A Touristic Alternative

One of the “big” tourist attractions in Benin – other than Voudun – is the existence of lake villages. The most famous of the lake villages (the one that most tourists go to tour) is called Ganvie.

Perhaps, if you are a tourist, Ganvie might be exactly what you are looking for. The boat will stop at multiple gift shops and of course they will try to get you to spend ALL of your money on things that you either didn't want or didn't agree to.

Some volunteers have taken their families to see Ganvie and have had a good experience. A lot of volunteers have gone to Ganvie and had a horrible experience. Erik and I had a horrible experience, that ended with (after other things) having that hats that we had paid for stolen from us by the guy who sold them to us... by the time we were done there we were so very glad to be leaving. That being said you WANT to see  lake villages while you are here – and if we hadn't gone we would have wished we had – which means just dealing with the mostly bad experience to get a chance to see them. But what if there was another not quite as touristy, but tours provided, lake village, where they won't try to cheat you out of your money? Wouldn't that be great.

Cue in: Augege (pronouces wa-gay-gay).

This past Tuesday I was lucky enough to be invited to go on a boat tour of the village of Augege, which is actually very close to chez moi. There is a newly built and small tourist center that takes boats out  from Porto Novo, and takes about 30 minutes to get to the village by boat.

While they offer tours, Augege is by no means a tourist trap. I guess a good way to put it is they are just learning tourism. They have one restaurant/hotel that prepares food properly for westerners (we didn't eat there so I am not sure what the prices are like) – and of course we did a lot of greeting people while we were there. One of my friends broke her shoe, and the tour guide went to find her a new pair while we were invited to sit down in a local's living room for a glass of water. The children sang to us, surprisingly not the annoying yovo song, and we got a chance to see what was probably the most elaborately painted church that any of us have seen here in Benin (who would have thought).

Unlike Ganvie which is over water year round, Augege does in fact have dry ground during the dry season, it is an island in the valley, mostly disconnected from surrounding villages. So if you really want to see houses with water under them, make sure that you go during the rainy season. Otherwise you are just going to see stilt houses, but you will be able to get out and walk around if the land is dry!!! I really enjoyed  the dry season tour.

Z