West Africa smells different than East Africa. You can tell as soon as you emerge from the plane. They say that smells are powerful triggers for memories, and indeed, memories of Senegal presented themselves immediately upon entering Ivory Coast. The last time I was here was 7 years ago, and the first time was exactly 20 years ago. It is a different place now, with its combative ex-president awaiting trial in The Hague, and the winning president trying to figure out how to deal with high unemployment and restless followers of the former president. The Ivoirians have suffered much since my last visit but now the country is busy trying to regain its former status as the bedrock of economic and political stability in West Africa.
Although it was Saturday noon time when I arrived, there was a lot of traffic and it took forever to reach the little inn where I am put up. I killed the time by bombarding my driver Aristide with thousands of questions.
My new lodging for the week is a small inn tucked behind a main drag in the part of Abidjan that is called II Plateau. It has an eclectic collection of rooms, each with a different theme. I am trying to sort out the theme of my moss green and pink pastel room – it looks like a guestroom where all the picture discards went: frilly oval pictures of flowers, sad little children and some gold painted wooden flourishes nailed willy-nilly to the wall. The floor consists of white and black tiles, straight from a Vermeer picture, partially obscured by an olive drab (gray?) rag carpet reminiscent of the 70s, and a fleur de lis area rug leading into the bright blue bathroom.
I look out on a small pool with an eclectic assortment of sitting places, tiled, painted, metal, wood and plastic. I went for a swim before my siesta. As I was swimming in the little pool, dodging downy feathers from the birds hanging out above me, I realized that I could have arrived a day later and done my swimming in the Indian Ocean. What was I thinking, rushing off the island so fast?
On the other hand, the place does tend to invite to relax, and the prospect of having an entire Sunday to myself is appealing. It won’t be all relaxation though as work in Cambridge goes on and my corporate responsibilities don’t stop when I travel. I have a shopping list of tasks by my side that already counts 7 things that need my attention tomorrow, some of them rather large tasks.
My solitary dining experience was enhanced by memorizing the scene for my blog: enormous blue and red velvet-covered banquettes made for giants, set uncomfortably far from the table as if only fat-bellied people ate there. Red and gold frilly chairs and doilied low tables were set up in a space that was already full enough. Enormous cognac glasses on stilts with tea lights provided a soothing contrast to the bright and cold spiral everlast lights or the collection of colored lights hiding in every nook and cranny. For awhile I was mesmerized by a spotlight directed to a large print of the girl with the pearl earring, the colors changing along the rainbow, from yellow, to purple to blue, then red and green, casting a large oval colored ring on the picture.
Dinner was pricey, my ballon de vin rouge rounding it off to something with many zeros. I am not sure this is going to be my prefered place for dinner although the crabe farcie and the French french fries were great, so was the juicy papaya at the end. Unfortunately I am too early for mangoes.
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