Lomé to Dapaong

 We started out in Lomé looking for a land cruiser and found THE one our first day amongst all these vehicles sitting in the port.  This is only one of 2 lots we went to.

We made a down payment and paid the rest the following day.  It would have been nice to take it then and there, but since we bought it in the port, not technically in Togo, we had to wait for a lot of paperwork to be completed.  Thankfully, we didn't have to do any of the paperwork ourselves.

While we waited, we stayed at a nice hotel in a 3ish bedroom place, pictured behind David.  We spent a lot of our time working out details with the truck and buying things to furnish our house in Dapaong.  That's our refrigerator in the box waiting to be taken inside.

We visited ORCA (a store with home furnishings and toys) a few times and gave them so much business that they gave us a nice discount on all our purchases and even delivered a few things to our hotel for us.  There is also a Lebanese Restaurant beside ORCA where we ate several times.

I was trying to take pictures while we were driving down the road, so this is the best I could get of the Chinese store where we shopped a few times.  It's not the semi truck, it's the orange building behind the truck.

We were right across the street from the port where we could see the cranes moving all the containers around.  Lomé has an extremely busy and important port for the greater part of western Francophone Africa. We saw a long line of ships on the water and the trucks on land all waiting to get into port.

The kids were very excited to see the "new" truck, until we showed them where they'd have to sit. Kidding!  Not until we add bench seats back there anyway.

We took the wrong exit off the highway and ended up on this dirt road instead of a paved road.  These dirt roads are very common, fortunately there are paved roads (for the most part) all the way from Lomé to Dapaong.

A land fill in Lomé.  Although most trash is burned instead of going there.

David turned 10 months while in Lomé.

This is where we finally gave up trying to get to Dapaong the first time, a country school yard.  Our truck just didn't have any get up and go.  We later found out that the clutch plate was all messed up. 

So, back to Lomé where we spent 2 extra days waiting on the clutch plate to be fixed.

On our way to Dapaong the 2nd time.  We left before sunrise and were more prepared for keeping the kids entertained.  We let them watch movies on my laptop (on top of David's carseat).

We saw tons of charcoal in bags like these that villagers were trying to sell on the side of the road, along with fruits, veggies, cheese, bread, palm oil, live chickens & guinie hens.  You name it, you could get it on the side of the road.

We had a lot less traffic the second time around, yet there were still plenty of over loaded trucks to pass along the way.

Even more than trucks, we saw mopeds and people walking right along the side of the national highway.

We are at a high point in the rainy season, so the rivers are really full and the trees are very green.

We drove from Lomé to Kara, about 2/3 of the way to Dapaong, 6 hours, with out letting the kids out of the car.  We stopped at a German restaurant that had a play ground and we were there for 2 hours.  The kids really needed to stretch, it was the perfect stop for them.

After our lunch break the roads were a little bumpier and dustier.  We were following Rev. Jacob Gaugert who is about to pass the semi as soon as they cross the non paved bridge. The semi is loaded down with colorful woven rugs.  I couldn't tell you how many trucks we passed like this!  You can also see kids trying to sell us eggs on the side, err, middle of the road.

Northern Togo has some little rockies.

We started seeing little huts like these here and there.

We saw more and more livestock as we got closer to Dapaong.

Driving through Mango, we saw these guys on the back of the truck.  We thought they were holding down the top, but as we passed it looked more like they were just hitching a ride.  Mango is about an hour south of Dapaong. This is where a new hospital just opened, the closest one to Dapaong.

Nous sommes arrivés!