Nigeria
After the xenophobic attacks in SA, I was a bit worried about my team, so flew a few of the boys ahead while I drove the cars with my security. To make sure we were safe I hired an armed convoy to escort us from the border to Lagos. We had been able to organise a visa on arrival (as the Embassy in SA had stopped issuing) with this came a car with 5 armed guards to escort us to a town five hours away to collect the visa. So there is me with 11 armed Nigerian security/police/immigration officers and one of my regular security in 5 cars, I am driving on my own in the middle car. Now normally as the “principal” I should be sitting in the back of a plush car reading a newspaper! But no, I am a driver as part of a high-speed convoy!!!! It wasn’t a nice relaxing drive!!! If cars or trucks didn’t get out of our way security shoved guns out the window to make sure they moved over.In towns when there was lots of traffic the police had a whip to bash the cars with, that was a bit embarrassing, as I came past, I would be shouting out the window “sorry about that” The one awesome thing about having security was we didn’t even have to slow down at the police stops – yeah!!!! It also meant no time took photos.
It wasn’t a nice relaxing drive!!! If cars or trucks didn’t get out of our way security shoved guns out the window to make sure they moved over.In towns when there was lots of traffic the police had a whip to bash the cars with, that was a bit embarrassing, as I came past, I would be shouting out the window “sorry about that” The one awesome thing about having security was we didn’t even have to slow down at the police stops – yeah!!!! It also meant no time took photos….
There was one driver that could see I was a woman driving and was determined to cut me off, the only thing he didn’t realise was that I was in the middle of a convoy and was trying to keep the gap small between me and the two unmarked security cars in front of me. He just kept the aggressive up and every time I tried to pass he swung his car in front of me. It took a couple of minutes before my front security saw what was happening and whipped around, as soon my “friend” saw the guns bearing down on him, he ramped his car over the median strip which was quite high, he must have done some damage to his car and hightailed it in the opposite direction. I know I shouldn’t, but I found all this quite amusing and was laughing the whole time, nothing like a bit of high speed and guns to get the adrenalin flowing…
The one awesome thing about having security was we didn’t even have to slow down at the police stops, much to their disgust – yeah!!!! It also meant no time took photos….
The scenery changes from the Cameroon lush almost immediately after the border. It becomes more open with regular sized vegetation, in truth, not that pretty ( I couldn’t take many photos I was trying to keep up…). Every town we passed through was a crazy mess, so many tuk tuks, people, dirt, noise, they are all mad houses!
Nigerian was having a problem with fuel supply and petrol stations had run dry, which was causing chaos in Lagos, people were in queues for days to get fuel, thousands of cars parked around stations blocking the roads, flights were being cancelled as they had no fuel (luckily we had full jerry cans).
The nicest part of Lagos is along the water. DHL has a boat which we were able to use on Sunday. We had a beautiful day touring around Lagos.
The water is like a bath it is so hot! We stopped at one bay and ordered food from guys that swam out to us, half an hour later they came back out to the boat with cooked fish and meat on skewers (delicious).
Every time I come to Lagos, I really enjoy my time here, the people starting from the Cameroon border we have met are just so friendly and Randy the DHL country Manager always make it a special visit!
