If you’d told me a few years ago that I’d be going to Abidjan in Ivory Coast, I would have been very surprised.

If you’d told me a few weeks ago that I’d be going to Abidjan in Ivory Coast, I would also have been very surprised.

A last-minute invitation to speak at a sustainable finance conference meant that I quickly packed my bags and ignored the hypocrisy of travelling so far for one speech (joking aside, my intervention (or at least the organisation I was representing) can have an impact in the mid-term, honestly!).

In the short period of time I had before travelling, I did my usual online research to see what I might get to see, to do and where I could run. And then I checked another website. And then another. And another. And I checked with people who’d been before. I found new websites and scoured Google Maps. And then, well, I guess I accepted that there may be a reason why this city isn’t on the tourist trail after all.

To be clear, the people are lovely and very welcoming, and I feel very bad about being critical here but … well, the city REALLY doesn’t have a huge amount to offer in terms of tourism.

The St Paul’s Cathedral

To kick things off, it’s a major city and, like many large African (or non-African, for that matter) cities, the traffic is mostly horrific and, well, they aren’t all driving modern hybrids or electric cars: the air quality is, shall we say, sub-optimal.

In most other over-crowded and/or polluted cities I’ve been to, it is what it is (I’m not going to start judging communities for doing their best with limited resources) but there’s usually something to see, a nice walk, a panorama, a posh part of town, some ancient historical buildings, some beach paths, some … well, someTHING!  

I’m stretching the truth to say there was nothing (in a literal sense) to see but this is basically the low-down: there’s a big church on one of the hills. There’s a national park forest off a motorway north of the city but the accessible paths are dirt tracks for cars rather than trails and there’s no wildlife to see, just a thick forest. And there are beaches south of the city, but it can take more than an hour by car (for a 10km journey) to get there so you’re unlikely to pop there for your evening jog.

The Banco National Park

Add to this the fact that the city is built on old marshland/lagoons and it’s humid all day long and all year round.

So, all in all, I’ve drawn a pretty grotty picture of Abidjan. I’d love to now say “aha, and the twist is that I discovered this amazing running heaven hidden around a corner” but I didn’t. It’s a shit place to run. My sincere apologies to the inhabitants of Abidjan for my views, though I don’t think this statement will come as a surprise to anyone from there.

Based on my (admittedly limited) experience, they are nice, hard-working people doing the most with what a colonial past followed by some overnight abandonment by the French, its recent political history, its natural conditions, a changing climate and general regional poverty has thrown at them and who are building a better future for their country … just not for its runners (and so they shouldn’t!).

Streets of Abidjan

In terms of runs, I was about to get out for a couple of very early morning runs (for a total of 9km .. I was actually quite busy otherwise!) around the nicer (and quieter at that time in the morning) streets near the hotel. This is also the area where many embassies are (or at least I think they are, as they were hidden behind huge walls and guarded gates), so it was definitely one of the nicer parts of town.

The nicer streets near the embassies

To run any further than a few hundred meters, you need to head into some of the little community centres nearby which certainly got me a few strange looks though at least I wasn’t doing my morning karate training like two guys I went past were! Town centre = slightly sketchier pavements/buses’ wing-mirrors flying past your head too.

Karate Kids

This said, it certainly felt safe overall to run, other than feeling like I was going to drop dead from the heat/humidity at 6am!

I do, however, have one cool story from Abidjan: the bats. Millions of them! They migrate daily from a southern part of the town towards the national park to the north. I saw a few birds in the sky which caught my attention. Then I realised my whole patch of sky had birds. Then I thought I should be careful looking up at birds so I don’t get poo in my eyes. Then I looked up in the distance, and they were EVERYWHERE. Millions of them. It was incredible, and exciting too: at the time, I first had no idea what was going on and then I wondered if I had stumbled upon a once-a-year event! As it happened, it was a twice-a-day event (hence why no locals cared about it), but still!

Millions upon millions of bats

It took me entirely by surprise and I think that’s what made it so exciting. If I’d known to expect millions of bats, I would have probably seen them, thought that it was indeed quite cool but certainly not felt anything magical or child-like curiosity.

And maybe that’s the lesson here: despite all the (admittedly rushed) planning, despite the lack of plans, there’s can always be magic around the corner and beauty in the smallest of things!

The other lesson being not to go to Abidjan for a touristy holiday.

Oh, and one final lesson: don’t eat washed but uncooked veg. My bowels. My poor, poor bowels.

Scenery

Temperature