If you’re entering Benin through Nigeria to the east then get ready, because you can be certain that this voodoo country of sprawling post-colonial places and curiously Latinised metropolitan centres is like nothing you’ve seen before!
Modern day Benin is a nation very much forged from the interfaces of European colonialism (first Portugal and then France) and the ancient Kingdom of Dahomey, one of West Africa’s richest and most infamous civilisations, now immortalised in regional history for its proliferation of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Today visitors enjoy a country that’s dealt with its tumultuous past head-on, and has even come to celebrate the curious cultural exports of its history through the assimilation of South American culture. The institutions in the capital at Porto Novo do well to chronicle the rise of Brazilian heritage in the region, while the heady city of Cotonou offers up some of western Africa’s best international gastronomy, not to mention a nightlife scene that’s somewhat shocking in its intensity.