I will be honest that I didn’t have the best experience in Togo. On arrival in Lomé, the capital, the airport drug police were OBSESSED with the idea that I was a drug trafficker. Obsessed.
They didn’t know that I can speak French, so they kept talking about me saying that I’m clearly a drug trafficker, they didn’t find anything but that means I hid it really well, etc. It was ridiculous.
After 3 hours of strip search, pee test, and them actually taking my suitcase apart to see if I had created a false bottom or hidden stuff in the handle, they finally let me go. It was completely ridiculous. You know it’s ridiculous when the employees tell the boss “we didn’t find anything” and the boss replies that they should start it all again from scratch, because he’s certain I’m a drug trafficker. Good intel, chief.
After that, I checked into my hotel and just wasn’t in a good mood.
I walked around the city to see the main sites.
Saw the Bank of West Africa and got yelled at for taking pictures.
And walked through the city some more.
I saw the famous ‘bridge to nowhere’.
And a church.
By the time I passed through the main market and got to the voodoo market, it was closed for the day.
Turns out, Lomé is pretty small. Between the feeling of “I think I’ve seen everything” and the bad experience at the airport, Lomé just wasn’t for me.
I changed my ticket and decided to leave for Côte d’Ivoire the next day. Lo and behold the airport drug boss was waiting for me at check-in. “You said you were staying 2 days, now you’re leaving in 1 day. Clearly you’re up to something.”
“No, I just had a bad experience and want to leave.”
Another round of taking apart my suitcase and then I left.
The people outside the airport in Togo seem really awesome. The people in the airport suck big time.
This entry was posted in Africa, Lome, Togo
