Back to the beginning...Jen travels to Lagos

The next stop in our adventure takes us to Lagos Nigeria.  I arrived the evening of 20 April 2012.  For a number of reasons Joe come a month earlier, which had its advantages; the apartment was moved into, the driver had been worked out, there was wine in the fridge.  But before I got on the plane I had to close out our home of 4 years in Aberdeen.  I had packed all that I could fit into 3 bags which became 4, which became 5 bags plus a pile of stuff left in Aberdeen and set out for Lagos.  A very nice but way way out of shape taxi driver helped me load, unload, stack, and roll down the ramp all five large bags plus my carryon.  I have never traveled with so much luggage and I was doing it alone.  Chivalry may be dead but lucky for Joe he wasn't there because he may have been too. 

I was there early (Joe would not be surprised), first in line.  Everything was checked in without any trouble.  It was unsurprisingly overcast as I looked out the airplane window to fly to Amsterdam to make my connecting flight to Lagos.  I think it was at the gate in Amsterdam that it really hit me that I wasn't in Kansas anymore.  The KLM announcement for priority boarding began a free for all that was less line and more triangle for everyone could to push their way on to the plane. 

The flight over the Sahara was amazing!  It looked like a big sand box that someone had drawn in with a stick to make hills.  And you would occasionally see a group of trees, especially along a river.  All was going well until they announced that we were on our approach for Lagos.  That's when my panic attack started in full force.  Joe had told me to follow another European person who looked like they had done this before...but I was supposed to be one of the first off of the plane.  Um that won't work for me, everyone else can go first, the flight attendant couldn't understand why I wasn't departing.  Much to the relief of Joe and the flight crew I did get off of the plane, but don't think the thought didn't cross my mind to stay on the plane.  Following closely behind my designated experienced traveler I entered the "everyone else" line at immigration.  There are 3 immigration desks and I'm not sure but I think the sole purpose of the 2nd one is to make you stand in an additional line because all she did was hand it to the 3rd person.  From there I was off to find my mountain of luggage.  Luckily I was given a very nice porter who with the two trolleys helped me find all of the bags.  With that much luggage and a look of please don't stop me I was a prime target for the lady from Customs who wanted to know what was in all of the luggage and how long I had been in Nigeria.  Maybe it was the look on my face or the fact that I said it was my first time entering the country she gave me the free pass to go on... she did this by looking away in a "are you still here" sort of way.   Then a nice man asked to see my yellow fever vaccination card. 

Meanwhile the very nice porter was talking me through all of this, I'm sure my nervousness and fear were obvious in almost humorous (to everyone but me) proportions.  Finally we were through the exit and the porter finds the company representative that was there to meet me.  I gave the porter a $2 tip (which to be clear is the daily wage in Nigeria is $5.80) and he hurried back to see if he could help another person.  Joe was there about 2 minutes later and the luggage train made its way to the car.  Here is where I met our driver Godwin for the first time.  Since they like to freak out the new girl we also had a police vehicle escort with four armed cops.  Traffic in Lagos is a world unto itself.  We found ourselves in several traffic jams along the way.  Out of what can only be described as boredom it seemed that if the car hadn't moved for 5 minutes the police behind us would just lay on the siren.  Which in a traffic jam oddly does nothing but amuse the police.  I found that if I didn't look outside or try to watch the road the driving seemed just fine.  As we neared the house we drive down a 4 lane divided road.  Normally in the US or Europe that would mean traffic going 1 direction would use 2 of the lanes and traffic going the other would also use 2 lanes.  But this is Lagos and there was a greater demand going the other direction than us, so 3 lanes were going 1 direction and our lane was going the other direction except for the constant stream of motorcycles that made the 4 lane road more like 5 lanes.  (Actually Joe wrote the part about the traffic, it was dark and I was too freaked out to notice exactly what was going on with traffic flow.)  : )

In almost record time we made the 30 mile journey in like 75 minutes and arrived at our new apartment.  Joe thanked the police escort in the Nigerian way (wink wink) and then we unloaded the bags.  Yogi was happy to see me and I was very happy to see him.  Now to see if I can sleep for the next 4 years, or at least till tomorrow afternoon.