Porto-Novo
The capital and the administrative centre of Benin contains a variety of tourist attractions from museums to stilt villages. The Ethnological Museum is popular among tourists and the museum in Abomey covers the history of the Abomey kingdoms and contains a throne made of human skulls. Sitting on the head of history is a novel idea. Visit the Fetish Temple and Centre Artisanal where local craft products are sold at reasonable prices and you can purchase essential voodoo items, such as monkey testicles and bat wings.
Across the lagoon, the stilt village of Aguegue is surrounded by a watery highway. Travel for two hours from Porto-Novo in a canoe to reach these stilt villages. The lagoon is divided into large rectangular plots by straight rows of bushes planted tightly together where their roots grow so close together that fish cannot pass. These enclosed plots are used for raising captive fish and small boats and people are everywhere. The village itself is mainly on dry land with buildings made from thin wooden sticks, but main transport arteries are channels of water.
Built on stilts, their floors raised about 3 feet off the ground, the buildings housed many fishing people who choose to live closer to the fishing grounds. The land which is seasonally flooded and the stilt villages are submerged for several months of the year, so time your visit properly unless you want to see a submerged village instead of the fishing hub it becomes over the busy season.
