Lost!

January 15 – 16

Day #19 – Started: Peonga                           Ended: Gogounou                           Distance Covered: 89 km

Day #20 – Started: Gogounou                       Ended: Kandi                                  Distance Covered: 35 km

Highlights

• Solar panel gardens
• (Almost) Hopelessly lost
• Baboons

Click on the images below to enlarge

A huge baobab tree that was

felled.

I had no idea these

trees were 

hollow!

Part of a remote village I assed

on the way into the forest.  The

structures on the left are used

to keep millet out of the reach

of animals

Solar-powered drip irrigation

gardens in Dunkassa

Up until the last two days, navigating through the back roads of Benin had gone almost uncharacteristically well; I had yet to truly get lost, and there was always someone nearby to ask when confusing splits in the road did occur.  Perhaps as you can tell from a bit of foreshadowing – this was not the case for this leg of the trip!

The up-and-coming  Peonga SELF garden installation. 

Day #19 started just fine.   Before really setting off, I got to tour a plot of community gardens that are currently under construction in Peonga.  With the help of The Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF), an American non-profit organization, these gardens are in the process of installing a drip irrigation system powered by solar energy.  Following this, I passed by the village of Dunkassa, where a nearly identical drip irrigation system was installed by SELF three years ago.

The current SELF garden installation in Dunkassa.

It was really cool to see these systems; they take advantage of a form of irrigation that is very mindful of water conservation, while at the same time using a renewable resource to run the whole operation (the sun).  And not only do these projects increase villages’ access to food security – as they help them gain independence from solely rain-fed agriculture – but they also bring a lot of economic development to the area as well (leading to extra money to pay school fees, medical fees, and additional income-generating activities).

Plus, a good friend of mine was posted as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Dunkassa less than a year ago, and the gardeners in Dunkassa absolutely loved her – which resulted in some free carrots as I passed by!

Shortly after leaving Dunkassa is where things started getting confusing.  I decided that I would pass through the Three Rivers Forest, which covers a large swath of land just to the east of the highway and on towards Nigeria.  The section I needed to cross, south-to-north, was about 45 kilometers across.  Now, on the map there really isn’t anything marked within the forest, but there is a small dotted line that indicates a trail crossing through it exists.

Which to me meant – no problem… I’ll just ask people along the way and figure it out.  Only problem was, there really weren’t people along the way!

After getting about 5 kilometers into the forest, I stopped seeing signs of villages or even fields.  Eventually I got to a point where the path I was on diverged into two trails that looked equally travelled.  I decided to pick the one that had two tire treads – since I figured it’d be smart to take the trail that cars occasionally passed on.

Wrong! After about 90 minutes, two busted tires, and several hesitant glances at tree shadows thinking, “I really shouldn’t be going east right now…” I decided I had to turn back.  I was deep into the forest, and I hadn’t seen anyone in a long, long time.  In retrospect, I think I had been taking a trail forged by logging trucks – which does not necessarily lead to anything.  At this point I was pretty frustrated with myself; I was hot, hadn’t much water left, no idea where I was, and had to back-track big time.

Ok, fine - I know this could pass for one of those bigfoot sighting photos, but I promise you that the black
blurb in the background is a baboon.

Just then, two big objects barreled out of one side of the woods and crossed right in front of my path!  They got to the tree line on my right side, stopped, and started hooting angrily at me.  It was a pair of baboons! Big baboons at that, and they weren’t leaving.  I definitely got the feeling that I was in their territory, and they wanted me out.

Despite my desire to descend from my bike and take National Geographic worthy snapshots of them, I decided against it and headed back to the fork in the road where I should have taken the other path.  Coincidentally enough, I rode back pretty quickly… (I was never sure if the baboons followed me, or if their howls just carry exceptionally well, but I heard them for quite awhile after taking off).

Once I got back on the other side of that fork, things went well for the rest of the way, relatively speaking.  It still took another hour to run into someone and I put a hole in another tire, but 30 kilometers later and I made it through to the village of Zougou Pantrossi.  The look on people’s faces as I came out of the trail leading to the forest was priceless.

The best part was when I answered someone who asked which route I’d taken and he looked at me like I was crazy and said, “People here don’t even do that!”

In-case the earlier picture of the baobab didn't emphasize how big these trees truly get. I'm a little taller than 6', and here I am standing comfortably inside of the trunk - no camera tricks here.