Lows and Highs of Abuja

World's biggest alarm clock

We have now been in Abuja for 9 days. A lot longer than I wanted to, but that’s how long it took to sort out visas, the admin for the tyres and to recharge our batteries.  Very little of the time has been spent lazing about.  I thought recharging would just take a few nights of good sleep, and a couple of lazy days sorting out our next visas.  But in Africa things are never that simple.

The good sleep never happened. The building right next to our camp is a dog kennel and the dogs where barking and howling all night, and then to top things off there is a huge mosque about half a kilometre away.  Every morning 4am we where woken up by the call to prayer.  It was so loud that it sounded like someone was standing with the loudspeaker outside my tent.  Definitely not the way to convert me to Islam.

Dressed up for visas.  Breakfast at roadside stall

The first morning here we dragged ourselves out of bed bright and early.  As with any capital, visas was our first priority. Initially we did well with friendly staff at the embassies and it was a breeze getting our Cameroon and Congo visas.  Abuja is also the place where we were supposed to get our Angolan visas.  This was not so easy.

Camp Sheraton

We arrived there early one morning to get our applications and hand them in. When we walked in we where told they only email the application forms, and don’t have any at the embassy.  What?  We made a beeline for the nearest internet cafe and all sent emails requesting application forms.  Some tense waiting followed,  The embassy shut at 12:30 and wouldn’t be open again until Monday morning for visa applications (It was only Wednesday).  To our relief we got send one around 11 am, but they wanted a lot of information.  We worked at a frantic pace and it all paid off. Walking into the embassy just after 12, with everything ready.  Phew.  But that is as far as we got.  They wouldn’t even accept our applications.  Supposedly the rules changed and none of the embassies along the way can issue an Angolan visa for us.  They tried to convince us that we can get a 5 day transit visa on the border.  The guy at the counter gave us some web pages that would confirm the transit visa story, but none had the information we wanted.  All bullshit.  Massive blow to us!  We where gutted, and a bit stuck!!  Big dent in our plans!!  (Yes we will try every consulate along the way, but Abuja was supposed to be the easy place for an Angola visa.)

Back of camp

Our second mission was to find the tyres we sent from the UK.  They where sent with parcel force a week ago and by that time should have been in Nigeria.  We thought if we could find the Parcel Force offices for Abuja or Nigeria we can speed up the customs process.  A simple enough plan, but in Abuja it was close to impossible.  Abuja looks like an European city, but in functionality it’s definitely very African.  Getting a decent internet connection was close to impossible.  Just to many power cuts and very bad connections.  Nearly a whole day was lost trying to find the details of parcel force in Nigeria. 

(The irony is that Sheraton has brilliant internet, I could pick up 3 perfect Sheraton wifi signals, but because we where not ‘in house’ guests they wanted to charge us business rates. About £50/hour. Ridiculous).

Abuja bike show.  Weird watching people try burnout tyres
while we are desperate for new ones

Next we tried contacting Parcel Force in Nigeria.  What a mission.  Because of some funny cell phone rules we couldn’t dial out.  Skype was to slow to make a phone call. The Sheraton business centre to expensive.   And it was nearly a day before we managed to register a local cell phone number, only to find out that none of the numbers we had worked.  The address we had has been a hotel for 5 years.  Parcel Force Nigeria turned out to be a ghost, and we where extremely anxious about our tyre shipment.

Out of desperation I bit the bullet and phoned parcel force UK from the Sheraton, only to find out the tyres just left the UK the previous day.  To make matters worse Nigeria Post would handle the shipment at our end.  I was furious and very disappointed with Parcel Force.  We paid a huge amount to courier the tyres for two reasons, one to track them (didn’t work) and the other to dodge Nigerian Post.  There are web posts of people who have waited weeks for similar shipments, and the longest wait was more than 40 days.  This combined with the Angolan news and the fatigue hit me hard.  I sunk to a massive low.  Probably the worst so far.  All that time and effort to get things done and for what?  I enjoy the country side so much and I always get stuck in the capitals wasting precious time.  It was impossible to get myself motivated to do more, and I couldn’t see any good reason to even try.  Suddenly, Africa wasn’t fun anymore.

Changing rear while waiting for front tyre

At least it was weekend.  No reason worrying about things you can’t change, and I tried very hard not to.  I used the weekend to do some mechanics one the bike.  Very therapeutic.  Put on my new back tyre.  Phenomenal feeling finally putting it on after carrying it around for 12 000km.  Yes, 12 000.  Also sorted out every little thing that was nagging on the bike.  Never thought working on bikes would be so good for the soul.  Add in a few good meals, a movie, some semi decent sleep and Morton’s optimism, and by Monday I was ready to conquer Africa.  I was back, and psyched to tackle Nigerian Post.

All the psyching up turned out to be completely unnecessary.  The friendly Nigerian people came to the rescue.  The two ladies working parcels at the post office turned out to be angels.  After hearing our story they immediately started phoning around (internet was down, and they had to buy airtime to phone to Lagos) and by the afternoon they confirmed the tyres where at customs.  Out of desperation we offered a side payment if they could speed up the process, and they went into over drive.  Pure magic at work.  The next morning they promised the tyres where released from customs and we would have them the next day.  That is tomorrow!!  Whoop whoop!  I don’t want to get excited until I have the tyres in my hand, but it’s hard not to.  Fingers crossed.

Loving our bikes at the Sheraton

I have been quite surprised at how entertaining Abuja has been.  The highlight has definitely been the Sheraton.  It is like a mini country, with it’s own little economy.  There are numerous side businesses running from the hotel and masses of people coming and going.  First is the dog kennels.  Initially it was only for the guard dogs, but someone decided to expand it to breeding and selling dogs.  Now they have about 20 dogs in the kennels at the back (these are the ones keeping us up all night).  The car wash for the hotel has been expanded to VIP cars and, naturally, our bikes.  The grass in the back is available for campers.  But the biggest one here is by far the ladies of the night.  There is one bar here where they gather to pick up clients and we had an very entertaining night watching them cornering their prey.

Every day as soon as the sun sets we see gorgeous girls, dressed to the T, enter the Sheraton and gather at said bar.  We knew exactly what their business was, but fuelled by a bit of bush fever, boredom and curiosity we decided to have dinner in the bar and watch the proceedings.  Upon arriving at the bar there was a little table for cover charge.  To our surprise we didn’t have to pay, it was only for the single girls coming to work.  What a good way to make sure you get your cut.  Brilliant.  And one few times in my life I didn’t have to pay cover charge but girls did.  Loved it.  Walking in the bar it was packed with girls. More than 5 for every guy there, any mans dream, except they all were the working type.  It turned out that the girls are only allowed inside the bar, because they are too visible on the terrace.  The irony was that there where so many girls inside that most of the other people where sitting outside.  A cat and mouse game followed with the girls trying hard to stay outside and corner clients, while security was trying their best to keep them inside.  Very entertaining to watch after a few beers.

Our embarrassment turned out to be the funny moment of the night.  One of the girls came to speak to us.  Thinking we where the business type she tried hard to make intelligent conversation, but we couldn’t reply.  After weeks in the bush and her shoving here cleavage in our faces all three of us ended up blushing and mumbling like teenagers.  With our wonderful conversational skills she didn't stay long, and we where left red faced sipping our beers.  Needless to say we didn’t stay long and ran for the safety of our camp.

Again I was very surprised at how open everything was.  Africa's biggest profession is definitely running strong.  These poor girls though, they pay when entering the hotel gates, when entering the bar, when entering the nightclub and again when leaving the grounds.  Without a guarantee of income.  Definitely not an easy life! 

(I am not slagging the Sheraton, they have been great to us.  The staff all are unbelievably friendly and we had a flow of curious visitors at our camp.  But we have been here so long that watching the whole place at work has become quite interesting.)





Update : Went to the post office this morning.  They had our tyres there.  WHOOP, WHOOP!!  The small fee definitely paid off.  The bikes now look stunning with brand new tyres and we are ready to hit the road.  Tomorrow morning we start heading for Cameroon.  I am unbelievable excited!!