Cotonou, Ouidah & the South

Before Dahomey, the coast belonged to the Aja kingdoms. Allada, inland from the shore, was the senior state from which, by tradition, the royal lines of both Abomey and Porto-Novo descended. On the coast the Hueda kingdom, with its capital at Savi, controlled Ouidah, where the Portuguese, French, English and Dutch built trading forts in the 17th and early 18th centuries. Dahomey's King Agaja conquered Allada in 1724 and Hueda in 1727 to reach the sea and the European traders directly.

Under Dahomey, Ouidah became one of the busiest slave ports on the African coast. Captives taken in wars and raids inland were marched to the town, sold, held and then taken through the surf to waiting ships, most of them bound for Brazil and the Caribbean. Traders from Brazil settled here, the best known being Francisco Félix de Souza, the "Chacha", who became the agent of King Ghezo in the 19th century. The lakeside people of Ganvié, meanwhile, had built on the water to escape the slave raids.

Porto-Novo, the capital of a rival Gun kingdom on the lagoon to the east, accepted French protection to shield itself from Dahomey and Britain's Lagos, and became the colonial capital. France gained Cotonou by treaty in 1878, built a wharf there from 1891 and later a railway north. Since independence Cotonou has grown into the country's economic centre and seat of government, while Porto-Novo remains the official capital.

The south is the heartland of Vodun, and the religion is visible everywhere: roadside shrines to Legba, the guardian of crossroads, python houses, convents where initiates are trained, and ceremonies with drumming and possession. In January the national Vodun celebrations centre on Ouidah, drawing thousands of pilgrims and visitors. Most southerners are also Christian or Muslim, and many take part in more than one tradition.

The main peoples are the Fon and the Aja, the Gun around Porto-Novo, Yoruba in the Ouémé valley towards Nigeria, and the Xwla along the coast. The Egungun masquerades, whose masked dancers represent the ancestors, come from Yoruba tradition, while the Zangbeto, tall raffia-covered figures, are the night guardians of Gun communities.

The Agudá, descendants of Brazilian traders and of formerly enslaved people who came back from Brazil in the 19th century, keep Portuguese family names such as de Souza, Paraíso and da Silva. Afro-Brazilian architecture, seen in Porto-Novo's Great Mosque, is part of their legacy, and some families still celebrate the Bourian masquerade, a festival of Brazilian origin.

This is Benin's most densely populated region. Cotonou has about 680,000 people within the city limits, and the wider urban area — spreading north into Abomey-Calavi, home of the national university, and east towards Sèmè-Kpodji — holds well over two million. Porto-Novo has well over 200,000; Ouidah, Lokossa, the capital of Mono, and the market towns of the Couffo plateau are much smaller.

Cotonou's economy turns on its port, one of the largest in West Africa, and on trade with Nigeria, Niger and Burkina Faso. Commerce with Nigeria in particular supports many families, from the market women of Dantokpa to small roadside traders. Inland, the plateau towns farm palm oil, maize and cassava; the lagoon villages fish; and Grand-Popo and Ouidah live partly from tourism.

Days begin before dawn with the first zémidjan riders and the markets, slow in the midday heat and pick up again in the evening at the maquis, the open-air bars and eateries. Traffic, flooding in the rainy season and coastal erosion, which has eaten into beaches east and west of Cotonou, are the region's everyday concerns.

Southern cooking is based on maize and fish. The daily starch is a stiff maize dough — white akassa, made from fermented maize, or amiwo, a red dough cooked in a tomato and palm-oil stock — served with a sauce of tomato, okra or leafy greens and fried or smoked fish from the lagoons. Tilapia and shrimp from Lake Nokoué and Lake Ahémé, crabs and grilled sea fish are common in the coastal maquis.

Ablo, small, slightly sweet steamed cakes of maize and rice flour found in both Benin and Togo, are eaten with fried fish and pepper sauce. Street stalls sell akara bean fritters, gari soaked in water with sugar, and grilled agouti, the grasscutter rodent prized as bush meat.

Palm wine is tapped across the plateau, and distilled into sodabi, the strong clear spirit poured at ceremonies and at the Vodun festival. Fresh pineapple and coconuts are sold by the roadside, and bissap, a chilled hibiscus drink, is everywhere.

Ouidah is the historical centre of the region. The Python Temple, home to sacred pythons, faces the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception across a square; the Portuguese fort houses the Ouidah Museum of History; and the Sacred Forest of Kpassè holds sacred trees and contemporary art. The Slave Route runs from the town past statues and memorials to the beach and the Door of No Return, a memorial arch built in the 1990s.

Cotonou has Dantokpa market, the Fidjrossè beach, and the Fondation Zinsou's collections of contemporary African art, which also has a museum in Ouidah. North of the city, Ganvié spreads across Lake Nokoué: a stilt village of around 20,000 people, reachable only by boat.

Porto-Novo rewards a slower visit, with the Afro-Brazilian Great Mosque, the Honmè palace museum of King Toffa, the ethnographic museum's collection of masks, the Jardin des Plantes et de la Nature, and the Songhaï agricultural centre. West along the coast, Grand-Popo has long palm-lined beaches, fishing villages, and boat trips to the Bouche du Roy where the Mono River meets the ocean. Inland, Lake Ahémé has the hot springs of Possotomé and lakeside villages known for fishing.