Ouidah

Fly to Cotonou via Paris or Addis, then an hour west along the coast road.

A guesthouse near the basilica — which faces the python temple across the square, and both congregations overlap.

The spiritual capital of Vodun — the real religion, not the movie version: python temples, the sacred forest, and the Door of No Return where a million enslaved people last touched Africa.

Walk the Route des Esclaves from the auction square to the beach memorial — slowly, and with the weight it deserves.

January for the Vodun festival

A-oo — a Fon greeting you will hear all day.

The Viceroy of Ouidah by Bruce Chatwin — the slave-trade novel set exactly here.

Ganvié, the stilt city on Lake Nokoué — thirty thousand people living entirely on water.