Visitors Overwhelmingly Dismiss Kante and Togo

Travel Guides Used to be Hatazzzzz

Peace Corps Togo maintains four transit houses, one in each of the four regional capitals: Atakpamé, Sokodé, Kara, and Dapaong. Each house maintains a library (varying degrees of worth, measured by the number of Nora Roberts books). The Kara maison has a number of older West African travel guidebooks with short sections outlining the generally underwhelming tourist attractions in Togo. In the 80’s Lomé was a place some French people came to enjoy the beach (I am guessing here). In the early 90’s that all changed (look it up). Lomé lost its beach charm. Now Lomé has become one of the larger border towns, port cities, and truck stops in the world. Rarely is a capital city also a border town. While Lomé is praised in the older guidebooks, the rest of Togo has lacked something, oh how do you say…to be desired?

After hearing the writer tasked with updating the Togo section of the Rough Guide would visit Kanté, I leisurely leafed through an old Rough Guide to research what had already been discovered and written about Kanté. Kanté is slowly becoming my new home and there is a certain amount of pride associated with the idea of home. People from Brooklyn know what I mean. So, when I read the Rough Guide passage about Kanté, a little piece of me died.

The following passage about Kanté can be found in The Rough Guide – West Africa edited by Jim Hudgens and Richard Trillo.

Kandé and the Tamberma country
“KANDÉ (also spelled Kanté) would surely have faded into obscurity had it not been on the nation’s main route nationale. There’s not much of anything in this tiny town of Lamba people, where the surrounding countryside is hardly conducive to cultivating more than the bare staples of millet and yams. There’s a small gare routiere in the middle of town, with vehicles mostly to Kara and one or two women selling food in the vicinity…Kandé would be easily overlooked if it weren’t the starting point for excursions into the Tamberma country”

Ouch. Don’t get me wrong; Kanté is not honeymoon, it is more Sahelian dust. Armed with descriptive adjectives and a list (meager) of places to visit, I met with the “Rough Guide Lady” (let’s call her Kate).

Kate in Kanté
Oh Kate, I knew you would like Kanté. Look at your name, only one lonely consonant and accent removed from spelling home. We met at Auberge la Cloche, the “Rooftop bar”. This is my favorite place in all of Kanté, and was also the first place Ishmael took me during my weeklong post visit. The rooftop faces west where you can watch the sun set over the African savannah. Very Africa. Apparently visitors to Kanté, writers and non-writers alike, rarely venture off the main road. Big mistake folks; There is greatness within! The Auberge is run by a friendly family that will run a table, chairs, and two realtively cold beers to the small roof as soon as they smell the tourists coming (tourists have a scent that permeates through harmattan dust and dry season heat). The roof also has views of midtown, the water tower, and after the sun disappears, one can see small brush fires in the distance.

Kate’s visit turned out to be a lot of fun. Besides schmoozing with a travel writer, I had the opportunity to visit hidden Kanté gems. We had lunch at my favorite cafeteria on the main road. This turned out to be a bit embarrassing as Kate told me during lunch she used to write about Food for various publications. Kate is absolutely the only food writer to ever dine at “le Cafeteria”. She seemed to stomach the fare without the faintest complaint.

We discussed all sorts of things that naturally evolve during a discussion between two people sharing the same language: Borat, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report.
Kate walked away with an appreciation for Kanté, and even went so far as to say she thinks Kanté is a fine place to spend a day. Lucky me, I have about 700 more to come…