I was woken at 6am this morning by a loud beeping noise coming from the bedside table. I cursed Simon for leaving his blackberry alarm on and then, realising that it wasn't the usual ringtone, scrabbled around in the dark until I found the source of the irritation: the hotel telephone. This being the first working landline that I'd seen since arriving in Nigeria, I couldn't quite bring myself to believe it was actually ringing, but I eventually managed to locate the handset and answered it. The voice at the other end asked to speak urgently to Mr. Shercliff. Imagining it must be some sort of consular emergency, I woke Simon and passed him the phone. Having collapsed into bed only 4 hours earlier (for unknown reasons he had thought it a good idea to try out the 'Insomnia nightclub'), he grunted and took the phone. An extraordinary conversation ensued, in stage whispers at Simon's end, with his most frequent refrains being "I am not having this conversation now" and "I am sleeping" (which seemed slightly odd as Simon clearly was having a conversation now and was definitely not sleeping). It turned out it was the hotel receptionist, who wished to clarify a mistake in the receipt that he had issued to Simon at check-in the day before (Simon had paid the correct amount but the receipt had been made out incorrectly). Simon told the receptionist that he was not prepared to have the discussion at 6am and would come and talk about it when we went for breakfast. Despite Simon's (increasingly pathetic) attempts to whisper, Alex and Freya woke up. Facing the prospect of a very long day ahead, we managed to persuade them to lie quietly until the sun came up. At 7am, there was a knock at the door. The receptionist appeared, claiming that he needed to have the receipt now as the accountant was coming to the hotel in the afternoon and he could be sacked if the figures didn't match up. When Simon questioned why he had been woken at 6am and was now standing having a conversation in his boxer shorts, the receptionist said he needed the receipt now as he had to go to Church. An animated discussion followed, which ended up with the poor receptionist down on his knees, supplicating Simon to search for the missing receipt. This made Simon even more irritated (think Basil Fawlty/Manuel). The saga eventually ended with Simon rooting through the bin/my handbag/his wallet/the nappy bag/his trouser pockets and finding the desired receipt. Whether the poor receptionist ever made it to church, I'm not sure, but Simon was left with the distinct impression that customer service in Kogi State's finest hotel left something to be desired.
However, with a day of sightseeing ahead, we were not to be deterred. We woke ourselves up with some strong coffee and set out on the group minibus to view the confluence of the Niger and Benue rivers, for which Lokoja is famed. We spent about thirty minutes talking down the massively inflated price we'd been given (double what it should have been) and another half an hour strapping on bright orange lifejackets and boarded the little motorboat that was to ferry us out to the sandbank from which one can see the two rivers converge. The motorboat had seen better times - there was a rather farcical scene as the bench on which the row of people sitting behind us collapsed, sending them sprawling on to the floor. (Moral of the story: never get into a boat in Nigeria without checking if the bench you are sitting on is made from damp, decomposing chipboard). The driver of the boat had to maintain a semi-squatting position in order to see out of the cracked windscreen, and the fumes from the engine were so strong that most of the group ended up standing on the back deck, causing the boat to tilt alarmingly at times. However, we made it to the sandbank intact and I must admit I could indeed see the difference between the two rivers. Whether it was the Niger or the Benue that was the faster flowing and muddier, I can't recall, but there definitely was a difference. Alex was rather uninterested in the river itself, but was fascinated by the skeleton of a dead goat that we found on the sand.
Mission accomplished, we headed back to shore and then drove up to the heights of Mount Patti, location of the famed telecommunication masts. I have been on some pretty hairy journeys in my time: the 'death road' to Coroico; some horrific hairpins in Bali; a number of very dodgy Iranian mountain roads; the Colombian 'Chiva of Death' en route to the Ciudad Perdida trek in Colombia. However, rather than becoming more relaxed about such escapades, I have actually developed something of a phobia about taking any road up a mountain that involves the prospect of imminent demise. This phobia is heightened when vehicle in which I'm travelling is any larger than a four-wheel drive and driver of the vehicle is not married to me (and therefore does not spend the entire journey instructing me to close my eyes and reassuring me that all will be fine). So whilst the rest of the party on our groaning minibus chattered cheerfully on around the excruciating bends, seemingly oblivious to the grinding of gears and fact that one false move could mean a fatal plunge down the mountainside, I struggled to contain a panic attack.
At the summit of Mount Patti, there is a 'Rest House' built by Lord Lugard, the Governor General of Colonial Nigeria from 1914-1919. A painted plaque informed us that the 'Climbing Mount Patti is an experience any tourist would never forget' (too true in my case) and that the 'rest house was used by Lord Lugard after every tedious day at work'. A statue to Lord and Lady Lugard commemorates the fact that, according to the same plaque (reproduced here word-for-word): 'It was on Mount Patti that the name Nigeria was conned by Flora Shaw - later addressed as Flora Lugard after she married Lord Lugard who was a British Colonial Administration - while grazing out at the river that stretched, before her in the late 19th century'.
However, I was more interested in the history of the road, which had been constructed by Lugard and 'rehabilitated by the administration of Coloel Danladi Zakari in 1991'. Seemingly, I was not the only one who thought the road could do with a bit of work: a notice declared that 'The Capt. Idris Wada [Kogi State Governor] administration is also working on giving the road a permanent face lift as indicated in the administration's agenda of making Kogi state a tourist haven'.
Knowing that the best way to counter one's fears is to confront them, I refused to reboard the minibus, abandoned my husband and two young children to their fate and begged a lift back down the mountain with Chief of the Kogi State Tourist Board, who had accompanied us up in his very swanky new black SUV. I rather started to regret my decision as we careered downhill at enormous speed, swerving wildly round the bends to avoid the giant potholes. In his enthusiasm to explain how Lokoja was set to be the next greatest tourist destination of Africa (as we passed piles of broken glass, rubbish dumps and crumbling, half-finished buildings), he removed both hands from the wheel several times to gesticulate wildly. I did have to admire the strength with which he believed in the tourist vision and both he and his colleagues were incredibly hospitable and welcoming and did their utmost to present a good impression of their town, and inform us about its history. Lokoja is not quite a 'tourist haven' yet, but we did feel very safe and well-looked after and the whole weekend was enormous fun. Just a shame we didn't see any of those giant hippos.
(Photo credits: all the decent ones were taken by Nick Horne)
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