from e-mails- Togo late Sept

I just spent the weekend in Togo and it was crazy. There are moments of frustration here and being in a French speaking country was a bit difficult as well but the food there was amazing, the people were beautifully and so much more what I thought they would be like than they are in Ghana. I spent a day in Lome and rode around on the motorcycle taxis and had a blast. We also went to togoville and stayed at this Catholic monestary and school with this awesome old man who made us dinner and breakfast at his house for free and took great care of us. It was so random but worked out really well. To get to togoville was the best part because we had to ride across the lake in banana boats for about 30 minutes just paddling over. I also went up to Kpalime but it didn't turn out as nice as we had hoped. As always, it took a million years to get anything done so really sunday didn't include but one little half hour hike and the rest of the time was navigating, negotiating, and border crossing and then coming home in a cramped tro tro for about 5 hours. The ride to the border on the long dirt road through the jungle and down the mountain for an hour was really beautiful though. There are a strange variety of mix moments of absolute bliss and total frustration. All in all I had a really great time but I was so happy to get back to my room last night and crash. These are the life adventures though. I must admit, i miss mountain air and mountain life and i can't wait to come back for it.