We were both up before 07:00.  There was an optional event this morning, and Crystal decided to forego it in the hopes she could get some more sleep.  So Justin went down to breakfast on his own, and everyone else except for Hertz was there.  He did join the rest of the group (sans Crystal) at 07:30 for a short hike up one of the 41 hills in Dassa.

Sena told us that the path up the hill was a funeral procession path for the Dassa kingdom.  He told us a story about the King going to the top of the hill and becoming a snake (sorry, don’t remember much more than that).  There were some really big baobabs around, and some giant granite boulders too.  There appeared to be sheep wool on the steps, but we hadn’t seen any sheep around, only goats.  But then the group came upon an offering spot with some sheep’s blood, so now the wool made sense.

At the top of the hill there was a representative of the kingdom keeping watch, as a couple spots at the top are holy (or whatever the equivalent phrase would be), and off-limits.  His phone went off and it was Shakira - that was pretty funny.  The group walked past some of the giant baobabs on the way down, and they were very impressive.  We hadn’t expected to see baobabs, as we thought they were only in southern Africa and Madagascar.  But we had seen plenty, and there seemed to be more around Dassa than we had seen by the coast.  Shortly before the bottom of the hill, the King of Dassa was walking uphill, wearing a simple blue t-shirt.  It was pretty cool to see royalty in every-day attire.

The group got back to the hotel around 08:45, and Justin met Crystal back at the room.  We left around 09:00 for what we expected to be a fairly long day of driving.  There was a brief stop at Dancoli (aka Dankoli), in the town of Savalou.  This is a famous voodoo temple, where people come from all over Africa to seek assistance.  Sena and a local guide showed us the typical way of doing an offering.  First a stick gets nailed into one of the fetish mounds that is there, and then some moonshine is sprinkled on top.  Then palm oil is poured on top, on that mound as well as four other mounds at the front.  Honestly, the fetish market might have smelled better than Dancoli, so it’s good we didn’t stay too much longer.

We continued north-northwest, edging towards the Togo border, and after an hour or so we stopped seemingly in the middle of nowhere.  Sena told us we were at a small cashew farm.  We walked on some “paths” covered with leaf litter to see some fruits and nuts.  Sena told us to be careful, as there were fire ants around and that we needed to mind where we stood.  Thankfully we weren’t bitten.  We walked across the street to the house of the farm owners.  The owner showed us cassava, kapok, and calamansi.  Sena was very surprised we have all of these (including cashews) in our garden in Hawaii.

We got right next to the border in Prekete, but didn’t cross into Togo yet, instead continuing north, parallel to the border.  We stopped for lunch at the Romance Business Hotel in Bassila.  We all got a kick out of the name of the hotel, and how it was marketing itself.  Sena got us a bunch of stuff to share - rice, plantains, fried cheese, mixed veggies, chicken, peanut sauce, foufou, some spinach dish (can’t remember the name), French fries, and pineapple.  Everything was very good, and we were all stuffed.  

It was just a short ride to visit the Anii Royal Palace.  The Anii is a small kingdom in central Benin and Togo.  We met the King and his ministers.  First we introduced ourselves, and then we got to ask some questions.  The current King is named Atchiba II, which is a family name.  There are three families that, best as we understood, sort of trade off being head of the Kingdom.  Stephenie asked a question of the female minister about her work (the male ministers didn’t seem thrilled), and the female minister said that one of the important issues right now is teaching women to be self sufficient since oftentimes men can’t take care of one wife, let alone multiple.   

The attire was interesting, as it reminded us of clothing from X-Clan videos in the early 1990s.  Apparently the Anii attire changed after Islam, as did treatment of the King as a deity instead of a human being.  The meeting was very interesting, but went long, as for each question and answer, there was translation from the local language to French to English and then back again.  We were able to get some photos with the King at the end.  That’s pretty much all he did - he never spoke, and all the questions were answered by the Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, Minister of Women’s Affairs, and Minister of Youth (who did the translation also).

We left around 15:15 to head towards the border, and it became a bit of an ordeal.  We were getting ready to turn left (west) at Penesoulou, but we couldn’t because of construction.  So we continued up to Bodi, then turned west to head towards Aledjo.  This was a dirt road with tons of cashews on either side.  In Aledjo, it looked like we were going to head back south, so basically a really long detour, but then we stopped and backtracked for a bit.  We finally saw a worker who stopped us, and Sena chatted with him about where to go.  We ended up meandering all around Aledjo to avoid the construction locations, and eventually we got to Akarade, where there was a third road (we think Plan C) to get us across the border.

The Benin side of the border was easy.  One benefit of going this circuitous route was that no one else was around, so there was no queue.  The Togo side of the border was mostly fine, except the biometric fingerprint machine was giving some people issues.  For Stephenie and Jane, it was giving them fits, and they were trying everything they could to help their fingerprints come through cleanly.  Crystal and Taryn had only minor issues, and Justin and the other guys had no issues whatsoever.  We were back in the vehicle at 16:30 Togo time (we got an hour back), and continued west.

The scenery was very different from when we had left Togo several days ago.  First off, the landscape was more savannah than jungle.  Secondly, the population was much more Muslim.  We eventually got back to paved roads at Bafilo.  We turned north on N1 towards Kara, and there were tons of trucks, as N1 is the main route from the port in Lomé to the landlocked countries of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger.  Before Kara we turned west towards Djamde.  Then we turned off onto this bumpy and circuitous dirt road towards Lumen Valley, and wondered what exactly we were doing out here.

Sena told us it was a dead-end road, and that the area was owned by the Catholic church, who had requested this spot from the government for solitude.  But once they owned it, they built a fancy hotel (Lumen Valley Resort), which we’d be staying at for two nights.  Sena said important big wigs will go there for 1-on-1 meetings about important topics, and the local rich and famous go there also to relax.  One conspiracy theory is that the President (or someone close to him) owns it, and put a label of the Catholic Church on it so that people wouldn’t be upset.  TransAfrica became aware of it, and started using it on their trips.  

Once we arrived, the place was very nice, and in fact had a helicopter pad, which really stood out in the middle of nowhere.  The resort reminded us of where we stayed in Isalo in Madagascar, where similarly there was a fancy resort in the middle of nowhere.  There were sweeping views in basically every direction, plus a nice breeze.  As was becoming our custom (so that we wouldn’t be eating too late), we ordered food immediately upon arrival, well before dinner.  The restaurant was not that expensive, which was surprising given the surroundings.  The pool looked very inviting as well.

In our room, though, the WiFi didn’t work, which was a bummer since we were back in Togo and under strict orders not to use roaming on our cellular plans.  The shower was good, though.  When we got to dinner, Hertz was at another table, almost done.  Unbeknownst to us, Sena gave him the option to eat earlier (to help maintain his usual routine), and apparently he took it.  Crystal got sole (and it came out as two fish), and Justin got duck confit.  Justin and Brian saw that Johnny Walker Blue was only 6-7 bucks a glass, and they tried to order, but found out they were sold out.  Yeah, no joke.  Our table eventually closed the place down, hanging out until around 22:00.  There were lots of jokes, and everyone in the group was pretty humorous.  We were happy our group seemed to be getting along so well.