A road trip to the east

I don’t know if its because of my new found interest in Igbo boys, or my love for akpu and onubgu soup or the simple fact that I thoroughly enjoyed my service year there, whatever the reason, a trip to the east is always a delight for me. Hence, delighted I was when I had a wedding in Ogidi, Anambra state, that just could not be missed. Here’s a mini recount.

Our bus took to the road at the late hour of 11.30 am, something that must NEVER be attempted during the Christmas period, NEVER I say.  Shortly after take off, we established the bus eating rules. No boiled eggs and no beans (do I need to explain?). If you think these rules are funny, why don’t you experiment on your own road trip and see if anybody makes it to the destination alive.

Being that we were not all of like mind and neither were we all sane, the conversation, ranging across different topics kept us all laughing and excited for the most part of the journey. However, real pandemonium broke as soon as we started to discuss P-square’s TV ad with Glo. If you don’t understand why, pay close attention to your TV. Though we had a good laugh about the commercial, we had a good listen to their new album – Invasion. We all agreed, it was good enough to be on repeat over and over again (I especially like track 3).

We finally arrived at the must pass town of Lokoja.  As we (the ladies) rushed off to use the restroom, we innocently stopped by the kiosk get some tissue. The lady at the counter (who also doubled as the gate keeper for the rest room) felt it was her right and duty to blatantly ask “you wan shit?”. Too shocked for words we collected our purchase and continued with our task. After getting over our embarrassment, we proceeded to purchase some food. Though I was tempted to get some moi moi alongside my already full meal order, I remembered our bus rules and decided to comply. On getting out of the restaurant, we were all privileged to share in someone else’s embarrassment as a voice LOUDLY announced over the PUBLIC address system: “the man in the red cap, please that is not the place to urinate”. Lol. I bet that man will never wear a red cap again.

We were welcomed to our sleep over point for the night by a dancing troupe which consisted of a father, a mother and two grandmothers (what a beautiful end to the day)*. I never thought the day will come when a grandmother would beat me on the dance floor, but this 80 something year old woman was dancing with one leg up. True, I’m not lying. I should have taken a picture.

We left Enugu the following morning for Anambra where we finished our stay. The next two days went so well that we were all too exhausted on the way back to kick up excitement for ourselves. Dancing, palm wine, late nights, laughter and the most stupid jokes anyone has ever heard got the best of us. So we all snored our way back to Abuja.

All in all it was a good trip. I could give you more but do you really want another three pages on my road trip? I tell you, if you’ve never tried one before you should give it a go. However, if your family is normal, please stick to an airplane or alternatively, you can borrow mine at a discounted price. Ciao! 

*Travel time from Abuja to Enugu is about 6hrs