On-Route to Abuja

One piece of advice repeated by volunteers based in Nigeria was to practice patience and the Nigerian Consulate made sure I took that lesson on board.  Two days prior to departure I found myself on an unscheduled trip to Canberra armed with a persuasive smile hoping to secure my visa which had been outstanding since December.  As I touched down in the capital I was welcomed with a call from AVI announcing its safe arrival in Melbourne – “Why the rush?  Plenty of time!”

Flying over Port Sudan headed for Khartoum I stared in awe at the sprawling desert below.  The approach to Lagos bought a rapid switch to lush green tropical palms hiding much of the red dirt core.

Touching down in Lagos, I couldn’t help but laugh when the aerobridge failed and my seatmate turned to me and said “Welcome to Nigeria” with a wicked grin and roll of her eyes.

What are the first few things I’ve noticed?

• People are wonderfully friendly, helpful and love to laugh.
• Fashion is a vibrant mix of flamboyance, elegance, colour and individual statements.
• Hairstyles resemble fascinating works of art.
• There’s an overwhelming distrust of escalators (which has me intrigued).
• Cars are left hand drive and there’s zero adherence to driving rules (making me most grateful that we ditched the motorbike idea).
• People are gorgeous and the kids are so very, very cute.