The best of Abidjan

We went out again today. After googling Abidjan for the past few days, I was finally convinced that there is nothing special to see here. But the guys working here with us on the ship had chalked out an itinerary that sounded very promising, so off we went, the three of us accompanied by Steffen, the P&I guy here. We were scheduled to leave at 3 pm, visit the local market for souvenirs, the cathedral and then end the trip with dinner either in Cap Sud or elsewhere. But we started only around 4.30 pm, so we had to skip the market.

Our first stop was St. Paul’s Cathedral located at the Plateau area of Abidjan. The area is called Plateau because, well, it is a plateau in the middle of the city. This area is the commercial centre of Abidjan and has tall towers and office buildings.

From atop the cathedral we had a good view of the city, and the cathedral itself was a pretty sight. This is apparently the second largest church in the whole of Africa and has a unique and modern architecture. The cathedral is getting renovated now, so we couldn’t go inside, but I hear that it has lovely stained glass paintings. The highlight of the cathedral is the huge cross, supported by flanks – the symbolism represented by the overall structure of the church and the cross is that of Jesus opening his arms, similar to the Christ the Redeemer statue of Rio. You could go to the top of the church throw a narrow staircase, close to the head of the cross, but we couldn’t do that either, because of the on-going construction.

The cathedral had a lot of trees, including a drumstick tree, a few banana trees and even something that looked like a gulmohar. Steffen thought we would as excited as the American tourists to see the banana trees; I guess he was a bit disappointed when we brushed him off saying we have more of these back home. We saw a few people praying by the curb under the statue. We sat down in the benches there and Cheena was upset that I didn't pack sandwiches; it really did look like a good spot for picnic. The staircases that led down to the back entrance had sculptures in the wall depicting the crucifixion of Jesus; after the marvel of the temples of Tamilnadu, this looked pretty amateur for me.  You could see the Bay of Cocody from here, it looked pretty much like the Adyar/Cooum river to me – dirty and desolate.

We saw a group rehearsing for the mass the next day. They were wonderful and we stopped by to listen to their music. Music, indeed, has no languages. The choir’s song was a foot tapping number and we enjoyed the song as much as the singers enjoyed performing it.

Our next stop was the artisan’s market (Centre Artisanale de la ville). This was the most fascinating place for me in Abidjan. All types of African masks and clothing, and all of them available for a good bargain. The timing wasn't all that great though – we went in went everybody was getting ready to close for the day(they close at 6 pm). But once we saw us foreigners coming in, some of them went back to their shops. We didn't have time to explore, so we just quickly got some sesky African masks and left. I also picked up a silly night dress(?), full African ishtyle. We vowed to brush up our bargaining skills and come back here again before we left.

After the experience with Ali, we had decided not to exchange money from the locals and concluded that withdrawing money from the ATM is the best bet. What we didn't realise at that point is that folks here in Abidjan do not understand what an ATM is. The ATMs themselves are far and few. Anyway we somehow made the guys understand what it means with hand signs and phrases like “automatic bank”, “you put card and money come”, “you know visa card?”. Opposite the Cap Sud mall, there is an ATM of Attijariwafa Bank (I am attaching a picture of the logo of the bank for easy reference) and trust me, the exchange rate is MUCH better than the best exchange rate that any local would be willing to give.

Tried on, but did not buy :P

Approx. 550 INR for both the masks

The men had a change of mind and we wanted to explore the restaurants of Abidjan, instead of settling down for a pizza in Cap Sud. But were taken to a dingy roadside restaurant, not unlike the akka shops of Chennai, when chief officer had grandly said that we would rather have the local flavour. Unrelenting, we then looked up restaurants on Trip Advisor and asked Steffen to take us to one of those.  Thankfully, he understood and w soon entered one of the more posh looking streets strewn with restaurants on either side (Rue Pierre et Marie Curie). But there was a catch. Almost all the restaurants opened only at 7:30 pm and had tough bouncer-like guys posted outside. After not being given entry to #3 restaurant from TripAdvisor because it was only 7 pm, we whiled away half an hour at a dessert pub filled with Lebanese and the fashionable folks of Abidjan. Cheena pointed out to the dish that a woman in the adjacent table was eating and asked for that. Steffen looked very amused. The bill was only 8,000 CFA. By now, we had devised an ingenious method of conversion – cut down the last zero and you have the approximate value in INR. We agreed that this was cheaper than Cream & Fudge. At 7:30 pm, we went back to that restaurant only to be told that we needed to have a reservation to enter. Goyyala...

Gimme all the veggies!

We were left with no option but to go to an over-crowded but well-lit and welcoming Lebanese restaurant, which was the only restaurant in the entire street that didn't require a reservation – Restaurant Marrouche. I cannot say much about the food since I had very little options as a vegetarian, but the portions were huge. I just had the free veggies, some falafels and one Lebanese bread with the super yummy sour cream. The sour cream went with everything that I had. The bill came to 24500 CFA for four people. Pretty decent (remember the conversion?)

We doggy bagged the left overs for the third officer (hee hee) and came back to the hotel without any cop incidents like last time. Nasty traffic though, Saturday nights are crazy everywhere I suppose.