Ganvié before the tour boats, when the fishermen are out and the water is the colour of tea.
The pirogue leaves Abomey-Calavi at ten past six. There is no engine; the boatman poles. For twenty minutes there is nothing but water hyacinth and egrets, and then the first stilts come out of the haze.
Ganvié was founded in the seventeenth century by Tofinu people fleeing the slave raids of the Dahomey army, which by religious law could not fight on water. The town has been here ever since: thirty thousand people, a market, a school, a church, a mosque, a hotel, all on stilts or on boats.
The floating market is not for visitors. Women sell smoked fish, cassava, tomatoes and phone credit from canoe to canoe. By nine the day boats arrive from Cotonou and the market has moved on. Go early, and go quietly.
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