I'm not a road trip type of person, especially if the trip has do with hours of driving through thick bushes and forests and all I have to feed my eyes on are green vegetation, it gets me easily bored and I'm not the type to sleep through journeys, so its totally pointless to me. One of those type of pointless road trips I've had was the one I went on in the year 2015 when I travelled to Abia state by road. So this was how it happened.
Sometime during October 2015, I was with a bunch of friends drinking alcohol and playing FIFA when we all simultaneously got a notification on our phones, it was the call up letter for the NYSC program, most of the guys had similar locations for their place of service, whereas I was the only one posted to Abia state. Prior to that time, the only thing I knew about Abia state was that it was alphabetically the first state on the list of 36 states in Nigeria.
Most importantly, among my friends, I was the only one posted there, in my mind I was already sad, like why does this kind of thing always happen to me! So the day to travel came, I bought my ticket and chose to sit beside the window, after learning that it was a 9 hour drive, the best I could do for myself was sit somewhere comfortable, airy enough and maybe I could catch some nice sights along the way.
On the morning of the journey, I was escorted by my Dad to the park, I boarded the bus and we both bid our farewells. In my mind I hoped we had more young people in the bus just to make the journey lively, not like I planned to talk to anyone, shortly after, two fine girls my age entered the bus and sat beside me, maybe the journey wasn't going to be so bad afterall.
I didn't want to be too forward so I kept my cool for a while, I looked at my watch and we had 9 hours to go excluding traffic, then the bus took off and so my day dreaming began. Not long after, we entered the zones where there was no longer network, I was still keeping my cool and haven't spoken to the girls beside me yet, they were speaking their language and I could tell they were not my tribe.
An hour into the journey, we got pulled over by the Road Safety officials, the argument between the driver and the officials took about 30minutes before we realised that the driver didn't have complete papers and they had to impound the bus till he provided them plus pay a fine to a bank that was an hour into town.
So we were asked to get out of the bus while the driver had to hitch a ride back into town, head to bank, make necessary payments, go to the transportation quarters to get the required documents and head back to where we were. Goodness, a 9 hour journey just turned to 12hours excluding traffic. Why did this kind of thing always happen to me!!
We waited and waited, it was not funny! I couldn't make calls because the network was terrible, being a bloody introvert, I couldn't even mix up to chat with people, I was fucking upset, so I decided to take a walk to see if I could grab a bite or something, then my mind reminded me about the movies where travellers had a little stop by and one of the travellers walked away from the others and was left behind, I quickly ran back to where everyone was.
After about 2hours the driver returned and apologized, I wasn't even interested, I just wanted to leave! Apparently so did everybody else. 30minutes into the journey, all my sight seeing had ended and we were left with only views of the thick forest. At that time, half of the bus had slept, the 2 girls beside me were long gone in deep sleep, I hardly sleep during trips, so I knew my boredom had just begun.
5hours into the journey, we arrived at a stop over, people who wanted to ease themselves did so and also ate. The restaurants were local and for the first time, I tasted Igbo Egusi(Melon soup) with Eba, it was delicious, or perhaps I was just too famished not to think so, there was a bit of network there so I had a quick chat with my friends who updated me that they had arrived at their own destination.
After about 45minutes, the bus was filled up and we were back on the journey, except for the two girls who sat beside me, they had gotten to their own destination, so my side was empty for the rest of the journey. Most passengers in the bus continued their sleep after filling their belly, I plugged in my headset and listened to music for another 2 hours before realizing that my it was not wise for me to drain my battery just in case.
So as the driver sped through the road, I was deep in my thoughts and didnt notice that other buses who've sped past us were coming back and trying to throw our bus a signal, first bus did, no one noticed, second bus did, no one noticed, by the time the third bus did, both the driver, the passengers in front who were awake and myself were very confused, was there something wrong with our bus?
We couldn't see ahead because it was a sharp bend but the 5th car ahead of ours began to turn around, the 4th car ahead followed suit, the 3rd car who we could barely see also turned around and sped past us shouting armed robber armed robber!!! At this point I was attentive as fuck!!!Armed whaaaat!!!!!In a flinch, the second vehicle in our front also made a quick turn and sped past us.
But being that our vehicle was a long luxurious bus, it couldn't make such sharp turns! Then the driver got crazy, he started to pull a reverse with speed, the passengers went into panic and everybody began to shout at the top of their voices!!! Imagine a luxurious bus doing a reverse in full speed, with no idea of what was coming behind, I can't even explain the amount of fear that swarm through me, right ahead they said were armed robbers! Why did this kind of thing of thing always happen to meee!!!!
So the driver swerved into the bush, luckily there was no vehicle coming from behind else it would have been a mad collision. At this point we didn't know if we should take off into the bush or wait for the Armed robbers to come meet us, other passengers were busy praying in their tongues and calling on their gods, the ones who could cry were already crying.
So the driver told us to wait a bit to see what was going to happen next, we were far away from any town, putting a call through to any police station was futile, so we waited about an hour or two, then slowly continued the journey, lo and behold, we didn't see anything or robbery taking place, maybe it was over and they had left, maybe nothing ever happened, no one knew for sure.
The drivers who sped past us probably only followed the vehicle that also followed another vehicle who probably forgot something behind and was in a rush to get it back, and the last one to get us all confused was probably also as confused too.
We arrived at our destination in Umuna Bende, Abia State at midnight and we were asked to carry our luggage on our heads as we queued into the camp. I was exhausted, hungry, angry but most of all grateful for getting to my destination in one piece.
Thanks for reading this long ass post!
Cheers.