Nigeria
The friendliest people (and chimps and drill monkeys) coupled with a million roadblocks
In the news, we always hear a lot of negative things about Nigeria because of extremist groups that are in the country. Often times we base what we see on the news as fact about the country. Imagine if everyone in the world based what they saw on TV about the US as truth and happening all the time. They would probably think that we are crazy with shootings in schools all the time.
Let me start off by saying that this is probably one of the most friendly countries that I have ever been too in my life with everyone trying to help you and show you around and making jokes (easy when they speak English). Even the police and military had time to make jokes and talk to us to ask us how we were doing.
Of course you have your scams that people in villages try to do, such as the tax for the roads (which were not good), but the driver would just mess with them for a while at the roadblock then get out of it. The roadblocks are set up with legit people and people just trying to make a dime. The most times we got stopped in a day was 19 (which made me feel safe for security purposes). But it was always fun talking to the officers and them making jokes and asking what they always do “WHAT DO YOU HAVE FOR ME?”
We were initially expected to bush camp for much of the time we were there, but with lack of bush camps and safety concerns, we were put up in different small hotels (some worse than our tents), but it made it all the more fun in getting to know locals. Most of the hotels consisted of nothing more than a bed, a bucket with a tap to wash yourself and have put together toilets (this is why I prefer the bush more). But I did and everyone enjoyed our time at the hotels and getting to know people around and having beers with them.
One of the highlights of Nigeria besides the people was the Drill Ranch where they take Drill Monkeys and Chimpanzees that have been pets of people and try to rehabilitate them back in the wild. It was started by an American Couple some Twenty Eight ago and it is way up in the forest near Afi Mountain with hardly any roads to get there. Our whole group enjoyed our time going around there with people putting donations to help keep the ranch going and volunteers coming in and out over the last twenty some odd years. They also have another outlet in Calabar Nigeria and another in Limbe, Cameroon, in which they get the primates ready to head up to the Drill Ranch in the mountains….See the pictures for yourself:
