Indispensable guidebooks?

I have already praised my guidebook for West Africa in this blog several times. It is practically impossible to travel in Africa without a guidebook, if you're not on an organized trip, of course. Travelling in Europe is a totally different matter: there are free guides, magazines and at least tourist offices in most bigger cities, and traffic connections are somewhat clear and posted on the walls, very often. A great advantage is also the fact that often you know most of the cities in Europe, even some smaller ones by name, such as Krakow, Nice or Tromsö. But how many of you had heard of Porto Novo (photo below), Bobo-Dioulasso (photo above) or Djenné (photo in the end of the post) before reading my blog (assuming that you've read most of the posts :))? Thus, embarking on the first trip to Africa without a very thoroughful preparation with the help of Internet (you can't count on having Internet available all the time in Africa, especially in Mali the connections were very bad...) and making your own guidebook, in my opinion you might have a rough time.

To begin with, I'd like to criticize a bit Le Guide du Routard, which is excellently updated yearly, but has quite a patronising grip on the object, Africa. For example, when they are writing about the legend of Tapama Djenepo, a young girl who was sacrificed to the spirits of Djenné in 822 according to the story, they end the paragraph with a phrase: "L'histoire de Tapama vaut le coup car elle symbolise un peu la condition de la femme dans le Mali aujourd'hui." Roughly that would translate as "It's worth checking the story of Tapama, because it symbolises a bit the status of the women in Mali today." How exactly would a legend of a virgin killed for the preservation of peace and prosperity 1 200 years ago tell something about the society of Mali today? Would you judge the present-day Mexico on the basis of the Aztec culture, with thousands of human sacrifices (and later than in the alleged Djenné story, from the 14th to 16th century!)? Or the Scandinavians: the Vikings apparently sacrificed criminals and prisoners of war. Or the Ancient Greek with their virgin sacrifices - are all Europeans now doomed, then?

Another remark on the Guide du Routard: Is this just a French way of writing, or what: "De nombreux voyageurs considèrent que la sexualité est un élément fondamental et irremplacable de la connaissance du pays." That through sex - which is "an essential and indispensable part for many travellers" - one could acquire knowledge of the country. It's one way of getting acquainted with different countries and cultures, I suppose. Somehow I just had thought that reading about the country, watching films of it and discussing with people would be more enriching.

I sadly don't have the Bradt guide for Benin, because I left it to the Villa Karo. Besides hoping that it would benefit more the people staying there than me in Finland, one reason for leaving it behind was that I couldn't stand the way Stuart Butler had written it. Most likely he tried to be funny and critical at the same time, but for my eyes he was being plain disparaging way too often. He had also made several clear mistakes, which were easy to notice while spending more time in Benin. Instead of the Bradt guide, I bought myself a Beninese guide, Le Bénin des talents, written by a dozen or so specialists from different fields, such as sociologists, journalists, arts' professors and cuisine professionals. Extremely colourful, fascinating and even deep for a tourist guidebook - a pleasure to read, both for the eyes and the heart. The level of criticism, natch, is quite low, but it still beats the Bradt guide clearly.

If you feel like having a travel fever, go check out some of the photos I've added to Flickr: they are also geo-tagged, so you can locate on the map the spots where they were taken. The latest additions are food-and-drink-orientated!

I'll also try to continue on this topic in my next posts - tales about travelling in West African cities, starting with Lomé. Coming soon...