Nigeria

The Lonely Planet guide to Africa says that Nigeria "has a bad reputtion". The only two people we have met so far on our travels who had come through Nigeria effectively told us to "run like the wind and not look back".

Exactly four days after entering Nigeria in Calabar, on the South East Cost, we were stood at the border with Benin on the West, alive, well and unscathed.

In our haste to cross the country in record time (and avoid being mistaken for oil workers), we saw only two cities - Calabar and Lagos - and the countryside which whizzed by inbetween. That doesn't give a huge opportuntiy to get a well rounded, balanced view of the country. But since when have I ever been well rounded or balanced?

My findings on Nigeria can be nicely analoginalized (is this the verb for making an analogy? If not, why not?) in our bus journey between the two cities. Firstly, we got there. There were times on that journey where that seemed a distint unlikelyhood, but we did arrive safely in Lagos. As we did on the other side of Nigeria.

The journey started well. We were organised into our seats according to our ticket numbers. Imagine. Six weeks spent in free-for-all mode and suddenly we were lining up, single file, to board. Nigeria, it seemed, was trying to organise the unorganisable. And then our first taste of air conditioning. Crammed in like sardines we may have been, but Nigeria was making stifled attempts to add a bit of class. Driving out of Calabar, the Christian preaching commenced - songs, sermons and individual thanksgiving time. This echoed Southern Nigeria to a tee. Religious paraphanalia is everywhere. Whether it is exaggerated because of the muslim dominated north, or whether Nigerian people have taken Evangelicalism to new levels simply out of their own choice, I don`t know. The prayers on the bus asking God to aid the driver to take us safely to Lagos did seem to get heard, however. I can only say it must have been divine intervention which delivered us in Lagos, because the roads were chaos. Dual carriageway most of the way, there has clearly been a great deal of infrastructure planning building done here. Alas, the roads have all but disintegrated and now drivers weave inbetween potholes at upwards of 120kph. On either side of the carriageway. Yep. The central reservation has been knocked down at all to frequent intervals and cars will merrily cross from one side to the other to choose the "path of least resistance".

Yet, the underlying positive in all of this were the people. Nigerians, I would say, have been the warmest nd most welcoming of all the people on the trip so far. Beaming smiles, open handshakes and gentle inquisitiveness, thesewere not the people I was expecting and it was a wonderfully welcome surprise.

Lagos itself proved the smog-filled, chaos were were expecting, though did throw in a couple of nice surprises - The new Bond film and a "White House Pancake Breakfast Extravaganza"; and a couple of reminders that all is not pearly white - overzealous officials and a nights stay in a brothel.

All in all Nigeria had proven eventful, some might say fruitful, and I was left with the niggling feeling that I may just have missed out on something good.