so much of the poverty, the center of Ouga is very nice. There is a nice business district with a lot of banks in Ouga. There are also more tourist in Ouga, compared to the other cities we have visited, and therefore there are a lot of beggars arround the center. They are very persistent a follow really a long time even if you are ignoring them. But in commom I really enjoyed being in Burkina Faso, especially in Ouga.

	Benin: Ouidah Ouidah is a small town on the coast and on the road between Togo (Lome) and Cotonou (the biggest town in Benin). It is the center of voodoo, which is generally very strong in Benin. There is a nice voodoo Temple of python (see the photos). In the past it was the place, from where the slaves from Benin and Togo was transported to America, especially to Haiti and Brazil and it was the slaves, who brought voodoo there. There is a touching 'Route des Esclaves' from Ouidah to the ocean coast, it is the way on which tousands of slaves was transported to the ships, which brought them to America. At the end of the route, there is a memorial called : Point of no return, once passing this point, there was no return for the slaves.

	Benin: Cotonou Cotonou is the biggest town of Benin but not the capital. The official capital is Porto-Novo. Cotonou means 'the mouth of the river of death' in local language Fon. Today's Cotonou is town of zemidjans, zemidjan are typical moto-taxis whose driver carry a typical yellow t-shirt. The zemidjan produce next symbol of Cotonou- the pollution, you can see on the photos, how smog there is in Cotonou. Cotonou has also the biggest market in west africa and beautiful lagoon, which mouth into the ocean in the east part of the town.