I can’t even begin to describe my excitement prior to going to Abidjan last week. I’ve been taking French lessons since January 2019 and apart from in class I haven’t been able to speak French in my everyday life. So going to Abidjan was going to allow me to speak French in every day life and I was over the moon. It was my first time in Ivory Coast so I was quite excited to explore.

Since I was there for a work trip I didn’t have a lot of time to explore during the week because I was locked in a workshop till the evening. On the weekend we had some time on Saturday to explore the city, before I get into the photos, here are some of the my insights on the little I saw of Abidjan:

• Abidjan is not a cheap city! I knew about this before going but the prices still had me like whoa!
• There is a lot of water. Looking at the map you can see that the city is made up of many islands, so we were crossing a lot of bridges.
• People in Abidjan drive very nice cars. The road was filled with very fancy cars more than in other African cities that I’ve visited.
• The people have a love for their country / flag – I saw the country’s flag being displayed all over the place and the flag’s colours being used as well.

We stayed in Grand-Bassam which is an old town 30 minutes away from Abidjan – the hotel had such lovely gardens!

Driving around the streets of Abidjan – it reminded me of SA cities, there were quiet spaces and very busy spaces.

We went to a crafts market and did some shopping. I had an opportunity to flex my French with the vendors and I had so much fun bargaining in French (I usually despise bargaining for prices). One thing about these markets though is that they’re super similar – items that were sold here I had seen in the market in Kampala.

Just hanging out

Also went into a fabric shop with tons of different prints available! I don’t buy material anymore because I never use it.
We had lunch back in Grand Bassam at a lovely restaurant called Les Moutons de la Pizza – the pizza was amazing and we all enjoyed our meals.

After our late lunch we went for ice-cream (I can never say no to ice-cream). It was such a relaxed place across the road from the pizza place by the river.
We ended off the day with a walk on the beach, the waves were quite rough and freezing so I kept myself safely on the sand while my colleagues frolicked in the water.