Australia day - lagos style

Just a quick note to let you know that we didn't forget the Australia day weekend over here on the dark continent. Had a good old fashioned BBQ down at the beach at a place called grooveland - can't remember if any actual grooving happened, you know how these things are...

Did have a quick game of cricket though (well, it took half an hour to get everyone together and about 5 mins to play, but hey...)

The Aussies in Lagos (well, about 6 aussies and a whole bunch of other people)

chef for a day



making new friends

shifting a couple of cold ones...

don't work too hard

a relaxing end to the day

Road Trip Day 9 - Kaduna to Abuja

Our last day on the road!!

Today was a pretty easy day - a short 2hr drive down to Abuja to catch an evening flight back to Lagos.

The fuel shortage was still holding everyone up, with crowds of people starting to loose patience at having to wait days for petrol. Unfortunately, unless they wanted to pay tow or three times the price and buy at black market prices, then everyone could do nothing but wait...

For some reason, everyone really seems to take pride in their roundabouts in Nigeria. The rest of the road infrastructure can be falling to bits and they'll be spending money on blokes cleaning concrete and planting new flowers and grass in these bloody roundabouts!! Here's a couple of architectural masterpieces in Kaduna, painted patriotically in the colours of the Nigerian flag...

they really like their football around here!

So, back on the highway down to Abuja, and no surprises, there was plenty of stuff going on...

This is a prototype of a new car run on bio fuels made entirely of grass...

Now, you see some stupid sh!t on the roads around here, but this takes the cake. We were doing well over a hundred when we caught up to these guys... unbelievable

Zuma rock is a rather imposing rock on the side of the road as you approach Abuja from the North. We'd been on our way there at the start of the trip when we started leaking fuel - but after driving 2000km we'd made it(the long way!) Apparently there's supposed to be somewhere to stop and have a look around and whatnot, but typically, there was nothing to be seen so we just pulled of the side of the road for a few snaps...

(click on the photo for the full size version)

We'd been reading a bunch of stuff from the Abuja branch of the Nigerian Field Society (we're members of the Lagos group). They suggested all sorts of villages around Abuja that do pottery and weaving etc that you could drive to. We had the instructions on how to get to a few places, but as there's no real roads - let alone signage etc - the directions only ever consist of "turn left at the third mango tree past a mud hut on your left..." Problem is, if someone cuts down the mango tree or the mud house falls down (which happens all the time), then you've got no idea where you're going.

Believe it or not, that happened to us!! So after driving through the bush for an hour or so we gave up and headed in to Abuja for lunch. We'd heard of an area that had a few places that you could get decent chop so we figured why not? On arriving there, though, we discovered that the local government in their infinite wisdom had decided to bulldose the entire area. All that was left was empty land and piles of rubble - a whole city block worth!! Luckily there was a little general store / bakery / Mr biggs near by.

Unperturbed by our complete lack of success for today, we headed back out into the countryside to try and find one of these villages that specialized in pottery. We won't bore you with the details, but it goes something like this (might sound familiar): drove around in the middle of nowhere, no signs, asked for directions, locals had no clue, kept driving around...

Anyway, we made if to small village called Ushafa, and despite it being Sunday afternoon a villager was more than happy to show us around their little pottery workshop. Unfortunately no-one else was really doing any work and it didn't look like much had been happening for a couple of months. Regardless, this guy was extremely nice and fired up his little pottery wheel to show us how it's done...

This guy was really good on the pottery wheel. In literally under a minute he'd knocked up this little pot "there you go!", sure... it's just that easy

After another wild goose chase looking for somewhere to buy some of the pots the local villages make (they didn't have any at Ushafa), we were all knackered and just needed to kill a couple of hours before the flight. Best place to do that? Why the local Hilton Hotel of course!! After staying in dingy 3 by 4 shoe boxes and having bucket showers for the last week, we thought that it might be interesting to see what expats get up to in Abuja - bad move. Covered in dust and not smelling too fresh, we ere surrounded by ultra white people lazing around pools and wasting money while the local "boys" waited on them hand and foot. The whole thing would probably make an interesting social experiment, but we were more concerned that we were now paying $6 for a beer, rather than the $1.50 longnecks we'd been enjoying.

The end of a long, but very rewarding drive through Northern Nigeria. We know we'll never do it again, and that our next break will be out of the country to somewhere slightly more relaxing. But unlike so many folk in Lagos, at least we gave it a go and saw pretty much every side of Nigeria we could - and survived in one piece!

Road Trip Day 8 - Kano, Zaria, Kaduna

After some fun in Kano it was time again to hit the road. It was pleasantly surprising to find through the North that things were not as bad as everyone down in Lagos always made out. There's always a risk of things flaring up anywhere in Nigeria - even Africa for that matter - but we had no problems at all. If anything, the police in Kano were really helpfull and gave us directions and stuff all the time without hastle. In Lagos you don't stop to talk to a cop unless you really really have to (or you're stupid...)

So we hit the road for the short 3hr drive down to kaduna, stopping at a small city called Zaria for lunch. As usual on the road you get to see all sorts of fun stuff. Whilst the scenery is not much to behold, the people are always up to something.

Drying peppers on the freeway (people were whizzing past well over 100kph)


Fruit and veg heading for the south - no wonder it's all squashed by the time it gets to Lagos with a bunch of hitchhikers sitting on top...

This kind young man was offering good luck chickens to passers by. I prefer my drive through chicken to be deep fried with eleven herbs and spices... oh well.

To escape being sold by the side of the road, weaver birds create massive fortifications up in trees so that you can't catch them

We stopped in at Zaria which is another old capital like Kano and the emir is supposed to have a really palace. Unfortunately for us it was Saturday, and though we had a go at asking, the emir didn't take visitors on the weekend so we just got to stare from the outside - funky little pad

The emirs psychedelic palace

the markets in Zaria

Like all the other old cities up here, Zaria was once a walled city. Amazingly some of the original mud brick wall survives, despite the locals doing absolutely nothing to protect theses fragile structures that are pushing 500 years. This one had in fact become a small goat-holding area.

Another hour or so down the road and we came to kaduna, our stop for the night. Kaduna is not really famous for anything (apart from it having one of the four oil refineries in Nigeria that don't work anymore... yeah? don't ask. The fancy English bloke who used to run this neck of the woods - Lord lugard - apparently still has his original house here. However, as they are now using it for the house of Reps here you can't get near the place without a lot of hastle. So we just checked into our Hotel the Gloria Moria (great name!! I'm assuming they were going for Maria but rhyming with Gloria...) I tell you, you never get sick of the strange looks people give you when you turn up as a white person and want to stay at their hotel - as though whities surely would only ever want to stay at a $400 an Hilton or something? By now we were all knackered from 8 days of driving around so after the usual chicken and rice and a quick bucket shower it was off to bed.

the view from the Gloria Moria on Sunday Morning

Road Trip Day 7 - Kano

We'd made it to Kano. The old capital of the North that had been hosting traders from across the Sahara for over 1000years and one of the centres of Islam in the North. It is also in one of the twelve states of the north that have adopted sharia law. I guess this was the one thing on our minds and Chris, being a Christian Igbo from Enugu, wasn't super happy about the place. He stayed with his uncle who was a local trader who still kept a shotgun under his counter after the Sharia riots of 2003 and the violence early last year. Meanwhile we stayed in what was supposed to be a good hotel but turned out to be nothing more than a mozzie trap. Somehow, as soon as the sun went down our room was filled with literally thousands of mosquitoes that came from nowhere - didn't really make for a good night's sleep. Ordering dinner was easy though. We were too tired to go out after the days drive from yankari so we just went to the "restaurant" at the hotel. again it was only us in there and the girl that eventually came to see what we wanted, replying matter of factly after we asked for a menu "yes we have food - chicken and rice" - "I guess we'll have that then" we replied with gusto - best jollof rice and chicken I've had for ages. Just no sign of any alcohol (except for the beer's we'd hidden in our room

Anyway, all that aside. Kano, being the commerce centre of the North and a power in Sub-Saharan Africa for so many years, we were keen to have a look around. The old city, in the middle of town, now surrounded by sprawl was formally walled, and most of the gates to the Old City survive in one state or another - this one's sponsored by Milo!!

In the middle of the Old City is the huge Kurmi Market, now known for its crafts and whatnot - but also a major centre for sub-Saharan slave trade to the Arabs (some of the old salve quarters were still there). It was an amazing old market - complete with the original open sewers running meters below your feet as you crossed rickety little bridges. I wish we had some photos, but like any crowded area in Nigeria, you're asking for serious trouble taking photos of people, so here's on I managed to find on the net - thanks Gary Cook

Kurmi market is a labyrinth of little alleyways barely wide enough to walk through so we parked the car out of the way and got some local boys to watch the car while some others offered to show us around. We managed to pick up some beautiful woven cloth, leather stuff, and some traditional Fulani hats (kinda like a pointy sombrero with leather on it - quite cool). Luckily we were there before it really fired up so we could get around without much hastle and the vendors were easy to haggle with. The meat market hadn't started - thank god - so we only had to walk through the flow blown stains of the previous days trade - no one's heard of refrigeration in these markets.

Down the road, some old dye pits still operate under a cooperative and we managed to find the head of the co-op to show us around. He had great English so we didn't have to stumble through broken pidgin and Chris's hausa and he was happy for us to take photos if we dashed everyone a few naira. It was quite amazing to see this group of old craftsmen dying in the same pits (clay lined hole in the ground) that they'd been using for the best part of 500 years!!

they still use the original method of indigo sticks and potash to dye cloth

they had some awesome indigo tie-dye stuff

The guy that was showing us around also took us back to his house where the women do the tying an weaving of the cloth. It seems that the women stay indoors and do this while the men do the actual dyeing outdoors in the nearby pits.

After a lot of walking we all needed some lunch, so we headed back to a bakery we'd passed earlier to find some lunch - bloody good falafel and shwarmas from a Lebanese bloke - most impressed. For some reason up north there's bakeries everywhere (unlike Lagos that has only a hand full - all aimed at rich expats and stocked with terrible bread)

Only problem was that Kano - being the centre of commerce and all - it's traffic is terrible!! And not knowing your way around, you kinda end up going with the traffic flow even though you really should be going "over there"

Kano "go slow"

plastic market

even the commerce of begging was well organised...

Friday prayers at the central mosque in Kano regularly pull over 10,000 people, shutting down the local streets for blocks. Unfortunately it just happens that it's down the road from the museum which is built in the old emirs palace. It didn't seem like a good idea that a bunch of Christians from out of town should try and plough through the middle of a prayer session, so we waited it out, having a slow lunch - before heading back after it was all over.

Kano Central Mosque after Friday prayers

The museum was amazing and a guy offered to show us around - which in itself is particularly special (anyone will try and offer you their services for a dash of some kind) - but this guy was actually good, and I mean really good. Rather than just making up answers, lying or pretending not to hear / understand when we asked questions - this guy knew the answers. I remember last year we were climbing this mountain (really just one massive rock) at a place called idanre and we had to "hire" an "official" guide or they wouldn't let us climb - so when we're at the top of this rock I asked the guy how old he thought it might be. After a brief pause he looked at me and said "100 years" as though he knew everything. Anyway, if you're ever in Kano recommend the museum - goes through all the stuff on the jihad and the British occupation

The Emir's palace in Kano

After a long day wandering around, we swapped hotels to a fancy Lebanese place (if you hadn't noticed the Lebanese have been in Nigeria since the Brits left and own pretty much everything). We even got the choice of a room with carpet!! It was the carpeted first room we had been in since we were last in oz - awesome....

The guide book that we had - which was only a year old - suggested an Indian place not far from the hotel. Problem was, when we turned up it wasn't there anymore! There's only one guidebook for this country and it's completely useless!! GREAT. Luckily the security guard thought that it was over on another road - after driving around for a while it was pure luck that we saw a small sign pointing down a side street and we finally found it. Although the place was booked out for a function, the young Indian guy running the place said we could sit outside and have a meal. When asked what we'd like to drink we looked a bit sheepish, hoping for something stronger than orange juice. When he asked if we want a beer we heaved a great sigh of relief - like so many laws (well, actually every law) in this country, everyone breaks them and no one seems to care. So we heartily tucked into some bloody good home cooked Indian and a couple of beers all for the price of loaf of bread in Lagos! amazing

We've finally found something worth learning! Suya is basically meat on a stick. So when we're back in Oz, you may refer to us as Doctor's Guise and McCowan (PhD Meatology) mmm....

Road Trip Day 6 - Yankari to Kano

We left Yankari on the long drive north through Sahel country, across a couple of states to the historic capital of the North - Kano

Yankari had been great fun, but there was the lingering thought that the massive new resort they were building would never be used. As the poachers only saw fit to shoot the "good" animals, leaving only bands of marauding baboons, there wasn't ever going to be anything to see that couldn't be done with much more ease in Kenya, Tanzania, Sth Africa and twenty other countries...

a traditional bee hive used for honey production

Strangely, even though the sun beat down and everything was on it's last legs in the dry season, it was surprisingly cool - 20 degrees or so in the dessert..

washing by the river

there's a car under there somewhere


Bauchi

on the way to market

There are huge clay brick pits dotting the landscape in the North. Further south, the houses would never survive the rains in the wet season.

Road Trip Day 5 - Yankari Game Reserve

So the moment had come to actually see some real animals living in the wild in Nigeria (that is animals that are tided to power poles for sale to any taker. We had the option of taking our own car or joining a couple of Dutch women who had been in Nigeria for only two weeks (one of those staying at Yankari - why? I have no idea). Consider our luck and the obvious pounding the rangers cars in the car park had taken we opted to join the tour...

We were now officially on our first Safari!!

In the most of the rest of Africa the Swahili word "safari" means "journey". In the old days this was a "journey" to go and shoot the biggest thing you could find and get the locals that were carrying you around to lug it back to your place so you could stick it up on the wall in the pool room. These days its a very eco-friendly, technological affair where you stay in "tents" that are decked out like a marquee at the Melbourne Cup and have air-con and cruise around in special tour buses.

In Nigeria, the word "safari" basically means "hold on tight, we're gonna tear around in the bush with no real goal in mind and if you see any animals just yell stop!! - though I doubt we'll see any animals anyway because a few years back someone else went on safari and shot most of them..."

Fair enough...

Harmattan sunrise in Yankari

So after tearing around the bush in this old land rover that was born before I was, we'd seen a few Needbok and antelope looking thingys (that's their scientific name...) and the usual baboons etc. We somehow came across a pride of lionesses sitting in the dead bush, looking quite hungry - there isn't much around in the dry season. But, like us, they hadn't seen much else for a while so they thought they'd come an have a chat.

here kitty...

They looked hungry... how strong are these doors again?

Plenty of elephant shit but no elephants. Does kitty know something we don't??

The guide bravely drove over tress and smashed through bush on our "eco-friendly" tour, looking for elephants - unfortunately to no avail. But we were pleased to the lions. Apparently they hadn't seen any since before Christmas. Chris hadn't ever seen a lion before - he comes from jungle territory in the east where anything larger than a gnat has been killed and eaten years ago.

After all this excitement it was still only about 7:30 so we had the day to kill down by the hot springs - the main attraction at yankari. Amazing, groundwater - bright blue from minerals - comes out the bottom of this cliff at quite a current - and they're warm!! So on a cold morning it was perfect.

A few hours and beers later, we'd been lying by the springs catching up on some reading and figured we should go back to the campsite for lunch. George got to spend some quality time with our neighbours!! The local building workers just throw rocks and bits of timber with nails at the baboons to stop them stealing their tools, however us white folk hadn't evolved that far yet, still trying to be nice.

Unfortunately baboons are like children who just keep pushing something until it breaks. In this case our tent. It was great fun for them to jump out of a nearby tree and land on our tent - kind of like a jumping castle. So while we were lying by the creek, they were at the campsite perfecting the "tent bomb"...

Given enough time, these guys would turn the space shuttle into a box of spare parts. Problem is, they're smart! And I mean smart. Once they see you do something they'll remember it. So George had to wait for them to go before unzipping the tent otherwise, they'd learn how to get in - which thankfully they never learned how to do. they did however, try the door handles on the car while George was inside trying to get us some lunch. Sneaky little f*#kers !!

The local builders had no interest in helping us. I think they we're still trying to work out why the hell two white folk would set up a tent in the middle of a building site. Good question I guess. but the baboons got bored and left when they realised that there was no food and the tent had fallen down so the "tents bombs" didn't have a soft landing anymore...

Deputy Sheriff Poombah lends a hand getting rid of the baboons