Benin

Do you know Benin? It is an African country, and it is not well known. However, being from Benin, I decided to make you discover this amazing country.

Benin is located in West Africa, between Togo, Burkina Faso, Niger and Nigeria. It is a very hot country, so be prepared for the hot flush you’ll get when getting out of the plane!

Benin has two capital cities. There is Porto-Novo, which is the ‘real’ capital, and there’s Cotonou, which is the economic capital.

Okay so first, I am going to tell you where to sleep.

There is an extraordinary hotel in Porto-Novo, MB hotel, where you can find bedrooms – obviously -, a place to eat, and even a small nightclub.

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There are 2 particular things you might be interested in when visiting Benin. The first thing is a strong symbol for Benin.

The first thing is ‘Les Portes de Non-Retour’ or the ‘No Return Gates’.

Do you know about these Gates’ history?

The Non-Return Gates were erected in 1995 were slaves were forced to go on boats to leave Africa. About 2 million africans walked through this place and 20% of them died during the crossing. 

The Non-Return Gates are therefore a way not to forget these atrocities.

No worries, you also have more joyful places to visit!

Still situated in Ouidah, you have this really cool place (that won’t take you more than 15 minutes to visit) where you can see pythons. There are about a hundred of them. You can touch the snakes and put them around your neck. The experience is quite strange and scary at first, but if you don’t mind snakes, you should try it for sure!

You will also want to visit the wonderful Pendjari’s National Park. It’s a park shared with two other countries (Togo and Burkina Faso) where you can see animals. I’ve been there when I was about 7 years old and the memory is still vivid. I feel like I’ve been there yesterday. I remember seeing what looked like deers so many times that we were actually tired of seeing this animal. I also remember seeing a lioness hunting, and our guide was really suspicious so he closed the window whereas the guide was laughing when we were scared of elephants walking toward us.

It is a beautiful experience, one that I would recommend highly if you have the chance to go there.