Finally arrived at the African coast-writing from Hotel Palm Beach, Lome, Togo. Sitting by the poolside in this empty elephant of a hotel overlooking the splendid, palm fringed and empty beach. We are staying in the less grandiose ‘Le Golf’ just a few minutes walk from here. Both hotels have seen better days, like just about everything here in Lome. Although from the history of this country it is hard to see when these ‘better days’ were… Judging by the décor of our hotel,(see pic of reception below) the golden days may have been sometime in the early seventies, which is when they must have installed our air conditioner too.
But already in 1963 Togo achieved the distinction of becoming the first new African nation to have a coup, and since then democracy, in our sense of the word, has never returned to these shores. Nevertheless, I just walked past the splendidly named ‘Ministere du Droit de l’Homme et de la Democracie’ on my stroll this morning. One can’t help wondering what exactly they get up to inside this ministry… Only in 2006 no less than 500 demonstrators were killed in the streets of Lome, after the last ‘elections’ which saw the son of the long-reigning late president Gnassingbe Eyadema seize power, thus effectively establishing the line of Gnassingbe on the throne of Togo.