PETIT-BASSAM

A visit that could easily take you a good half day. Start by going to the livestock market of Port-Bouët, the largest in the district of Abidjan, where you will find sheep, goats and oxen, led by Burkinabe herdsmen. It is an atypical sight, to say the least, to see all these cattle and ungulates grazing in the mud, while the threatening silhouette of the slaughterhouses, which were refurbished a few years ago, foreshadows the fatal fate that awaits them, for the great happiness of the local consumers, very fond of choucouya (marinated mutton, then fried in the brazier with a preparation based on vegetables spiced up with kankan - a mixture of onion powder, cola, chilli, pepper powder and Maggi cube). A little further on, we move on to the next stage: carcasses cut up and hanging near the cooking grills on which the braisers are working with dexterity to prepare the much appreciated dish. Past the egg and poultry sellers, continue to the Boulevard de l'Océan, towards Petit Bassam.
On the left, a first access to the beach, then a pretty facade eaten by greenery attracting the eye of the visitor: the North-South University: washed gravel, walls with pop colors, large garden overlooking the beach with its pool and endless coconut trees raising their filiform silhouette high in the wind of the sky ... It is on weekends that the Abidjanese come to enjoy it. You can even buy your choukouya at the market and come and rest by the pool.
Continuing along the boulevard de l'Océan, there is a succession of small maquis moored to the sand of this beach cove that stretches between the lighthouse of Vridi and the canal of the same name: "Délice beach", "Vivre ensemble beach", "Euro Beach", "Port de pêche", "Maison-Blanche"... Each maquis has its own braiser and offers its own specialty: braised fish, kedjenou, chicken, rabbit, bush meat, and on order, salad, rice, alloco, attiéké, fried yam, stewed or boiled, meatballs, sauces, spaghetti... Here too, it is especially on weekends that the atmosphere is in full swing, easily until midnight. To access the beach, you can pay a small symbolic fee for the maintenance of this beautiful coastline. There is still some undesirable waste! In the distance, the spectacle of huge cargo ships leaving the Vridi canal, while closer to the coast, the pirogues of Ghanaian fishermen glide silently on the water. There is no doubt: Abidjan is sweet...