My Staycation at Cotonou
As some of you may know, I was in Cotonou for a few days last week. While planning for my trip, I was somewhat excited because I had never been to or ever thought of going to Cotonou. I mean a number of Nigerians typically think Dubai, US, London and the likes when planning a trip. But the opportunity presented itself and I grabbed it. I was so excited to write this post but during my stay and on my way back, I lost my excitement. I’m going to try to make this article as positive as possible.
On the 8th of March 2019, I had set out on a trip to Cotonou. Ended up being a hangout with friends and we made sure we had a French speaker with us, Daniel. The journey to Cotonou was interesting. We passed through the Seme border end and met interesting officials on the way there. I remember being stopped by a policeman who said he was an ECOWAS Police officer and another uniformed official. Nothing serious.
We got to Cotonou at about 2:30pm. After changing our naira to CFA franc (we checked Google to confirm the rates) and getting our passports stamped, we took a taxi to our location. On getting to our reserved accomodation at Ouidah, we were heavily displeased and decided to look for other hotels. After driving round Cotonou for what seemed like the whole afternoon and evening, we settled for Golden Tulip Le Diplomate, Cotonou because it seemed to have the best ambiance.
We checked in, got to our rooms to shower and came down for dinner. This is where our troubles started from. Sigh. When we walked in, one of the waiters walked up to us and said we couldn’t eat. His reason was it was 10:30pm and the restaurant closes at 10pm. I looked round and saw that people were still eating and in fact, still going to have servings at the buffet table. I was utterly confused.
We proceeded to get our food and were about to sit when this same person came and said we couldn't eat there. I pointed to others sitting and eating and in broken French, pointed out that people were still eating. He ignored me and said we have to take it to our rooms and told someone to take our plates of food. When I saw this wasn’t leading anywhere, I asked if we could eat at the pool and he agreed.
We had said we didn't feel very comfortable at Cotonou and will do a road trip or fly to another country. I wish we did but we changed our minds and stayed. And I regret it. I have a feeling I speak for the rest too. The staff at Golden Tulip did everything to make us uncomfortable. Whenever we sat to eat, they stared at us. When at the pool, they stayed a distance and stared. The food? Bland! One of the waitresses understood and spoke clear English but insisted that she couldn’t and walked out. And my goodness, when it was time to check out, they searched our bags and rooms. I didn't see them do this to anyone else.
Everyone that had the opportunity to defraud us did. Daniel, being a French-speaker, had it easy conversing with people. So one evening, he had a chat with someone and we found out the taxi guy from the first day defrauded us. The entire trip shouldn’t have cost more than 30,000CFA franc but this man asked for 60,000CFA franc. The amount sounded ridiculous to us and there was an argument. But to avoid a scene, we paid. We were also defrauded at other points.
Another incident I had was at one of the restaurants where we were lucky to find decent food. We had gone on Sunday night to have dinner. The waiter who attended to us said it’ll be ready in 30 minutes. An hour had gone by and our food wasn’t out. And then the first batch came out. After looking around to see that people who came after us were already eating, I walked inside to the counter to ask questions. While expressing my displeasure, one of the chefs started laughing. I almost lost it. I went outside and someone else who saw how upset I was, came to me speaking the little English he knew and helped resolve the issue.
I have tried not to make assumptions about some of the happenings that occured during my stay because I’m hoping that somehow, there’s a logical or cultural explanation or reason for all that happened. In fact, now, I realise that if Daniel had not come along, my experience would have been a lot worse.
Just when I thought my troubles were behind me after crossing the Seme border back home, the devil said NO. Now, the journey to Cotonou was exciting. The journey back to Lagos? Draining and frustrating. There were multiple stops at a short stretch and we were asked to stop at almost all. One of the officials almost cocked his gun because we refused to give him money. Sigh. He has searched the car, saw nothing and then asked for money. When we refused, he went to the front of the car and held his gun up.
I’m heartbroken.