Thursday we moved out of the hotel without having booked another place to stay.  We planned on moving to an apartment and were busy negotiating but they wanted us to pay for our stay up front and they only accepted cheques, no credit cards.  I asked if I could do an internet transfer and they said ok.  If I could do the transfer and email proof of payment we could move in.  We moved in that same day after a hectic search for a SWIFT code to do the electronic transfer.  We were told that we were in a temporary apartment as the one they wanted us to have wasn't ready yet.  We moved to our new apartment on Thurs morning.  Other than a smell of gas, which they immediately came to check out by using dishwashing liquid mixed with some water, all went ok until night fell, then all hell broke lose.  Unbeknown to us there is a nightclub just across the road and they started blasting music out there until about 8h30 Fri morning.  Needless to say, we got very little sleep.  We requested another apartment and so I had to pack everything in the suitcases again and we moved to hopefully our last apartment.  It's really nice but has no oven, which might call for one more move, if an apartment with an oven becomes available.

We both had our bouts of diarrhea, as we were told to expect.  Bataleur had some serious cramps but I gave him some immodium and he seems to be ok now.

Today we ventured out to the Airtel office to get connected.  It reminded me a bit of Singapore as you get a number as you enter.  Richard, one of the employees at the apartment, gave us a lift but because we had to wait a while to be served, he left us there.  It was within walking distance back.  While we were sitting there we realized we didn't have enough Niara, so I suggested we call the driver to take us to a money changer and then bring us back to Airtel. We did that and got all the modems and airtimes we needed but when we got outside, our driver had vanished.  So we walked back to the apartment, plugged in our modems and neither of us could connect.  We called customer service and they told me to change my profile name and it still wouldn't work.  They told Bataleur he needed an updated version of something on his modem. Then they said we must take both our laptops and modems into their offices again tomorrow.  We asked if there was a waiting period after the registration of the modems and they said no, we should be able to connect right away.  So we decided to watch a movie, got peckish and ordered in some samosas. OMW, I hope I don't die of food poisoning after eating them.  They were obviously cooked in fifty-times re-used oil as they were very dark but I had such a craving for something not out of a tin.  Then we tried connecting again and voila, both worked.

It's 2am and I cannot sleep.  A mosquito bite woke me and I had to hunt it down first before I could sleep again and now my sleep is all gone.  I found and killed the mosquito and noticed another visitor crawling on the headboard, a cockroach, now I don't think I'll sleep comfortably in this bed ever again. So now I'm wondering how the mosquito got in.  We never open the sliding door and we never leave our door open and then I noticed a sliver of light from the passage at the bottom of the door so I fetched a towel in the bathroom and stuck it in there.  Hopefully no more mozzies can come into the room now.  Note to self - get mosquito repellant for hotel room.

Now that I'm up I might as well tell the cupboard story.  When we first arrived at the hotel, the cupboard doors, which runs on rails, wasn't working properly.  The doors were continuously getting stuck.  We complained and they sent a maintenance guy who hammered in some nails for the door to run through.  Bataleur had mentioned to the maintenance guy that his wife could not move the cupboard door so this guy fixes one door and then Bataleur asks him about the other door and he says, "this one is fixed now, you're wife can use this one".  This morning I tried to open the cupboard and it's stuck, so we removed both doors.  They come rather late to make-up the rooms.  So at about 14h30 or so, the cleaning guy waltzes in and sees the doors and says, "this is dangerous" and he asks me if he should remove them.  I told him that somebody had come to try and fix them but they are still not working properly.  He gets on the phone and soon another maintenance man arrives and he actually gets the doors to work properly.

Then we needed a Nigeria to South Africa adapter to charge the computer and once again we phone and very soon a guy knocks on the door presenting us with an adapter.  We were astonished as things normally takes a while to appear.  He gives us the adapter and says we can have it so Bateleur, ever so impressed with this service, goes to get the guy a tip but just before he gives it to him decides to check if the computer plug fits into the adapter and it doesn't. So off the guy goes without his tip and fetches us an extension lead and it's perfect so Bateleur asks if we may have that one and the guy says "no, I know that one works, you may only borrow it".  He got his tip but we locked the lead in the safe, as they fetch things out of the room when we're not here, like the ironing board.  I ordered an ironing board and an iron.  After about 30 minutes Bateleur phones to say I'd phoned half an hour earlier and we still have no iron and board.  So they tell him that he must understand that they have to get it out of another room and then get it to us.  4 Star indeed.  I got my ironing board and iron but then only had enough time to do one shirt with another 4 to go so I left them on the ironing board.  When we came back the un-ironed shirts were on the unmade bed and the ironing board and iron was missing. I called for another and just resigned myself to another long wait.  The equipment that eventually came should have been on a scrapheap somewhere.  The iron was leaking and the ironing board had a dirty, stinky, very thin cover. 

Last night we went to the Italian Restaurant for a cup of coffee, before leaving for the Oriental Chinese Restaurant at the Hilton.  We sat outside and listened to the birdsong.  The lights were on and it definitely makes the hotel look better.  I felt like I could live here.  Amazing what a few lights can do.

Monday morning in Abuja and we need to get connected.  My mother is most probably having a mini heart attack wondering if we are ok.  So we go down to the concierge who tells us we might get some at the little shop at the hotel.  Nothing is easy here, so of course they don't have.  Then she tells us to walk down the road a bit until we see two guys sitting under an umbrella and we'd be able to buy some sim cards there.  We started walking and I said to Bataleur that we hadn't announced ourselves to the embassy, what if we got kidnapped or something, so we turn back.  Back at the hotel, the concierge tells us that it's not far to walk and it's quite safe, so off we go again but with one of the hotel staff to guide us.  After about 15 mins walk we get to the two red umbrellas.  They tell us to sit down but as we arrived I noticed two guys with big guns sitting there.  So now we're trying to look at anything other than these two with the guns so I decide to watch the traffic while Bataleur negotiates.  They didn't have micro sims so the guy decides to cut them to fit our Iphones and he cuts them all wrong.  By that time they'd already registered them to our name, so we had to cough up the dough and leave with sim cards that didn't work.  I managed to cut mine some more and got it to work. Bataleur's one was to far gone and he just cut right through it, NGN500 down the drain. 

Traffic here is nightmarish.  While Bataleur was buying the sim cards, I sat and watched the traffic as I said earlier.  There are no rules.  It seems if you want to make any kind of turn or overtake you just blow your hooter.  So you have the sound of hooters going all the time.  Then there were two lanes, one for incoming traffic and the other for outgoing which was fine but the incoming came from left and right and a car breaks down right at the junction.  So now everybody has to manouvre around the broken down car and then to top it all a tiny guy starts pushing a wheelbarrow laden with wood up the road and stops right opposite the broken down car to unload some wood as it was too heavy to push up the hill.  A lot of honking happened there and some cars decided to divert over the pavement.  It was classic, I just had to laugh. 

One good thing - At least nobody tried to rob the sim card guy else we would've been in the middle of a gunfight.  Oh and the hotel looks really good at night with the lights on, very pretty. Almost forgot to mention that it is the loneliest time for me when I can't chat to my family and friends.  I have no idea how I managed before without the internet and WhatsApp.  Well I know, I didn't travel then so most probably didn't need it but that first few days in a foreign place with no connection, is the pits.  I'm so happy to be able to chat to everybody again. That's one major good thing, at least we could get connected even in Abuja.

We had to get up early on Sunday morning for our flight to Abuja.  6am is very early for us as friends and family will know.  We'd packed up everything again the night before and so, only needed to check-out of the hotel and have a quick breakfast.  The driver was to collect us at 6h45.  He arrived on time and we left for the airport.  The night before it was dark when we traveled to the hotel, now we were traveling in daylight and I'm not sure if this was a good or a bad thing. We got to see more of Nigeria but it was not a good sight.  At one point we were driving behind this van with flashing red and green lights.  It looked quite festive but as we passed him we noticed corpses lying in the back one of whose arm was hanging out and swaying as the vehicle moved.  Our driver explained that this van picked up these corpses on the highways and took them to the mortuary for identification.  They don't have id's here so not sure how they identify them.

When we arrived at the airport, our driver told us not to answer anyone who asks us where we're going but to move straight to the counter for Arik Air.  When the car stopped about half a dozen guys rushed to it.  Our driver was very good and assigned one of them to take our luggage and we followed him into the "terminal" which was a makeshift building more like a massive gazebo.  By the time we arrived in the terminal this one guy had morphed into three.  While two of them guarded our luggage, the other took our passports and got our luggage booked in.  His fee for all of this was NGN7000.  We only had NGN5000 and he seemed to be satisfied with this, promising he would make right with the guys who guarded our luggage.  They looked very sad, so I'm sure they saw none of it.

Then the long wait again before boarding at 9h15.  Bateleur looked through the window and saw a McDonnell Douglas standing outside and he said "hope that's not our one".  About a week or two before we had to fly out, one of them crashed into apartments soon after take-off and about 159 people were killed.  Oh happy day.  I started saying my prayers and telling God to please take my soul and Bateleur's in case he forgot, if we should die today.  When we finally boarded we were happy to see that it was a Boeing.  Then they separated us as we had to be body searched before boarding.  Flight was good and we eventually arrived at our destination.  What a short-lived relief as we were stopped just before entering the gates as the armed guard needed to check our luggage.  Bateleur got out to open the bags but the guard told him to get back in.  He needed to scan our bags while another guard walked around the vehicle with a mirror to check underneath the car.

I decided to blog about our trip to Nigeria to find some good things.  So far I've mentioned quite a few bad things but on the good side, the guards are very security aware which makes me feel a lot safer in the hotel.  The people are friendly and helpful and the women's dresses are beautiful.  I wish I could have one.  I wish I could take photos but Bataleur's colleague was actually taken into police custody for taking photos of a church and mosque, so I'm very careful.  He had to erase them all and he even had to write an apology letter. They do have beautiful buildings.

What a day we had yesterday, well everyday since we heard our visas had finally been approved which was last Wednesday.  Then we had to rush to get last minute things done, flight tickets had to be booked, travel insurance arranged, collection at airports to hotels in Nigeria arranged, things put into storage and we were still 7kg over the limit at Lagos. By the time we got onto the plane at Cape Town International, we were finished.  The flight was two hours to OR Tambo International airport and then about six and a half to Lagos.  So by the time we got to Lagos, we were even more tired and dreading what we would still have to endure before reaching our hotel.  After waiting in the longest queue that took forever to move, we finally managed to get through immigration.  Then we had another wait for our luggage.  In the meanwhile we tried to get a trolley for our luggage and was told to pay NGN200.  We waited a while and got an older version trolley free of charge and then had to pay the NGN200 to the customs officer anyway.  Just another day in paradise.  We were very happy to find the designated driver outside, not so happy when he started driving.  Nothing wrong with his driving but there are no lights on the road sand no lines demarcating lanes at first and then there were some lines but still no lights.  They are allowed to drive 100 miles per hour but there are traffic cops checking out for reckless driving.  What can be more reckless than driving at those speeds on roads like these.  Anyway we were happy again when we got to the hotel, The Southern Sun, so quickly.  Apparently it can take up to 3 hours in peak traffic. After a quick supper, we jumped into bed as we had to get up early next morning for the last leg of our trip, Lagos to Abuja.