Lonely Planet's guide to West Africa describes Cote D'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) as "....a stunner....a true tropical paradise...a country that is striding towards economic progress...". Well, we're just going to have to take their word for it! We spent a little under five hours in the country. Ostensibly, we were visiting Abidjan, the country's economic hub and after Lagos, sub-Saharan Africa's second largest city. Instead, we headed some way east along the coast to the UNESCO World Heritage listed city town of Grand Bassam, which until a yellow fever epidemic in 1896 was the French colonial capital of Cote D'Ivoire. Apart from a few near-derelict colonial era buildings and a couple of gilded statues of a former monarch and his wife, it was hard to discern what possible reason UNESCO could have had for listing this city. A terrorist attack (claimed by al-Qaeda) killed 16 people here, mostly foreigners, in 2016 and understandably that has reduced the appeal of Grand Bassam as a tourist destination. But still....

Much of our five hours in Cote D'Ivoire was spent on the road, a lot of the time stuck in Abidjan's notoriously congested traffic - and we weren't even close to the city centre. In fact, had our convoy of coaches not been flanked by a police motorcycle escort, we would have spent just about all of the five hours stuck in traffic! Perhaps not surprisingly though, time is found to stop at a couple of markets for a spot of souvenir shopping....

I should mention at this point that our journey around the bulge of Africa is courtesy of a Silversea expedition ship. The ship is carrying around just 230 passengers in ridiculous comfort, cared for by a crew of around 235! Thus far (and I must stress, thus far....we still have quite a way to go) it has not seemed anything like the typical expedition cruises we have previously enjoyed. More of a regular cruise, visiting a few out-of-the way places. Many of our fellow passengers can just about make it up and down the gangplank when we're in port and we have serious doubts that they will be able to make it on and off zodiacs in choppy seas should this voyage turn in to a typical expedition cruise!