Abidjan to Grand-Bassam – Cote d’Ivoire

The taxis in Man were green. In Yamoussoukro they were white. Abidjan meanwhile was blessed with both yellow and a rusty orange colour of taxi, and that’s pretty much all there is to say about Abidjan. The largest city in the country is relatively dull, not that I can reliably comment as we were staying a good 30-minute drive from anything even worth considering a visit. We did try. A little. The Blonde Squad and I making it a good 500 metres down the road from our hotel until getting bored and choosing a tiny little air-conditioned bar for a refreshing beer. I agree, it’s a typically English thing to do, but as the three of us are in fact English, I believe expressing normal behaviour is perfectly acceptable. Besides, a group of local lads entered the bar and not long afterwards got in a round of beers for us. This led to two separate phone calls to their relatives in London and, Amber bagging a phone number from one of the young gents. Anxiety began to build inside me as I fretted about the likelihood of heading off to a nightclub and how I would balance the role of taking care of two extremely independent women surrounded by our new friends without being overprotective. Luckily, I didn’t have to find out as we opted for several massive plates of shawarma and an early night instead. 

I woke the following morning after one of the worse night’s sleep to date. Hotels in this part of the world don’t tend to do twin rooms and so on the rare occasion we have to stay in beds it usually means sharing with someone. As I was traveling alone, that meant sharing with one of the other guys. On this occasion I opted to sleep on the floor with all my tenting gear in anticipation of a comfy night’s sleep with air-conditioning. Unfortunately, my roommate wasn’t into air-conditioning during the night (quite the thing with Germans apparently) and kept it turned off. Once again, being English, I didn’t complain and spent the night in a pool of my own sweat struggling not to melt into the carpet. The morning got no better. The majority of the group wanted to leave the city and get to our next stop down on the beach yet for some undefined reason we ended up having to stay in town until lunchtime. My final fond memory of Abidjan was when we were driving out of the city. I was sat up front in the cab with the driver which offers wonderful views of the road ahead. We were driving down a dual carriageway in heavy traffic and the road was lined with people flogging anything and everything you can think of, including paddling pools. Yeap, a man was walking between the traffic with a good-sized paddling pool already blown up, just add water. I’m not sure if that was his only pool, or whether he had a few packed and ready to go, or whether it was expected to be shoved inside or on top of a car already inflated. We will never know.

We arrived at the quaint seaside town of Grand-Bassam around 4pm. It’s quite a large town but the suburb that stretches along the beach is a beautiful mix of decaying French colonial buildings, palm trees, sandy roads, restaurants, hotels, and roadside art boutiques. We were once again staying in a hotel, but the double beds were bigger and comfier and I took the decision not to sleep on the floor and demanded the air-conditioning remain on, always. With that taken care of the Blonde Squad and I once again headed away from the agitations of the group and went in search for a non-touristy bar. A good walk away from the beach and across the lagoon we fell upon a bar overlooking the water, but despite it being a local bar, they only sold Heineken which was a tad disappointing. Still, we politely stayed for a round before walking a few metres down the road to a much jazzier bar, one with fairy lights, one that was almost empty, one where the owner’s face lit up with a genuinely warm and welcoming smile when she saw us walk in. Embarrassingly we were directed immediately to the VIP section complete with comfy seats and disco lights. The bar looked scarce of options, but we ordered a bottle of white wine and requested a little ice to cool the bottle down from its current temperature of a fresh cup of tea. I must add, we would have drank it warm to avoid causing a fuss but that was not about to happen as our host went off in search of a few ice cubes, from where I have no idea, but she succeeded. Food was our next concern. Remember this was all in French, a language only one of us could vaguely grasp. We finally arrived at the only option available yet always available in this country, chicken and chips. After our order was placed there was a lot of commotion in the kitchen until 10 minutes later we were informed that there was in fact no chicken, and no chips. They were terribly sorry, but it was fine because we had just become distracted by the man who had walked into the bar with a monkey on his shoulder and sat down for a beer. Now, bearing in mind the three of us probably have around 60 years of experienced and ethical travel between us, we lost the plot over this monkey. As we polished off the wine, we debated who was going to go and ask if we could get a group selfie, I forget now, but Jen was usually elected for such tasks. The man was only too happy, the monkey less so, made evident by his attempt to claw and bite us whenever we tried to get close. I’m not proud, this was one stressed out little monkey simply because of our want for a picture that we didn’t really have any need for. Eventually my stockman skills kicked in, I earnt the trust of the monkey and calm was restored. We headed back towards the beach and found an empty restaurant that served up the most incredible chicken and chips and had drinks on the menu described simply as shots. Shots of what we wondered before ordering three in the name of research. Three shots of different colours arrived but we were left none the wiser. Well fed, we wondered off into the night. 

The following morning, I stumbled into a world of controversy. The responsible half of the group had turned up for breakfast disgusted to see three empty plastic cups, some empty cans of coke, and an empty bottle of rum lying by the side of the swimming pool. After the restaurant with the shots, we had gone through the usual routine of raiding the truck for plastic coffee mugs, coke, and a bottle of rum. We took this to the beach where some locals insisted on lighting a fire for us despite the ridiculous humidity and finished up in the swimming pool to cool off after being roasted next to the fire. I shall admit we had a bit of an addiction to one type of rum, Ambre. It cost $5 a bottle, induced an incredible amount of laughter, and delivered very little in the way of a hangover the following day. How we didn’t screw up when raiding the truck so often, such as leaving it unlocked, I have no idea. People wanted us to screw up, but the nearest we had got was merely ‘borrowing’ a few cans of coke which we always repaid ASAP. Leaving the cups lying around was apparently a capital offence and we were instructed like naughty children to clean and return them. Wonderfully, when I went in search of somewhere to wash them, one of the hotel lovelies insisted he wash them for me and so I returned to lounge by the pool whereupon the owner appeared and asked if the three of us had had any breakfast. We had met the night before and had assumed she had come to kick us out of the pool but instead she hung around for a chat, asked if there was anything we needed – coke – and had it promptly delivered by a barman who had obviously been woken from a deep sleep. Now, the morning after she was offering to get breakfast made for us if we had missed it. We politely declined, but my God did I feel smug inside; the witch hunt would have to wait and hope for another day to vilify us. 

The day continued nice and steady. I experienced rain for the first time in 28 days despite it not being at all usual for December and only normally seen in July and August, but all concerns for climate change were put aside as I soaked up the smell and freshness that rain brings in such a climate. The humidity soon returned with a vengeance as a few of us sat at a local café for a lunch of chicken and chips. There was no mains power for whatever reason but out of nowhere someone appeared from down the street with a battery powered standing fan and placed it right in front of our table, no questions asked. It was bliss, we tipped big. That night I was in bed for 9pm, I never heard my roommate get into bed, and I slept right through a thunderstorm that had woken everyone else in the middle of the night as rain on tin roofs generally does. Despite being an awesome country, I have few photos of Cote d’Ivoire, but I leave with many happy and fun memories, the majority of which were induced by the wonderful discovery of Ambre rum.

30^th December 2023