Thursday should have been our last day in Ibadan but the faulty clutch on the car finally got the better of us. It was a wet day and we set off from Frank's home intending to visit the University of Ibadan on our way to Lagos. UI is the country's premier university and we had a drive around the campus and visited the Chapel of the Resurrection - a very pleasant building. We spent quite a lot of time in the bookshop which is the best I have seen anywhere - and sadly still very poor by UK high street standards - let alone university standards. Second hand books are displayed alongside news ones, and there was a large prominent section of seriously dodgy "Christian" books. I bought a couple of titles and we left. It was on the way from the university that we decided that we had to do something about the car so Tolu dropped me at a cyber cafe and went to find a garage. He came back for me via public transport two hours later and we returned to Frank's home via minibus and okada. I spent an interesting hour with Frank looking round his farm, feeding the fish, and generally finding out more about Nigeria. The three of us dined together again as we had done on the previous night and came to bed soon after 9.
Friday morning we were up by 7 and breakfasted soon after. Tolu went to collect the car: the new clutch had cost ten pounds and the labour four pounds! Hard to believe! We were on the road soon after 10 and the drive to Lagos was relatively straightforward. There were the usual regular roadblocks and we were waved through all except one: the police decided to single out our car for no particular reason. Tolu had all his documents in order but they then wanted to inspect his fire extinguisher which is apparently a legal requirement here. Tolu's had already been used and therefore they wanted to fine him 3000 naira (twelve pounds). He argued with them and got it down to 1000 naira. The whole thing seemed completely unnecessary. We carried on to Lagos and were on the outskirts by 12 noon. The legendary smog caused by pollution hit us straight away, though I am happy to say that the other infamous feature of Lagos - gridlock - eluded us. We headed towards the airport area and easily found an hotel in Ajao Estate near to Oshodi. We checked in and then arranged a car with the hotel to take us downtown.
Louis, our Ibo driver, negotiated the drivers and jams to get us across Lagos Island and on to Victoria Island. The traffic was very bad but it was moving most of the time. The city reminds me very much of Cairo - packed, dirty, chaotic - with huge flyovers linking the islands and the mainland. We headed to bar beach on VI where I was thrilled to see the Atlantic and beautiful white sand. It was a gloriously hot afternoon and having been surprised at how blue and clean the sea appeared to be I stripped off and went for a swim near to a crowd of Cherubim and Seraphim worshippers. Only one of them joined me - most Nigerians cannot swim - and the rest looked on and laughed - calling me WHITEY! It was wonderful to be in the sea. We were hassled by a number of people begging and claiming to be officials of various kinds - all of course wanting money - but it was not too bad. No doubt it would have been much worse if I had not been in the company of a Nigerian. We had a beer on the beach, bought some souvenirs from hawkers, and then headed back to the car. By that time it was about 4pm and it took us perhaps an hour to get back to the hotel - very good time by Lagos standards. We rested for a while and after showering headed off for a walk around the area and found a restaurant for a traditional meal. We wandered from there to a beer parlour where we sat for a while and then came back about 9.
Today - Saturday - is our last day and we intend to go downtown again and take a walking tour of Lagos Island. I do not fly until 1.30am tomorrow morning but we will probably aim to get to the airport about 7pm. An interesting development is that Saka, Tolu's neighbour in Akure, who has just got his visa to do a PhD in Glasgow, has booked himself on the same flight as me. As he has never flown and never left Nigeria before, he may need quite a bit of looking after!
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