GAANI FESTIVAL

Togo and Benin

Departure: Lome 13/3/2008 • Arrival: Lome 26/3/2008

Category: Special Trip

• 15 days in Togo and Benin
• overnights in hotels and camps

A two weeks travel in two interestin countris of West Africa to participate to Festival Gaani, a religious festival in the honor of Prophet Mohamed birth. At Nikki the festival has also an important social dimension, it is an occasion by which princes and elders honor the two symbols of local power: the king and the sacred drums.

The king rides his horse, accompanied by the court, trough the crowed. At the same time the sacred drums, endowed with a special mysterious energy, are shown to the population. The festival gather a lot of people, dressed in their best traditional outfit, and hundreds horses.

In the coastline regions of Togo, voodoo is the religion of the ancestors and here it is well practiced. This religious experience is really richer and deeper than the one developed in Europe. It’s not just black magic. It is a deep religion that rules and gives a sense to lives of million of people here and in the rest of the world.
In the North of Togo and Benin live people who belong to “the fortified houses civilization”.
This region is considered still one of the most authentic of the African Continent. Here life goes on without changes for centuries, in big patriarchal, fortified and isolated homes.

The Yom villages are situated on the homonymous mountain. These villages are composed of round huts covered with conical roofs and protected at the top by terracotta vases. The upper part of the village is inhabited by the fetish priests, dressed in a goatskin, and their young initiates. This population has for centuries lived on an archaeological site. It seems the first inhabitants, of Kabye origins from Togo, occupied the mountain in the 9th century A.D.

The town of Abomey was the ancient capital of the Dahomey Kingdom. This kingdom founded his leadership under constant wars that could afford to collect a lot of prisoners, the most important thing for slavery trades.
Few kilometers North of Cotonou there is a lagoon area that hosts “the Venice of Africa” Ganvie, the largest and most beautiful African village on stilts. The inhabitants of the Tofinou ethnic group build their huts on teak stilts and cover the roofs with a thick layer of leaves. Fishing is the principal activity of this population that by the isolation has preserved its particular customs.

Ouidah is considered the spiritual capital of voodoo. In this old slave trade post with its Afro-Portuguese architecture, we find face to face the python temple and the catholic cathedral.

Groupe of minimum 6 participants, 1.700 euro each person in double room/tent

Groupe of 4-5 participants, 2.070 euro each person

Groupe of 2-3 participants, 2.390 euro each person, with driver/guide french speaking

Supplement single room 310 euro.

Full board from the breakfast of the second day till the lunch of the last day

The prices don't include the international flight from and to the country of origin

For more informations: transafrica@transafrica.biz