Benin, Snakes And Voodoo
 

Benin, Snakes And Voodoo


A trip to Benin would not be your typical vacation but a visit to Quidah would give you a unique experience of life West Africa.


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Temple Of Pythons

A visit to the Temple Of Pythons is not as scary as I thought it would be but I still passed on the chance to have one around my neck for a photo op. In the end I did get a bit closer to them than I though I would. Good enough for me.





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Door Of No Return Quidah

A better experience for me was a visit to The Door Of No Return. Being able to interact with a group of school children and their teachers who were visiting the site was very special.

Downright scary was the Voodoo Ceremony where I got too much attention and was asked to leave on more than one occasion. It took more than one intervention from my guide to assure the participants that he had gotten approval for me to be there. I still felt very uncomfortable and was glad when my guide suggested that we leave before the Voodoo Priests started randomly beating members of the crowd.


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Voodoo Priest

I probably would have been a good target.

Cool, how many countries are you up to now?

mlgb,

How's your travels? I am up to about 159.. according to UN List :)

So glad someone else here has discovered the joys of West Africa! I only dipped into Benin from Lome where I stayed for about two weeks. Also loved Mali; good to hear that those places are not off the map as far as tourism goes. I don't think I've ever met friendlier people than in WA, despite the old "WAWA" slang.

ekscrunchy,

I have found West Africa to be very cool and I am looking forward to exploring more of it including Mali :)