Blogs from Nigeria, Africa - page 7

How Far Now? (Nigerian Broken English for "How are you doing?") Arrived into Lagos, Nigeria on Monday from Cairo (after going to bed at 1 am to witness the European Soccer Championships and getting up at 2 am to catch a 6 am flight). We took a puddle jumper to Abuja and met up with our man Abbas Abubakar at the airport. That night we ate a traditional Nigerian meal with Abbas' boss at his home. The meal included Mui Mui (pounded yam), Chicken Pepper Soup (didn't affect us then, but our paying the price dearly now), Elephant Fish and potatoes. That night we went to the local nightspot The Clubhouse, smoked a shisha and had a couple Star Lagers (local beer of Nigeria). Tuesday saw us explore the capital of Abuja a little more. We ... read more

Referring to the title - well, you could first of all get yourself and your mode of transportation to somewhere in Nigeria where you can fix it.....lets try the capital city of Abuja. After spending the night in Ekom I got up on my Birthday before 5am and walked to the bus/taxi stop (they call them Parks here, i.e. Taxi Park) to organise transport to Abuja, the capital of Nigeria. Still with no internet access that was our best guess as to where they might have parts or at least parts could be sent to us. Some taxi drivers suggested that I put the motorbike on the roof of their taxi, "It won't damage it. This roof holds 500kg!" Well, I wasn't going to put money on that one so decided on the next best option ... read more

One of the real bright spots that we encountered in Nigeria was the Drill Ranch conservation project in the Afi Mountains. Drill Monkeys are one of the most endangered monkey species due to hunting and habitat destruction. The conservation project has a breeding and re-hab centre in Calabar and then the Monkeys are taken to the Drill Ranch in the rain forest of the Afi Mountains where they are prepared to be released back into the wild. The project employs local people and interacts with the nearby villages by using local produce to feed the animals. They truely are doing some good work. We began our day with a tour of the larged fenced enclosures where we could observe the Drill Monkeys and Chimpanzees. We then went for a canopy walk in the rain forest, followed ... read more

Well, this isn’t exactly how I’d planned to write my blog, but unfortunately it’s the way it’s panned out! Lack of internet access, lack of bandwidth when you do have the internet (one dial-up connection shared between four people anybody??), and lack of electricity through constant power cuts over the last 6 weeks or so mean that its been impossible to keep up to date with this blog. So rather than try and kill myself writing up entry after entry now that I’ve eventually found an internet café, I’m going to scrap the hurried bits and pieces I’ve started and let the photos tell the story, while I concentrate on mentioning my highlights and impressions of West Africa! (By the way, I don’t plan to continue like this for the entire trip, but hope - ... read more

Hello all, just a quick entry to let you know I'm alive and well. Having enjoyed the luxuries of air conditioning and pizza at Frankie's in Accra, and then the party atmosphere of Big Milly's on the coast in Ghana, things have been a bit less fun. For a start I was really ill as we left Ghana, I have never felt so sick in all my life. Thank god for all the lovely people on the trip with me who gave me sympathy and medical advice. I think I sampled every petrol station toilet between Accra and the Togo border during two horrendous driving days! I also had the fright of my life at the Togo border when I was searching for the toilet down a dark corridor and came face to face with a ... read more