Porto Novo to Lagos

I planned to arrive at the border early in the morning. The sooner I got to Lagos the better.

The plan of course didn’t work. I slept too long, the darkness in my room helped.

I took a 200cfa moto to what I thought will be some gare du Nigéria but instead we rode for long and the driver dropped me in the middle of the road saying “this is where you catch car to the border”. And he was right. He stayed with me for a few minutes and soon a car stopped, going to Semé, at the border, 1000cfa.

It took us maybe 45mins to reach the border. There I was surrounded by moto drivers asking me to take take me through the border. Also, there are moneychangers, 1000cfa is 600naira. I changed 40,000cfa, Benin was my last West Africa CFA country, I got N24,000 although the guy tried another trick on me, as if by mistake giving me N20,400. The highest bill in Nigeria is 1000, which is less than $3,€2.50,11zł.

I walked towards the border. In 2010 it was a small road stop, now it’s a proper border crossing, big buildings, roads and such. People walk around the border terminal in cages corridors as if they don’t have to go through passport checks. It’s seemingly a joint affair, Benin and Nigerian passport control offices in the same buildings. Easy.

Of course I was immediately approached by someone asking if I’m looking for a “drop” to Lagos. I wasn’t but the man decided to follow me nevertheless “helping” me find a way. At one point I asked someone in a uniform for directions and the man shouted “do not use anyone from outside for help, do you hear me?!” I asked the man following me if he heard that, his answer? “Who’s this guy to tell you? Is he an authority? We should only listen to God”. Benin passport control was done in 5 minutes. Next was health check – yellow card control. In 2010 a guy tried to extort money bases on the fact I didn’t have meningitis vaccine. Not this time. The woman looked at the card and returned it to me.

Nigerian passport control was equally easy. The man in the counter even filled the arrival card for me. I was given 30 days stay in Nigeria. But there was another check – something new – it’s called Security Service – yet another man looking at my passport. I had to fill yet another form about my stay in Nigeria. And that’s it. As my passport was checked I let my follower know that thank you I don’t need his help and I won’t be able to give him “something”. He showed me the Security service window and left.

On Nigerian side chaos as expected. I first wanted a SIM card. Unfortunately there was no MTN shop. A woman was selling registered SIM cards for N800 but they were so old their size was too big for my phone.

I saw a shop with a sign “SIM card registration centre”. I went in. They sell SIM cards, N500. Great. I spent an hour in the shop.

Registration required that the man fills up a form with my details. Then he had to start up a sort of tablet to do the rest online. The tablet wasn’t charged. Find a charger. Wait for the tablet to connect to the network. Type my details. Take a photo of me – someone else was holding a white piece of cloth for the background – then take the fingerprints. The machine accepted two of my right fingerprints yet the left ones? Nope. We tried all tricks, even doing the right fingerprint as if it’s left, nope. Picture not clear enough, I have to press the fingerprint reader harder, nothing. Then the registration app crashed and we had to do everything again. This time the man suggested he would put his own fingerprints instead of me. I agreed. It worked immediately. To me it looks like my fingerprints are worn out, his were very clear.

Then we put a SIM card into his phone, he asked for another N500 to “activate 4G”. I gave it to him, we spent so much time on doing the whole SIM card thing I fell bad for him, especially that when I planned to buy card recharge it turned out he wasn’t selling it, someone had to go and buy the recharge somewhere else. Not sure if the while “4G activation” was worth the money but he did download an app for me and the app has internet deals otherwise unavailable and I use internet a lot. So – good.

I did ask him for the transport fare to Lagos, it was N1500. I left.

There are private cars going to Lagos and they seem to be N2000. There was a minivan too, N1500. At before 11am I was the first passenger, I took seat in front. The van needed 6 more passengers. We waited until 12:30pm. There were lots of people arriving but they all seemed to walk on as if there was other transport available further down the road. I was even briefly contemplating walking on myself to those yellow minibuses, danfo, but after all I just waited. I bought half a baguette with “sardines” which were just sardine oil really. N100. Then I bought another baguette, with avocado, much better, N200. Big bottle of water, N200. I topped up my internet, then looked at those deals and saw I could actually recharge my account using credit card. I could use credit card! And I did. I used a debit card anyway and I hope my bank won’t flag it as a suspicious operation. Buying airtime in Nigeria. Who knows?

We finally left. The distance to where most of the busses into Lagos from the West stop – Mile 2 bus stop – was 75kms, Google was showing 2hrs 45mins travel time including a 30min traffic jam on our way. Lagos has traffic jams like you’d never believe are possible.

We travelled for 5 hours. I remembered from 9 years ago the countless police/army checkpoints and I even wanted to count them this time but I gave up. How would you classify a 500m stretch of the road on which you are stopped by different or same uniforms 5 times? Immigration. Customs. Security service. God knows what. Men with rubber bats patting the car to stop. Men with mobile needles to put in front of the oncoming tyre.

The driver had some N50 bills to give out, which later became N200 bills he was just passing to people who stopped us. Not sure how many he gave out or whether he had a fixed amount of money or whether he knew who to give the money to but sometimes he would just answer the men – the question is always “anything for me” – “nothing there Sir”. At one checkpoint he gave the N200 to a man and told the man to give him N100 back!

The biggest problem for our van was immigration. They always stopped us – having an oyinbo, white man, in the van sends out the sign – but my passport was difficult to question. Instead they would make fuss with the other passengers. Not sure how it’s in Nigeria, if you have to have an ID card with you all the time, but some people didn’t have it. The chaos that ensued. People fighting back against being checked many kilometres from the border. Driver shouting at the immigration man that can’t be hear how they speak that they all Nigerians? The level of noise after each immigration stop was crazy. “This fucking country!” And it wasn’t just us. I saw an almost physical confrontation in a car stopped next to us.

We lost a tyre, which was quickly replaced. And thank God we lost it in a wide empty stretch of the road outside a town because of we had lost it a few kilometres later…

The stretch of the road to Lagos immediately won the contest for the worst road on my trip. But it wasn’t like that. I don’t remember seeing such potholes 9 years ago. More, 5 years ago I myself drive part of this road, to Badagry, where there are some slave trade remnants and I remember traffic but not the potholes.

And potholes there were. Filled with water, mud. Often surrounded my mountains of garbage. And traffic there was. Add to it endless streams of motos trying to find space between cars standing still. People walking about. Drivers insulting each other. We only scratches our side mirror twice. Cars driving on your side of the road against the traffic. One has to see it to believe it. But the state of the road was unbelievable, it’s like the road never existed here, potholes so deep we scratched the bottom too many times. The cause of traffic jam (they call it go-slow in Lagos)? Broken cars, huge lorries parked/abandoned in the middle of the road. Yellow busses dropping passengers and blocking the road. The driver said this road in rainy season may not even be passable anymore. And we are not in a forest, we are in Africa’s largest city. I asked the driver and he drives this road every day. Whoa.

Every bus stop in Lagos has a name and somehow everyone knows them all. A friend of mine, when she heard where I booked my accommodation, said I should get to Doyin bus stop and take a moto from there. And she was right. But Mile 2 bus stop is before Doyin so I took a taxi.

I always stayed in Lagos on Victoria Island. The possibly nicest part of the city, safest and also most expensive. This time I picked Surulere, a part of the city on the mainland, that I’ve been to before. I thought it’d be nice for a change to be somewhere else and also the hotel here was the cheapest around: $21 per night. N7500.

The taxi drivers at Mile 2 – the van driver told me exactly which ones I should use – started with N5000 for the 10km ride. There is Uber in Lagos and Uber in Lagos is a godsent: nice cars and you see the price you should pay. I didn’t wanna call Uber to Mile 2 – it’s a bit chaotic place full of flyovers and I’m not sure we’d meet each other – so I talked to the taxi drivers. I said I’d pay N1000. The price went down, 3k, 2k, I said N1500 the man I was talking to asked another taxi driver if he’d agree to go for such money and the man agreed and we went. In a very wrecked car I must add. I think I could hear metal being dragged on the ground the whole time. The man however didn’t pay attention. The Mile 2 area is where the gigantic lorries start queueing up to the port, which of course is in the middle of town because why not, you have a line of huge lorries occupying one lane of the narrow road and all other cars drive on the other lane hoping that lane in front isn’t already blocked – I heard of people stuck like that between the lorries for 2 days! So in order to avoid the huge traffic my taxi driver decided to drive against traffic, slowly slowly, on a two lane road, not where the lorries are. Noone even shouted at us, noone even hooted and people love hooting in Lagos.

The lodge was a bit away from the main road, it’s called Atlantic Suites & Lounge. I walked on the dirt road avoiding water puddles. Had to knock on the gate as it was locked. A security man opened up. Inside it was dark, a woman told me to sit because they had to start a generator. Most of Nigeria runs on generators, the power supply barely provides. The generators are everywhere: hotels, shops, bars. They are not small machines but powerful motors. The result is you sleep with a noise outside. You walk among houses at night and there is a constant noise around you.

The woman called the security guy and asked him to start a generator and I think she also reprimanded him for not doing so earlier. He answered that generator control wasn’t part of his job. The woman called a man, possibly the owner of this establishment and the man immediately fired the security guy. “Out! Out!”

The woman was surprised I picked the small room, she even said I wouldn’t like it. Yeah the room isn’t big but I stayed in smaller ones. It has AC, toilet, shower, the generator outside isn’t too noisy. It’s also cheap, cheap for Lagos. However I saw another man’s registration card on the desk and his room rate was N5000. I’ll ask for the discount for the 2nd night. I only booked one, booking.com. The room also has fan but it stopped working when I unplugged it and plugged it in. When I told it to the woman, she said “oh, but you have now AC, you don’t need generator”.

I was very hungry, so I left immediately. There is a church next door, there was already some music and songs played live but the hall was empty. I was directed to the “junction” which is also known as Bode Thomas bus stop. I walked maybe 300m, a string of businesses begin, there is a supermarket, taxi stand, chop joints, another small shop that’s also calling itself supermarket, Indian-style auto rickshaws are lining up the road and behind the junction there is a cantine-style cafeteria. I asked for jollof, it was “finished” but they had pounded yam. I asked for 2 portions, egusi soup, efo riro, piece of fish. Egusi soup, normally thick, it’s made of ground crayfish and pumpkin seeds, possibly my favourite type of “soup” in Nigeria, was rather oily but tasty. Efo riro, possibly my 2nd favourite type of soup, was delish, and properly spicy. Fish was very nice too although it probably was a sardine. I even asked for 3rd portion of pounded yam. It’s the only type of “swallow” foods around that I really like and it seemed to be a real pounded yam, the woman was pounding it. It was sweet. There are already powdered version of the dish in shops. There was cutlery but I ate with hands. N800 with a 0.5l bottle of water.

I bought 2 bottles of water in the small supermarket and returned to the hotel to drop them in the room and also to pick up the phone. Since Cotonou I observed that while using my phone while it’s being charged the battery level actually goes down. As if the current generated is very weak. Even when I don’t use the phone it takes many hours to fully charge it. The whole night!

The women in the hotel wasn’t happy that I didn’t wanna order drinks inside, I went out. I sat in one of the drinking joints outside the cafeteria, they were serving pepper soup! Ah, my 3rd favourite type of soup, one cries after eating it, it’s real pepper. But I was too full to eat it, so I just enjoyed Guinness. Very cheap at N400 for big bottle. There was a small boy running around and of course he liked me and of course he ended up on my knees.

I returned to the hotel around 11pm. Noone answered the gate bell, noone answered me pounding at the gate. A man from the church suggested I call the hotel. And it worked. The AC in the room is only on/off, no temperature control but I think it’s set well.