Laila Abdulayya Abrayu grew up in Benin and as a little girl went to visit this famous

photo in Temple.

My first fresh memory, I probably was the age of maybe nine or ten and when I went there

is because my dad had friends visiting from Europe and it was an opportunity for us to

go and show them part of Benin and that was one of the places he always been sure that

any person we have coming to visit goes to see because it leaves an impression on you.

It leaves an impression because this isn't your typical temple.

This is the Temple of Pythons, a 300-year-old temple that is a spiritual home to practitioners

of Odun, an African spiritual system whose roots go back thousands of years.

The temple is also home to dozens of actual pythons.

My name is Bodalair and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible

and wondrous places.

Today, we're going to southern Benin to the city of Wida to hear the story of the Temple

of Pythons and clear up some misconceptions about one of the world's most misunderstood

spiritual systems.

More, after this.

Laila Abdulaya Breu started a blog about Benin and its culture in 2014 and one of the places

she featured with the Temple of Pythons, which is why I called her up.

Before we even got to talking about the temple or its snakes, she gave me some context

about Wida.

He has more like a farm setting that is a little bit modernized just because a lot of people

tend to go and visit it so they've made enough of good amount of money from tourism.

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