These are the most off-the-beaten-path places I have ever seen.

We are nearing the end of another adventure with Panic Frame & Travel - 11 of us managed to tour Togo and Benin over the last ten days.

I've visited the continent before, but this is the most authentic Africa I've ever seen.

We started from Togo and travelled from south to north, nearly reaching the border with Burkina Faso, but couldn't continue as further up was a military zone. In many places, there were checkpoints guarded by locals with rifles 😀

Sometimes they let us through freely, sometimes we had to “tip” an amount in local currency equivalent to 1 dollar 😀

We met a local king who rules over 50,000 people. We saw local “castles” with two floors - the elders and animals live on the first, and on the second - in the towers as seen in one of the photos - the children.

We attended voodoo festivals that bring together different tribes.

At one of them, there was a fight among themselves 😀 We watched locals eat charcoal, and later met with voodoo healers in a village who smoke tobacco all day long 😀

In Benin, we reached the border with Nigeria, where Lake Nokoué is located - a fascinating place. Entire settlements are built in the middle of it - literally around 30,000 people live in it. It started during slavery - according to voodoo, if one is in the water, they cannot be touched. And since slaves were being sold to Europeans by a local ruler who also believed in voodoo, they began hiding in the water. That's how the settlements began.

In the places where we slept, we were the only tourists, and some “hotels” were opened just because of us.

These are the least touristy places I've ever seen.

We collected some bottle caps for the campaign next month.

So, onwards we go 🙂