Nigeria - Days 5-11

OK, so the poor little white boys had a tough time in getting to Nigeria’s new capital city Abuja but a corner seems to have been turned in more ways than one. After checking into an average hotel for five nights, the in-room fridge was quickly rammed full of nice cool drinks which included 24 of my much craved for milkshakes, which immediately lifted the mood! As a city Abuja is very different to the rest of Nigeria. It’s clean and clearly wealthy with its numerous new impressive buildings including the striking church and mosque strategically placed to emphasis Abuja’s slogan as ‘The Centre of Unity.’ The prices of things are a bit odd though with a taxi anywhere across the large city available for 200 Niara (One euro) regularly hammered down from anything up to N1200, fuel at about 30p a litre and get this – a film at one of our modern cinemas with popcorn & drink for N1000 (Yes less than £5!!). On the flip side food is expensive for something ‘normal’ in the west and still a bit pricy for something local which usually involves bone, grissle, some sort of innards and rice. Turning corners then...Well, first up after a day of faffing about we managed to get four visas in three days! That only leaves our Gabon visa which we’ll pick up in Cameroon, which is a big result as it’s not only these that cause the main delays but also with how unstable parts of Africa can be it’s not uncommon for countries to stop issuing them periodically. Secondly we’ve now moved onto our Central and Southern African map which shows that although it still looks far to Cape Town the further we progress and the more information we gather, it seems to suggest that the onward road conditions aren’t as bad as we feared and if all goes smoothly we could be ‘down’ by around mid May. He says... Thirdly, after leaving Abuja and heading south for Cameroon we finally seem to have moved away from the dust, sand and searing heat that no doubt originates from the Sahara further north, with southern Nigeria (or at least the route we took) being much prettier with the place becoming more and more tropical with each kilometre passed. It’s also Christian rather than our entire route so far which has been Muslim. I was reminded of this whilst packing up one morning when our neighbour ‘Reverand Oscar’ said a nice prayer for our travels while we all held hands. (Insert joke of your choice here). As for the riding it’s been nice and easy. Although still hot, it’s now more humid which although a bit unpleasant in bike gear isn’t a constant burning heat as before. Last up we’ve also caught and seem to be travelling alongside ‘The Christians’ (two clean cut American guys riding GS650’s) and ‘The Swingers’ (seven South Africans (3B/4G) in two Land Cruisers so called by us as we don’t know who’s with who, so all in plus the spare seems to make things easier for us). Our last night in Nigeria saw us staying just short of the Cameroon border whilst crossing everything we had in the hope that it stayed dry for the infamous Ekok to Mamfe 80km ‘road’ with its horror stories aplenty...