Welcome To Yamoussoukro – The Capital
Yamoussoukro is the administrative capital (the reason being that it was where the previous president – Houphou�t-Boigny – was born, and he decided he’d continue living there and make it the capital, hence it was developed from a small village into a modest-sized town). It’s one of the nicer Ivorian towns and is very green with lakes, including one which has loads of crocodiles in it – some of them impressively large. We stayed two nights there (Agnes came along too, since she wanted to see the famous basilica).
The crocodiles were fairly cool – you could get right up beside them, with just a thin wire fence between you and these three metre long monsters. Supposedly they get fed with live chickens every evening; we missed this, but did get to see them all together after their feeding, basking on a grassy bank. The guy in charge of them was a tall, thin mystical type with a wooden staff, and we were pretty surprised when he went and walked amongst them (after they’d been fed I suppose, but still…!)
As for the Notre Dame de la Paix Basilica, it is really magnificent. It’s one of the real treasures of Ivory Coast, and I suppose you could say one of the only real tourist attractions (apart from nature, beaches, etc.). It’s visible from anywhere in Yamoussoukro, and indeed from several kilometres away. We attended the two hour long mass there on a Sunday morning – it started at 10.30 a.m., so we went there at about 10 a.m. so we could visit the place first. The massive dome is a copy of St Paul’s Cathedral in London; the main part of the church is a cylinder (beneath the dome), and consists almost entirely of beautiful stained glass – there is supposedly more stained glass than in all the churches in France. From the outside it’s amazing too – the long marble walkway in front of it gives it a Taj Mahal-like appearance. I got some excellent photos – about 10 minutes before the ceremony started there was virtually no-one on the huge walkway, so I took some great pictures of the church just by itself – which church or cathedral in Europe is so free from crowds and tourists as to allow that?
The mass itself was in French, although some bits were translated into Burkinab� – since there was a large pilgrimage from Burkina Faso. One thing of note was the massive list (which took over 20 minutes to read out at the start!) of requests / prayers, from all the various people to which the mass was being dedicated. Also interesting was the dress of the congregation – many of them (men and women) wore shirts or dresses made from material with pictures of Our Lady (Notre Dame de la Paix).
Yamoussoukro is quite small really, so it’s possible to walk, say, from the Basilica to the crocodile lake in about 30 minutes, then about another 20 minutes from there to walk into the centre. The Hotel du President is at the other end of the town though, and it’s worth getting a taxi there, especially since there’s nothing really of interest between it and the centre. It’s a luxury 5-star hotel, but it’s worth going to visit, just to check out the amazing view (over beautiful countryside) from the panoramic restaurant. We didn’t eat there since it was quite expensive (i.e. European prices).
A great place for food was the Maquis Centrale – not actually in the centre but near the St. Augustin Cathedral, opposite the crocodile lake (Yamoussoukro is obviously quite religious – there’s the Basilica, a Cathedral, and also a large Mosque). The grilled fish, atik�e, and salad we had at this Maqui were excellent are very reasonably priced. For very cheap, not bad grub, there are stalls in the centre which do kidneys, and other grilled meat. There’s also a bit of a party atmosphere there at night, with ghetto blasters blasting away.
After a couple of days in Yamoussoukro, it was back to Abidjan – one of the smoothest bus trips we took (left and arrived on time). The countryside is also quite interesting on this trip – banana plantations, various types of coconut and palm trees (including a type which is wider at the top than at the bottom – a kind of baseball bat shape).
