Another day another country, this time The Ivory Coast, or officially The Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, and another bus ride. We docked this morning in the city of Abidjan, to find a large port with many cargo ships and a sizeable container handling facility. We also found 9 green tour buses waiting for us, a bunch of semi-trailers waiting for a bulk carrier ship to unload and their drivers variously sleeping or resting on the ground near their trucks. Quite a spectacular sight.

The plan for the day was to drive east (again) along the coast to the town of Grand Bassam where there are, apparently, a selection of colonial era buildings that have UNESCO World Heritage status.

The drive to Bassam was a bit like yesterday as we passed by many informal townships with makeshift dwellings and shops selling all types of things. Photographs were hard to get on this journey as the road was rough and the speed a bit higher than the road seemed to warrant. Interestingly we noticed that we were a group of 4 to 5 green tour buses being escorted by 4 police officers on motorcycles that ran interference for us clearing traffic ahead and on our sides. Later in the day we noticed we were also accompanied by a small ambulance. Nina googled this later and discovered that it was not uncommon for tour buses to be stopped and robbed, so we appreciated the police presence.

During the course of the day we visited a Costume museum where I bought myself a very African shirt, a craft workshop where all kinds of artistic cloth, wood and metal goods were being made. In addition we had a tour of the old colonial section of Bassam where there are a number of grand colonial buildings (hence the UNESCO status) that unfortunately are in a poor state of repair. I would think western heritage buildings are a low priority for the people of the Ivory Coast except in so far as they attract tourists and money.

Please note the photo of the King of Moossou. The Ivory Coast has included the traditional royal families into its modern governmental structure.

The last three days have been a real eye-opener (to use an Aussie phrase). Benin, Ghana and Ivory Coast seem to be incredibly poor and somewhat disorganized places, yet the streets and public places are incredibly vibrant, with people everywhere going about their business. Much of our interaction with the local people is them trying to sell something to us tourists and they can be pretty persistent about it. But life seems very hard here and so it is easy to forgive their persistence. Indeed the overwhelming feeling is disappointment that one cannot buy something from every one of them. We try, to at least buy something, haggle for the experience, not to save money, and be polite.

As we take a three day break at sea I am thinking that probably the eye opening experiences are not quite over.