Field Trip Part 3

Day 3. Awake at 6 I took a shower, packed my bag and went looking for breakfast with Luke and Mike. We didn't have to go far as we came upon a street vendor making breakfast right across from our hotel. We sat on the bench with our backs to the road while the vendor whipped up breakfast. Luke and Mike had coffee but I'm not a coffee drinker so I stuck with my bottle of water. The vendor prepared a delicious egg sandwhich and I immediately scarfed it down. We headed south to Sokode, Togo's second largest city. On the national road in the mountains between Kara and Sokode is the Faille d'Aledjo, a national symbol. The Faille d'Aledjo (fault of Aledjo) is a giant rock in the road. When constructing the road through the mountains they had to carve a path through a massive rock so the road south passes through the rock while those headed north pass around it. We stopped and snapped a couple photos. The road through the rock is so narrow I haven't the slightest clue as to how huge trucks pass through it. Sometimes you see bizarre things on the road. For instance a truck completely turned over on the side of the road all of it's contents spilled out or a goat standing wobbly trying to balance itself tied to the top of a bush taxi. Just outside of Sokode we visited a groupement of women who made shea butter. We watched the whole process which was pretty neat to see step by step. After a delicious lunch of street meat in Sokode, followed up by Fan Milk (Togo's version of ice cream), we headed east to Tchamba to tour a cashew transformation company. Cashews are probably my favorite nut so it was cool watching the process and participating a little. I asked before I took pictures of the women working. Many of them were muslims and don't want to be photographed. Lots of cashews were eaten and we returned to Sokode. Sokode is a primarily muslim city and there weren't many bars close to our hotel. So after grabbing some street food we returned to the hotel and bought some drinks to unwind. Mike bought a bottle of wine, the first I'd seen in Togo. Usually it's boxed. Most of day 4 was spent in the car as we headed back to Gbatope. We did have on brief stop in Dereboua, Luke's post, for a session on beekeeping. We were there just long enough for Mike to get stung. We were all pretty wiped by the time we got back to Gbatope. It had been a wonderful but exhausting past 4 days.