Ask most Americans to point to Togo on a map and you'll get a shrug — or a joke about a sandwich chain. Ask about Côte d'Ivoire and the odds improve slightly, mostly on account of its cocoa. Ghana, at least, tends to ring a bell. But spend real time along this stretch of the Gulf of Guinea and the borders start to feel almost arbitrary, because they are. A line drawn in a European conference room in the 1880s decided that Ghana would speak English and Togo would speak French,

About ninety minutes from Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire's bustling economic capital, lies the resort town of Assinie-Mafia — nestled between ocean and lagoon, with nearly twenty miles of unspoiled shoreline. Le Bahia Hôtel During my last few days in Côte d'Ivoire, my cousin took me on a trip to the idyllic Assinie beach, referred to as the “Saint Tropez of Africa.” The ocean breezes, vanilla sands, blue skies and azure waters embraced us upon arrival. For the following days, we did

Côte d'Ivoire — the Ivory Coast — takes its name from the ivory trade that once ran along this stretch of gorgeous coastline between the 15th and 17th centuries, back when the coast's wealth was measured in tusks instead of cocoa. French is still the official language here, and Abidjan, its capital, is the third-largest French-speaking city on Earth. Care to guess what the first is? It isn't in France. Unlike most of my trips, this one wasn't about tourism. I came to Abidjan