Hi guys! I've missed blogging so much! I've had a very busy past week between traveling to Benin for easter to spend time with my brother and his family, and running after my 16month old adorable niece who right now has stolen my heart for a lifetime! All in all it's been a fabulous week and i wish the holiday could continue forever... if wishes were wands, we'd all be rich...sighs...
Speaking of my trip to Benin reminds me of the hassle i encountered to get to the airport on Thursday afternoon, i'll share my encounter with you. I tell you traffic in Lagos is shortening longevity in this country, no doubt. My journey to the airport started a few minutes before half past 1 in the afternoon and a trip that should normally take 45minutes from Lekki to Ikeja took twice the time (an hour and a half).
Issue 1: I and my colleague were supposed to hitch a ride with one of the MDs but later reconsidered due to the rumor of traffic on the road. So we decided to take a ferry across water from Lekki to Ikoyi to cut off most of the traffic and i guess i can say it was a wise decision.
Issue 2: We were going to two different airports and decided to share cabs since the airports are within close proximity of each other. The cab driver blatantly refused that he would make the 5 minutes apart trip between the two airports even at an increased cost of the cab fare. So which means one of us would have to get down and continue on foot. Having less luggage i agreed to continuing on foot.
Issue 3: The cab had no air conditioning so you can only imagine the immense heat and exhaust fumes which we were baptized with en-route to the airport, it wasn't pleasant. Then we got to Ikeja (which is were the airport is) and were held up in traffic! Deciding to sit out the traffic would have meant missing our flights so we decided to get down and take an okada (aka motorbike) to the airport for the rest of the journey.
Issue 4: The rest of the journey between where we got off the cab and the airport was like a 10 minutes bike ride (i'm not good at calculating distances but maybe that's less or about 2miles) and on a good day shouldn't have cost more than a N100 bucks (less than a dollar). But guess what?! The okada drivers were charging exactly 15 times that price, N1500 frigging bucks for a 10minutes ride!! The catch of course being that they know your heading to catch a flight and that inevitably makes you desperate and is a golden opportunity for them! Well i refused to fall for such a trap and decided to give a few more bikes a shot to see if anyone was gonna charge less! (I had about 45 minutes to flight departure) So i guess i can say i wasn't desperate yet!
Issue 5: No bikes were forthcoming! The traffic was horrendous and was exactly what we say in naija BUMPER TO BUMPER. The few bikes that passed by had passengers on them, the ones that didn't have passengers weren't commercial, and the few that were commercial were ridiculously overpriced! And that is how i stood for almost 15 minutes under the blazing sun, hand luggage in hand looking like a lost puppy, praying to God that a bike would come by and i would humbly pay the 1500, as long as i was out of the sun and on my way (as i now had just 30mins to flight departure)! My colleague of course left the minute we got off the cab (not knowing she was gonna cough up 1500), only for her to arrive at the airport and given a stupendous bill which she was forced to pay! Lool..
Issue 6: Okada finally arrives and agrees to take me to the airport at 5 times the usual price, N500, i quickly accept and off we go to the airport! I rush to the check in point and meet a queue and humbly take my position at the back of the queue. Of course as with most things in this country, they take their time to process boarding passes and it occurs to me that "as usual", ARIK Air is going to be late! That airline is infamous to always having delayed flights and in this case they didn't fail to live up to their reputation. Finally get my boarding pass and head to the waiting lounge to hear that the flight is delayed and by this time the hour on the clock is flight departure time. I take a seat and fall asleep after the loong assiduous task of getting to the airport!
Finally an hour and a half later from the original scheduled flight take off time, we get to board and head to Benin, which by the way is just a 35minutes flight! Being such a short flight there is no in-flight snacks and FYI i was starving and hence had to manage the cup of water which i was given. I finally get to Benin in one piece and am happily welcomed by family which made the journey all worthwhile.
So that's my Lagos traffic story oo.. How grateful i am to live so close to my office, i wouldn't trade that comfort for a million bucks!
Speaking of my trip to Benin reminds me of the hassle i encountered to get to the airport on Thursday afternoon, i'll share my encounter with you. I tell you traffic in Lagos is shortening longevity in this country, no doubt. My journey to the airport started a few minutes before half past 1 in the afternoon and a trip that should normally take 45minutes from Lekki to Ikeja took twice the time (an hour and a half).
Issue 1: I and my colleague were supposed to hitch a ride with one of the MDs but later reconsidered due to the rumor of traffic on the road. So we decided to take a ferry across water from Lekki to Ikoyi to cut off most of the traffic and i guess i can say it was a wise decision.
Issue 2: We were going to two different airports and decided to share cabs since the airports are within close proximity of each other. The cab driver blatantly refused that he would make the 5 minutes apart trip between the two airports even at an increased cost of the cab fare. So which means one of us would have to get down and continue on foot. Having less luggage i agreed to continuing on foot.
Issue 3: The cab had no air conditioning so you can only imagine the immense heat and exhaust fumes which we were baptized with en-route to the airport, it wasn't pleasant. Then we got to Ikeja (which is were the airport is) and were held up in traffic! Deciding to sit out the traffic would have meant missing our flights so we decided to get down and take an okada (aka motorbike) to the airport for the rest of the journey.
Issue 4: The rest of the journey between where we got off the cab and the airport was like a 10 minutes bike ride (i'm not good at calculating distances but maybe that's less or about 2miles) and on a good day shouldn't have cost more than a N100 bucks (less than a dollar). But guess what?! The okada drivers were charging exactly 15 times that price, N1500 frigging bucks for a 10minutes ride!! The catch of course being that they know your heading to catch a flight and that inevitably makes you desperate and is a golden opportunity for them! Well i refused to fall for such a trap and decided to give a few more bikes a shot to see if anyone was gonna charge less! (I had about 45 minutes to flight departure) So i guess i can say i wasn't desperate yet!
Issue 5: No bikes were forthcoming! The traffic was horrendous and was exactly what we say in naija BUMPER TO BUMPER. The few bikes that passed by had passengers on them, the ones that didn't have passengers weren't commercial, and the few that were commercial were ridiculously overpriced! And that is how i stood for almost 15 minutes under the blazing sun, hand luggage in hand looking like a lost puppy, praying to God that a bike would come by and i would humbly pay the 1500, as long as i was out of the sun and on my way (as i now had just 30mins to flight departure)! My colleague of course left the minute we got off the cab (not knowing she was gonna cough up 1500), only for her to arrive at the airport and given a stupendous bill which she was forced to pay! Lool..
Issue 6: Okada finally arrives and agrees to take me to the airport at 5 times the usual price, N500, i quickly accept and off we go to the airport! I rush to the check in point and meet a queue and humbly take my position at the back of the queue. Of course as with most things in this country, they take their time to process boarding passes and it occurs to me that "as usual", ARIK Air is going to be late! That airline is infamous to always having delayed flights and in this case they didn't fail to live up to their reputation. Finally get my boarding pass and head to the waiting lounge to hear that the flight is delayed and by this time the hour on the clock is flight departure time. I take a seat and fall asleep after the loong assiduous task of getting to the airport!
Finally an hour and a half later from the original scheduled flight take off time, we get to board and head to Benin, which by the way is just a 35minutes flight! Being such a short flight there is no in-flight snacks and FYI i was starving and hence had to manage the cup of water which i was given. I finally get to Benin in one piece and am happily welcomed by family which made the journey all worthwhile.
So that's my Lagos traffic story oo.. How grateful i am to live so close to my office, i wouldn't trade that comfort for a million bucks!
Wow, that was something. At least u made ur flight. Why's it always turn out to be that when you're in a mad dash panic to get to the airport in time, the flight ends up turning out to be delayed ?
ReplyDeleteI'm sure glad too I live 5mins drive from office & 10mins from the local airport. Sure beats the manic traffic that this place is known to have.
Lol i don't know why that happens but i do know that you can't afford not to dash to the airport cause more often than not its possible the flight wont be delayed!
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