Burkina Faso and Benin are two of the most unknown and authentic black African countries. Ideal places to start a trip with an open mind and without prejudgements. A trip crossing the gate into another era of different spiritual and social conceptions. They are part of that Africa that despite its obscene poverty, it conquers you through your senses, through the color whirlwind that are their markets, through the innate elegance of their women - always slender, always mothers- and through their sorcerers, who invoke the protection of the ancestors with rituals of blood and magic.

Both countries share an extraordinary architecture, traditionally built in clay and straw, unique in the world for its design and symbolism. Both, the ‘sukalas’ of the Lobi people in Burkina and ‘tata somba’ of Benin, were conceived as small fortresses to protect from intruders, wild beasts, and slave hunters from the kingdom of Dahomey. They are surrounded by fetishes and anthropomorphic figures to protect the family amid an animistic world, where the dead are respectfully revered.

The real spell begins once the narrow and single door to access its interior has been crossed. It is a black world in perpetual semi-darkness with a phantasmagorical atmosphere of blue smoke and soot. Firewood burns under pots of brass and clay, there are beautiful stairs made of carved steps from wooden logs and the light coming through the holes in the roof outlines the beauty of their dwellers. One feels the sensation of sharing an ancient world that is in danger of extinction. Despite its tragic and magical contradictions, Africa always manages to bewitch and surprise you