Togo measures just 56 km across at its narrowest, a thin vertical country wedged between Ghana and Bénin. The size is deceptive; the range inside it is wide.

Lomé, the coastal capital, has a working lighthouse from 1902, a cathedral built during the German colonial period, and the Akodessewa fetish market, where traders in Vodoun ritual objects come from across the region. German, French, and West African histories sit on the same block.

The northwest changes the picture. Around Kpalimé, coffee and cocoa farms spread over forested hills, waterfalls drop through rainforest gullies, and Mont Agou, the country’s highest point at 986 metres, clears the cloud line on bright mornings. Togoville, reachable only by canoe across Lake Togo, holds the cathedral Pope John Paul II visited in 1985, still the most isolated cathedral on the continent.