The Togo that gains altitude.

The place

What Kpalimé tells you

You leave Lomé and the road climbs. In two and a half hours you go from flat coastline to the wooded slopes of the Kloto massif, with villages clinging to the hillsides and terraced fields. It is the only place on the trip where you reach for a jumper in the morning.

Mount Agou, Togo’s highest point at 986 m, takes two to three hours from the base village. The path crosses Ewe hamlets and plantations; on a clear day you can see Ghana to the west. The summit itself holds a communications relay and access is restricted: you stop just below it, which takes nothing away from the view.

The Kpimé waterfall calls for an honest word. A hydroelectric dam built in 1962 holds the water upstream: in the height of the dry season the fall is often reduced to a trickle. After the rains it regains its full force. We tell you what state it is in before taking you there — and if it is dry, we head to Womé instead, 7 km from Kpalimé, whose pool is a forty-five-minute walk away.

The rest happens in the plantations. Plateau coffee grows between 600 and 900 m; you follow the coffee cherry through to drying, and the cocoa pod through to fermentation. These are family holdings, not demonstration farms.