Shopping in Abidjan

Yes. We are still here. This is apparently the longest port stay ever since Cheena started sailing. He has been on an extended watchkeeping duty, 12-6 day and night so his lack of sleep and exhaustion is starting to take its toll. So he refused to come out with us today, the third officer joined us instead.

We took Ali with us today. He has been visiting our ship everyday with a puppy dog face and he also apologized to Cheena and offered to give him free fridge magnets. He is also getting us some provisions for the ship, so I guess he is our friend now.

Our shore passes had expired a few days ago. We went into the immigration office to renew our passes and met officers wearing THIS uniform:

Who has uniforms like this?! Wow Africa!

A few officers had saner uniforms (light blue shirts and navy blue pants) and the chief officer observed that the female officers were pretty. But he was not looking at the women, he was staring into the package in her hand. She must have spotted it, for she offered us what was in the package – APPAM. Yes, appam, the sweet that we make for karthigai deepam back home. It tasted exactly the same too. I am going to imagine that the old celebrated Tamil kings had extended their reign up to Côte d'Ivoire OR that Côte d'Ivoire was part of the hypothetical Kumari Kandam. It sounds cool, no?

Flaunting our new shore passes, we walked out and caught a taxi straight to the artisan’s market. Or so we thought. Ali misunderstood “market” and took us to another local market - Marché de Treichville. This was literally the local market, and had nothing to offer for us tourists.  We just walked around for a few minutes. Almost all the proper shops in the market are owned by the Lebanese. The largest Lebanese diaspora in West Africa is concentrated in Ivory Coast. Since Abidjan is the economic capital here, one can safely assume that the largest concentration of that large concentration is in Abidjan. The chief officer got a great bargain for a perfume from one of the Lebanese shops – after haggling, he paid the equivalent of 500 INR for a perfume that would normally cost 6500 INR for the original (update: the smell lasts for a LONG time and everybody here claims it is as good as the original). Ali also showed us to an Indian shop. He also mentioned about an Indian restaurant and reckoned that it was his favourite. Sorry Ali, we are not tipping you any extra for that. (the restaurant is called Delhi Darbar and is located in Rue des Jardins)

We spent a lot of time at the artisans market today. Thanks to our honed bargaining skills, we struck pretty good deals. If you are looking to visit, ask the taxi drivers for the CAVA (Centre Artisanale de la ville) market and they will bring you here.

Fertility Masks!

The CAVA market is the best place for souvenir shopping in the whole of Abidjan. The market is designed to resemble an African village; it is tidy and also has a tiny café inside. The first thing that the shopkeepers say here is, “This is Africa, my friend. You bargain. You tell your price”. Haggling is expected. So all the items are overpriced at the beginning. The best strategy is to hide your interest in an item and look indifferent while asking for prices. Also, when you look at an item, decide in your head the price that you are willing to pay for it; be prepared to let go if that price is not accepted.

The shopkeepers here are pretty enthusiastic. With whatever little English they have, they keep calling you in. “My lady!”, “Please visit my shop”, “I give best price for you”, “Namaste!”, “Come on, my friend!” – some of them are so loud that their “my lady”-s gave me a heart attack. The market has all kinds of things – huge wooden dolls that are a Côte d’Ivoire special, typical African masks in all shapes and sizes, jewellery, clothes, brass and bronze statues, crocodile skin purses and bags, fridge magnets, wooden chairs, paintings – everything under one roof and everything at a bargain price.

The African clothing is still a mystery to me. The last time I got a pyjama set kinda thing which fit me perfectly, but the top that I got this time was way too tight. They are the SAME size. But there is a difference – the earlier top did not have a demarcated stitch for the sleeves, but this one did. The shopkeepers were showing me clothes that looked huge and insisted that they were my size. But I was blatantly refusing to believe them. Maybe it is the sleeves. Some of the shops were selling materials though – and one lady mentioned that the local women buy these materials and get them stitched the way they wanted. The chief officer was a lil’ disappointed at not being able to find a good top for his wife. We finally settled down for a spaghetti top (no sleeve problem you see).

The boys men wanted to go Go-Karting next. It was bang opposite CAVA and they have been eyeing it ever since they saw it. The price was pretty reasonable and cheaper than some Go-Karting places in India – 5000 CFA for 10 minutes and 10000 CFA for 30 minutes. Thankfully, they decided to try it out for just 10 minutes. The Go-Karting place also has a café attached to it and I got myself a glass of orange juice and settled down with Ali to see the Go-Karting action and click pictures. Two people in black attire were racing in full speed through the course and our men were crawling behind; it being their first time. The third officer even hit some tyres and had to pause for a few minutes. It was hilarious. The chief officer picked up some speed later on though. I was just glad it was only ten minutes because I was starting to get bored and my juice was over. While we were about to leave, we saw the black-attired folks walking out. One of them was a woman. The look on these guys’ faces was priceless.

After clicking some pictures, we went back to Hyper Hayat to refill our snack boxes and also dined in the same pizza place. We got back in flaunting our new passes again. I am hoping that we leave this place soon so we never have to go out again. We have already exhausted all the places of interest here.