Guy Catherine is a broad-shouldered, bear of a man. "Top up?" he asks, brandishing a gin bottle and pouring a slug before I have time to protest. It's midday and I'm sprawled on the back deck of a 1920s colonial railroad car, listening to crickets trilling over a panting engine, and watching green savanna fall away behind me.
Guy takes a swig from his own glass and settles into a chair to tell me the story of how he sailed from France to west Africa in the 1970s, arrived in Benin via Togo, opened his first guesthouse and eventually bought his beloved railroad cars for the equivalent price in scrap metal. I listen in gin-soaked contentment as the train rattles northwards and the landscape begins to change, thirsty savanna thickening into lush forest.
Sipping G&Ts on a private train isn't quite how I'd envisaged my first day in Benin, not least because, thanks to underfunding and lack of demand, passenger rail travel has as good as ceased to exist here. When I stepped off the plane in Cotonou, Benin's largest city and economic capital, the lack of tourist infrastructure was immediately evident. This small, club-shaped, Francophone country sandwiched between Togo and Nigeria has little in the way of timetables, bureaux de change or buses from the airport. Nothing runs on time (if it runs at all), and if you plan to do one thing, you'll almost certainly end up doing another.
But if you take this in your stride, Benin is a culturally intriguing place, home to more than 50 African ethnicities and languages. In 1991 it was the first west African nation to move peacefully from dictatorship to democracy, and has recently benefited from a series of economic reforms. But it is also a country where the memories of ancient dynasties linger, and where traditional beliefs die hard – as seen in the voodoo shrines and fetish markets.
Benin's guesthouses are mostly rustic, simple and affordable, and Guy, originally from Paris, owns the lion's share of them. His Auberge de Grand Popo, two hours from Cotonou and set around restored colonial buildings, captures the laid-back spirit of southern Benin, with simple bamboo cottages and a thatched restaurant, shaded by palms, facing a yellow stretch of empty Atlantic coast.
Grand Popo, a fishing village near the Mono estuary and the Togo border, is in the heart of voodoo country. Local Fa diviners are very active here, and in the nearby voodoo settlement of Hévé I witnessed a potent, disturbing ceremony in honour of zangbeto spirits, the nightwatchmen, in which men swallowed shards of glass and women spun themselves into a fever.
Also nearby is the fishing village of Ganvié, established in the 16th century by the Tofinu tribe, fleeing their slave-trading Dahomeyan neighbours. Sprawled across the waters of Lake Nokoué, Ganvié is a place where the clock has stopped.
At the other end of the country, 650km to the north, Auberge de Kandi is set in a greener, lusher, hillier landscape. The train doesn't go as far as this diminutive farming town close to the Nigerian border – we drive there from Parakou – but it is worth a visit for its proximity to the million-acre Parc Régional W, which teems with buffalo, warthogs, elephants and more than 350 species of bird. Ganvié and Parc W are two of Benin's main tourist draws – but I share my visit with just a handful of travellers, mostly from France.
Guy has three other properties along the line – Auberge de Abomey, Auberge de Dassa Zoumé and Auberge de Parakou. The first is a stately colonial building, the second a laid-back place with billiards table and pet ostrich, and the last is leafy and green with internal gardens and sweeping terraces. But Benin's roads are potholed at best, impassable at worst, which is where the private train comes in handy.
There used to be two passenger trains a day travelling the 600km narrow-gauge track from Cotonou to Parakou, but today the line is used only by freight trains. In beautiful, ramshackle 1920s stations, the billetterie is forever fermé, and a solitary station master might doze the day away on a seat in the shade.
An undeterred Guy purchased two colonial-era carriages on a whim three years ago, initially for "a laugh" and to take camping trips with his family. From this autumn, however, the train will be available for hire by hotel guests. I board the train with Guy, his son Charlie, his Beninese wife, another guest and a driver. First stop is to visit Abomey, old capital of the feared Dahomey kingdom and still crowded with royal palaces and haunted by the ghosts of bloodthirsty kings.
The route passes through 20 stations on its way through rainforest into the hills. All along the route, village children in traditional pagne wraps pop out of the undergrowth to wave at the train. At Dassa Zoumé, further up the line, the streets are busy with vendors selling bananas, drums of fuel, and fat bags of cardamom and tapioca. Walking north out of town we explore the surrounding sacred hills. Dotted with shrines to voodoo divinities, they are also, strangely, home to the largest Christian pilgrimage site in west Africa.
At the end of the line is Parakou – the name means "everyone's city" – a busy market town, home to cotton, peanut oil and textile plants, and to many ethnic groups.
For all of this diversity, it is Guy who really makes my journey. A warm character with a big sense of humour, he regales me with stories, cracks jokes and makes sure my glass is never anything but full. In a jokey reference to France's Trains à Grande Vitesse (TGV), Guy describes his version as Train à Grande Vibration. It's true that despite the comforts of a bedroom (for afternoon naps – you can't yet stay overnight), bathroom, bar, and back platform strewn with hammocks, the ride is anything but smooth. At top speed the train reaches 50kmph, breakdowns are common, and safety measures consist of a conductor with good eyesight watching out for freight trains hurtling the other way.
But in Benin, that's part of the parcel. Don't come looking for luxury hotels and smooth service. The charm is in its decay, coupled with its optimism and slow regeneration.
