When we were in Guinea, the continent’s biggest event came to end: The Africa Cup of Nations. Rivals Nigeria and Ivory Coast met in the final. Ivory Coast, the host nation, had struggled all through the tournament, even firing the coach after the group stage. Somehow they prevailed and beat Nigeria 2:1. Sébastien Haller scored a fantastic goal and turned a whole country into a party zone. We missed that party by three days. Yet, when we entered Ivory Coast, the triumph was still very visible. The orange jersey of the team that they call The Elephants was on every corner. Everyone, it seemed, was an elephant.
The biggest difference to Guinea: the streets have perfect tarmac. Almost every road looked as if it was freshly built. Ivory Coast is a significantly richer country than Guinea and it seems they’ve put a lot of money into infrastructure.
The first town we stopped at in Ivory Coast was Man. Here, hotel rooms have names (and we were allowed to stay in one room without discussion). We had room 101.
The next day we learnt that perseverance doesn’t get you everywhere though. We were determined to visit The Dent of Man, a mountain in the shape of a tooth. You can see it from pretty much anywhere in town (and on the picture below). It was supposed to be a pleasant three hour hike.
We had read online that some people made unpleasant experiences with the locals though, and so did we: In the village the hike begins, we were stopped by some men who told us we could not go on the trail without paying a road toll and getting a guide. We were willing to pay the 3 euro toll but did not want to get the guide for about 25 euro per person. After 30 minutes of negotiations (and some implicit threats) they insisted on the guide – and we went our ways without taking a closer look at the dent.
Instead we took our bikes north and made a trip to the TV tower on Mount Tonkpi.
The 99 meter high tower was built in 1966 and it’s possible to go to the top. The elevator is broken however so we did get the little workout we missed out on with the hike.
The view from the top was incredible. The guard told us that when Harmattan season is over and the air gets clearer, you can see three times as far.
From Man we went to Yamoussoukro, the capital of Ivory Coast.
Yamoussoukro is the hometown of Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Ivory Coast’s first president. Now you know why it’s the capital.
From 1985 on, the Basilica of Our Lady of Peace was built. Finished in 1990, it is still the world’s largest church.
It’s a weird place located at the fringe of the city in a country that’s not even close to a Christian, let alone Catholic majority.
But it is a good backdrop for soft drink commercials.
Another one of Houphouët-Boigny’s ideas: the President’s palace is “guarded” by crocodiles, each six meters long and over a tonne heavy.
Our final stop in Ivory Coast was the beach town of Grand-Bassam.
From here, we did a day trip to nearby Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s old capital and by far its most important city. The traffic was insane, but somehow we made it to Galerie Cécile Fakhoury, a contemporary art space. We came for the art, but it was nice to see the peacocks, too.
Without having seen any real elephants, we left The Elephants and made our way to Ghanian border, excited to get to know country No. 10 of this trip.