Sunday, January 1, 2012

Ganvié – African Venice



These ore not pictures of a flood. This is Ganvié, in the Republic of Benin, the largest collection of lake dwellings in Africa. 20,000 people call Ganvié’s stilt supported dwellings home. This amazing city, in the middle of lake Nokoué, is not a recent construct however.


Ganvié is up to five hundred years old. Sometimes called the “Venice of Africa”, and just like the famous city in Italy, its first inhabitants set up their homes there out of sheer necessity.