Road Trip Day 4 - Jos to Yankari

I've explained earlier that there's no point in asking for directions in Nigeria. Unfortunately as there's no maps, street signs (or even actual delineated streets most of the time) you don't have much choice. We were keen to go out for dinner to a Lebanese place that was written up in a few guide books of the area. The expats in Jos are old school traders who have been here for ages (we'd found a few others at the Plateau - an Indian trading in goat hides and a Korean bloke who was making lots of money doing something or other). Anyway, this Lebanese place was supposed to be really good, so we thought we'd give it a go.

The guidebook said it was a few hundred metres past a certain place that we had driven past earlier in the day, so it didn't seem like too much of a hastle. On problem is, that absolutely NOTHING has a sign out the front in this place - everything is hidden behind 8ft concrete walls (and most restaurants are built in houses anyway so you never know where they are...)

Anyway, after driving past this place a few times like the book told us we had no idea where it was. So we had to stop and ask for directions. We pulled into the car park of a Mr Biggs (local fast food franchise) figuring they might know of other local eateries. We rolled up to a young bloke who was watching the cars in the car park. It went something like this:

"Good evening"

"Good evening"

"How is it?" "Please can you helps us"

"Yes"

"We are looking for a restaurant..."

[blank stare]

"... a place to eat near here. Do you know any?"

"yes"

"do you know a Lebanese place called the Cedar Tree?"

[Blank Stare]

"it's a restaurant near here.. a place to eat near here"

"um... yes, you can eat here, at Mr Biggs"

"No, not here.. near here... on this road... somewhere"

"oh"

"yes, do you know anywhere else that is not Mr Biggs?"

"yes"

"where"

"just there" he says pointing next door to a place which looked like a bar or something called something that was definitely not Cedar Tree

"no we are looking for a place to eat... it's Lebanese... it's just near here"

"but you can eat here at Mr Biggs..."

"So you don't know this place we're talking about?

"yes"

We had to give up, try driving one more time, rather than the few hundred metres that the guide book suggested, a few km later we passed a place that looked like a restaurant (inside a compound). Believe it or not - it was closed for renovations, but the security guard suggested a place a few hundred metres back towards town (which actually was a few hundred metres back towards town on the other side of the road. $20 later we'd had a three course meal and a few beers!!! You'd barely get a beer and a waiter ignoring you for half an hour in Lagos for $20!!

After walking around town in the morning for a bit while Chris got some provisions for camping - and I must say it is really good to be able to actually walk around a place in this country without any problems!! - we loaded up and headed out on the road once more - destination Yankari a game reserve about 3hrs drive from Jos.

believe it or not, cultism is a real problem in universities in Nigeria..

Entering the town of Bauchi we need some more fuel -we just didn't have two weeks to waste sleeping in the car waiting for fuel to turn up. Now, I must say, while the country had been plunged into a "fuel crisis" and there were huge queues everywhere there was actually fuel everywhere (just twice the price) so there were plenty of filling stations operating illegally offering fuel at hugely inflated prices with no queues - unfortunately only the wealthy could afford to use them. It was cheaper for the locals to leave their cars in a line for a few days than pay for expensive fuel.

If it fits, they'll carry it

lunch by the side of the road

The fuel in bauchi was ludicrously expensive (by Nigerian standards - still cheaper than Oz) so we thought we'd take a punt and keep going. Unfortunately, there weren't any filling stations on the road out of Bauchi - for some reason they were all on one side of town. Eventually we came to a small village that was selling petrol on the road to yankari (just next to the middle of nowhere). Problem was, their generator was busted so there was no power to run the petrol pump. Chris assured us he was an expert mechanic and could get it sorted, so we sat peacefully by the road and watched the world go by while the local kids hid behind trees and walls and watched us watching the world go by

Chris was right, just by standing and watching another bloke covered in grease belt the generator with a hammer, he managed to get the gennie to start. We had fuel

We'd been told that Yankari - the only actual tourist attraction in the whole of Nigeria - was under construction and that there might be a few changes. I'd called their office in Bauchi a few times over the past month or so to make sure everything was ok and that we could camp. The answer, as always was "yes sir it's ok you can do that".

Unfortunately she wasn't quite right. What we thought would be a fairly quite place had been turned into the latest place for the Nigerian Government to waste millions of dollars of oil money. They were building a resort the size of something up on the gold coast that no one would ever visit. It started to make us think that maybe places like the Plateau Hotel in Jos had never actually had a hay day and hard started decaying the day they were finished...

Anyway, after going for a walk around the place with the guy in charge - a really nice bloke who completely agreed with us that this huge marble clad obscenity they were building was a waste of his tax dollars and that no one would ever come (but what could he do) - we found a place amongst all the building works down near the presidential lodge ( another obscene gesture of opulence). We would just have to share with the baboons and warthogs. Lucky we'd seen the Lion King and new that warthogs like poombah were happy go lucky fellas who enjoyed singing and dancing, despite them looking like something out of "razorback".

Road Trip Day 3 - Around Jos

We'd finally made it to Jos - the one city in Nigeria that all the locals seem to hold up as a beacon saying things like "it's not like Nigeria, it's cold up there" (and it was), and "everything is cheap up there, you can get good fruit and vegetables" (true again - most of the stuff we buy in Lagos has made the 14hr road journey from Jos - and normally suffered along the way).

So it was interesting to see so many remnants of a distant glorious past (back in the colonial days pre 1960) in this city that suggested this wealth that everyone had been talking about, but which no longer existed.

The hotel we stayed at - The Plateau Hotel - was a huge place with at least 100 rooms of various sizes, a big restaurant, pool etc. Sounds like paradise, and it probably was "back in the day" whenever that was... The pool hadn't seen use for years, as far as I could tell we were the only guests and the restaurant felt ludicrous with only tow people sitting amongst thirty empty tables. But like so many things around here, the locals didn't really seem to give a shit, that was just the way things were now - even they couldn't remember "the good old times" - if, at all, they were even "good".

the emptiness of the Plateau Hotel ...

even the restaurant suggested what might have been... once

Following the tradition of tourism in Nigeria, there were no real maps of the city and the guidebook we had suggested places to see that no one had really heard of or new their exact location. Our solution was to talk to some of the drivers hanging around the hotel asking for places to go, eventually co opting one to join us for the day as a guide. We had heard of some nice water falls in the area and suggested that they might be a good place to start. So after filling up the car again (there'd been another small petrol leak overnight which Chris managed to fix...[ it's funny I guess, some friends of our's were driving up through Niger (country North of Nigeria) in the desert and their car had exactly the same problems - fuel pump died TWICE!! what do you do?]

Anyway, this guy, all dressed in the only suit he owns - hoping and waiting in vain I guess for someone to require his services as a driver at some stage... one day... was to be our guide and politely told us of some falls he knew "down there" he vaguely waved to the south of Jos. It was a beautiful day, the first day the harmattan had cleared for weeks and the sun was out. We didn't really give a shit where we were going, the countryside was beautiful -away from the mess of jungle down where we live.

road to somewhere "down there"

amazing multicoloured dirt

a small clay hut village south of Jos

After a good two hour drive through no man's land we got to a village called, believe it or not, Kurra Falls - named after a hydro electric scheme the Brits had built before they'd packed up and left the place to sort itself out. Only problem was, no one knew of any Falls anywhere. A quick word of the wise - never ask for directions in a country where no one ever says "no". Even though someone may have no idea what you're talking about they'll give you an answer

"oh, it's just down there"

"Are you sure"

"Yes, Sir. It's just down there"

I'll tell you right now it is NEVER "just down there", it's probably not even anywhere near "there" ...

Some how, though, just past the village we came to the edge of a huge escarpment and found what looked to be the old hydro scheme. On getting out of the car, we found a bunch of local kids sitting around who, apart from wondering what the hell a couple of white folk were doing in the middle of nowhere, said that there were water fall here that they play at and they could show us if we wanted.

The Kurra Falls Hydro electric setup. The boys assured us that it all still worked

Walking down the escarpment

Falls!! (at last) and this is in the middle of the dry season. In the wet you wouldn't be able to get anywhere near this place. So for today it's just us, Chris, our guide in his best black suit on a 35 degree day, the boys who had nothing better to do, and a bunch of local monkeys...

I was hot I wasn't wearing a suit and jacket clambering over all these rocks...

The falls were awesome to say the least - we've got about 100 photos - too many to stick on the web. they just kept tumbling down the edge of the plateau and we spent a couple of hours rock hopping around with the boys. After more than enough sun and heat we staggered back to the car and gave the boys some water and some small money for their help - I think they were glad to have something to do (and a few good stories about crazy white folk from Lagos)

Crazy Clint's Discount Potato Mart - cheapest spuds in town!!

After a quick lunch at a little bakery in Jos run by an old Chinese bloke where we had some kind of veggie curry flavoured patty in a roll that was supposed to be a "burger" we were back on the road. The poor guide still had no idea of what to make of Chris, George and I - wondering why we were driving across Nigeria during a fuel shortage . They do say that timing is everything... whatever.

Next stop Shere Hills, a rocky outcrop overlooking Jos. Again, we weren't really sure where we were going, but it's kinda hard to miss a large bunch of boulders on the outskirts of town. I have no idea if there actually is a proper way of getting there, but we just drove towards them - through a small quarry - and parked in the bush when we could drive any further. From afar, the whole thing looked do-able. Five minutes later were clambering over these rocks - trying to get to the top - old faithful still in his funeral suit - man was he a trooper!

It got so steep (and by steep I mean basically vertical) that we had to call it quits half way up. At that point the guide was telling us that people normally bring climbing ropes and harnesses to climb this peak - all a bit effin late when you're halfway up and looking at the path you just climbed up you're wondering whether a bloody mountain goat would even be able to get down. Well at least I wasn't dressed for a wedding like our friend..

up on the rocks

panorama of Jos from Shere Hills (just click on it to open it up to full size)

The markets in Jos

Road Trip Day 2 - Abuja to Jos

Fingers crossed, we headed out of Abuja heading towards Jos. I think Chris was glad to leave after having no luck with the car, plus he just could not get the hang of Abuja traffic (or the lack of it), being used to darting around in Lagos with one hand on the horn the whole time quite empty roads were just a little too foreign.

We had got some info off the Abuja branch of the Nigeria Field Society and had hoped to get to a small village called Nok, the centre of the 2000yr+ Nok civilisation - one of the first in Nigeria (see here or here ). Unfortunately there are no phones out there so I had left messages on the phones of a couple of guides out that way, hoping they'd head to a major town and get reception (again fingers crossed)

Unlike the south, there's no jungle up here. Just lots of dry bush and cows

Local herdsmen (probably Fulani - they have big pointy hats like sombreros)

We got to Nok without much trouble after stopping to buy some sugarcane along the road for a snack. the poor kid selling the little pieces of raw sugar cane didn't look like he'd ever seen any white people before and couldn't speak English, he looked petrified. But 40c later we had our cane and he had money, all good.

At Nok, however, there was no sign of the museum we were looking for. After driving around (and this is a village that has no cars and definitely no whities) keeping the locals interested for an hour or so, we decided to give up. Everyone kept pointing down this one road to the "museum" which we drove past about five times before realising that they were building a new museum (not even close to being finished) and that this building site was all that they knew. We had no way of contacting the guides, so decided to just keep going to Jos. It was a beautiful, quite, peaceful village and everyone was very helpful - luckily Chris could speak Hausa coz english doesn't do much around here.

Cane harvest at Nok

When travelling long journeys it is advisable to carry provisions for the whole family...

We stopped at a road junction, and after being mobbed by the locals managed to get some bananas and peanuts and other fruit for lunch, but there was no way we could have lunch there. It's hard not to be the centre of attention when you're the only two white folk for miles. So we managed to find a quite spot under a tree a few km down the road and had a nice round of peanut and banana sangos - bloody good I must say.

Once we'd driven up onto the Jos plateau, the scenery (and people) seemed to change dramatically. It's basically flat as far as the eye can see, with these granite outcrops filled with lots of boulders popping out here and there. The locals used cactus as fences, creating these quite beautiful little villages of red mud brick houses with thatched roofs surround by cactus. Down south everything is made from bamboo and raffia palm (I think mud huts wouldn't survive the wet season)

Riyom Rock outside Jos

Like so many things around this country, this rail line (which used to link the tin mining and agricultural centres of the North down to the ports in the south) is no longer in use - and probably hasn't been used since the Brits left in 1960. There's run down infrastructure everywhere that could be used to transport all the food and fruit and veg (which mostly comes from this area) down to Lagos instead of using the overloaded trucks like they do at the moment which take a day or two to get to Lagos, half of the food wasted and off by the time it gets here - a real pity.

Road Trip Day 1 - Abuja

So, after an interesting start, we jumped on a plane up to Abuja courtesy the good people at Virgin Nigeria - the only flight we've taken anywhere around here that wasn't filled to the point of overflow - very nice!

Anyway, by the time we get up to Abuja, Chris is still trying to get the car fixed through some of the local Mobil guys, so we just catch a cab into town. Unlike Lagos cabs, this car was actually roadworthy, had air con and was quite reasonable. As it turns out, the whole of Abuja is like this - it's another planet! There's proper roads, not millions of people just wandering around, actual public transport (proper western buses with conductors and everything?). They've even banned okadas, so there's not thousands of motorbikes darting all over the roads and footpaths - yes that's right, they have footpaths too.

look, real roads with no traffic!

(i didn't take this one, but the centre of Abuja is very spiffy and in very diplomatic style has a massive mosque just down the road from a massive church, just in case you can't decide)

So while the car was still getting fixed, we checked in to the hotel - African Safari - cheesy name, cheap hotel what more can you want. It was in a nice quite suburb so we went for a wander through the local markets for a bit. When we got back, it was mid arvo and the car was supposedly fixed so we thought that we should at least have a little drive around town.

even out in the villages around town it's nice and clean (comparatively)

Unfortunately as it turned out, going for a drive maybe wasn't supposed to be on the cards for us. After only a few minutes driving, as we'd just got out of town on one of the motorways, we started smelling a really strong petrol smell. On pulling over, we realised that the car was leaking petrol! Just what you need on a road trip that just happens to coincide with a country wide fuel shortage!! Seriously, you can't make stuff like this up!

Anyway, it turns out that the guys that "fixed" the car hadn't done a very good job. So we called the local Mobil guy and he was nice enough to bring out the mechanic and give us a lift back to the hotel. All that was to be done now was sit on the balcony watching the sun go down, having a couple of beers... (three or four hours later Chris got back with the car, this time actually fixed)

We were all hoping that this wasn't a portent for the rest of the trip as we still had a good 2000km to cover and hadn't done more than 10km so far before coming to a grinding halt. Anyway, they say new days are supposed to bring new fortune, so after a quick bucket shower (many places don't have running water in the mornings so you have to stock up) it was off to bed on day 1...

the African safari

this guy has really good phones, apparently he can hook you up with the man upstairs...

Need more boot space on your Okada? Try the new Maxi-okada
(seriously, these guys were doing over 80 with no problems)

The things people do...

I think the guy that lives here never really got over being sacked from Nigerian Airways as a pilot. Legend has it he still sits up there making whooshing sounds late at night....

ROAD TRIP !!!

So we're off on our first proper Journey around Nigeria. Rather than escaping Africa like so many others do for their holidays (and I don't blame them), we thought that we should at least take one chance to look around this place and make sure that not everywhere is like Lagos.

We decided to do a big loop up North, heading into Hausa territory. We'd been told that it was a different country up there - even cold in some places - and every local we'd spoken to said that it would be a much better side of Nigeria, well worth doing.

The trip was basically a big loop from the capital Abuja, through the high plateau to Jos, on to the country's only real tourist attraction - a game reserve called yankari - then on to the old Northern capital of Kano (part of the sub-Saharan trade route for over 2000yrs) then back to Abuja through the emirates of Zaria and Kaduna. All up, about 1,500 km.

The first trick was to get Chris to drive the car up to Abuja to meet us so that we wouldn't have to waste two days driving through fairly boring southern Nigeria. That's where it all started...

"I should've know better..." It's one of those statements you make after the little bit of of hope you'd given to someone or something gets snuffed out. In this case it was Nigeria. The Country? The People? I really don't know sometimes... It's like the old adage that if you beat you head against a wall, after a while it just hurts, nothing else.

What would generally be a fairly simple task - driving a car 600km from Lagos to Abuja does, by the mere fact of the cities mentioned, change everything to that distinctly African (certainly Nigerian) grey mess that is life in the richest poor country on the planet.

This was all thanks to the good folk of the Nigerian Police Force - who have yet to actually stop any crime in their 50-something years, whilst perpetrating many themselves (griding the ordinary citizen into the ground, perpetuating the culture of corruption they are supposed to protect against!).

A lone driver in a half decent car either needs to pay a travelling policeman to offer "protection" (while he gets a free ride - mind you plenty of fights have started when a bus carrying one freeloading "protector" refuses to give up another paying seat to more officers of the police or army), or risk the gauntlet of numerous checkpoints along the roads of Nigeria. The reason for their existence? Apparently to cut crime. Well of course, you say. It wouldn't have anything to do with organised (and fully sanctioned) racketeering to raise money for themselves, their superiors and sometimes the local Big Man.

How can a country operate if this is the case? Well, the people get used to it (as should I, I guess) and expect nothing more. You just go along and pay for "protection" from local gangs ("area boys") or local law enforcement,the very people who are supposed to be protecting you in the first place. Mind you, I will say that the average Police officer is both under paid and under trained (resulting in the police not fairing to well in confrontations with armed assailants in recent times, and also resulting in many innocent bystanders being caught in the cross fire). Interestingly, I was once stopped by a traffic cop who refused to believe that a white man had no money to give him (which I didn't). His response was that I should be "prepared" when we are driving, ie I should have money on me at all times to pay the likes of him off when required. I guess you live and learn (though I still don't carry much cash around for obvious reasons...)

However, like anything in life, you can always bargain. $100 down to $5 or $10 for not having a sticker, or a fire extinguisher or some other bloody thing in your car - and 2hrs of your life you'll never get back. [Over Christmas everyone gets a bit desperate - I had a bloke demand money in Lagos once because I didn't have a rubbish bin in the car. "It's a new law" he tells me. I just had to laugh and drive off, someone has to say "no" I'm just glad that in my position I had the power to do it, unlike so many locals who have no choice] Anyway, I guess it's lucky everything works on Africa Time around here - you'll be there when you're there... what more is there? I mean it's only 5 hrs into an 8 hr drive from Lagos to Abuja, right?

Not quite... 10hrs in, engine trouble. All you can do is smile. I guess the silver lining is at they Chris didn't get lost. It explains, in part, why many Nigerians tend not so much to pray for things to go right all the time or long life, just for happiness and peace - that's enough really, no matter where you call home. Luckily Chris made it safely in one piece, just not quite the start he'd hoped for.