🇳🇬 12/2024 Nigeria Travel

Day 73, 11.12.2024. — Welcome to Nigeria! 🇳🇬

The night is hot and suffocating. The fan barely moves, so we sleep with the doors open, relying on mosquito coils to keep the pests at bay. 🦟 While the smoke drives away mosquitoes, it leaves us coughing in the unbreathable air. 🚭 But the real challenges lie ahead: Nigeria. 🇳🇬 A country that’s definitely not a standard tourist destination. Yet here we are. 🥳

We start the morning with beans and bread before heading out to find a bus. When none appear, we begin walking and hitchhiking. The roads are under heavy construction, making it hard for anyone to stop. Only motorcycle taxis seem willing to pick us up, but they insist on a hefty “tourist tax.” 🤑 We refuse enough times for the price to drop, and soon we’re each perched on the back of a motorbike, heading for the straight road to the border. 🚪

The ride, even with a helmet, is far from pleasant. Dust fills our eyes, trucks roar past, and the 10 kilometers feel endless. Unfortunately, the remaining stretch to the border is more of the same. 🙄

At the Benin border, the fun begins. First, the officer stamps my passport incorrectly — marking it as an entry stamp instead of an exit. 🤦 This isn’t the first time it’s happened to me. Then we encounter Nigeria’s uniformed border officers. The first one is already…