The conservation center was a nice escape from the bustling city of Lagos, Africa's largest city in population.


Plenty of monkeys to spot.


The tree canopy walk was actually closed due to flooding, but the guide let us go anyway. It just meant walking through the ankle-deep water.


The canopy walk is about 75 feet in height at it's tallest part. It also sways quite a bit which is a tad uneasy feeling.


It provided some great views of the conservation center though.


Our guide. One thing I noticed about the Nigerian people was that, sure, they're louder in a public setting, but when you're one on one with them they're very quiet, which I found interesting. Our guide was quiet at times that we could barely hear him.


Spotted some more monkeys on the way back to the car.


Monkey.


Reflections.


Our next stop was the Makoko Floating Village, part of mainland Lagos. It's one of the poorest areas of the city and the population consists mostly of refugees from Benin. Fred negotiated for someone to take us around on one of the boats. I'll omit descriptions for most and let the images speak.


More than half of the population consists of children, of which most were not even remotely camera shy.























They had us get off of the boat for a little while and sit in the church. I don't want to say it was a shakedown, but it was. Not totally unexpected but at least they weren't aggressive about it. We had nothing to give so eventually they stopped asking.
Understandably, as we got deeper into the village people became more apprehensive to the camera, though some would blatantly ask for their pictures to be taken, or for me to photograph something they were carrying, like a fish.














It was clear that this part of the city rarely sees visitors. The reactions from the kids were profound and many people were surprised to see white people in general. For example, one guy in a boat rowed past us, pointed, and literally screamed "white man!!!!!" Word spread quickly...

Our next stop after Makoko was the Balogun Market, the largest market in Lagos. Hectic, busy and colorful, just the way I like it.


Balogun Market.


Shrimp.


Lady with bananas.


Did some shopping for family here.


Traditional dress.


Balogun Market.


Fred stopped to get us some groundnut (peanuts).


4 days later and we finally saw a sunset in Lagos.



Day 6


The plan for today was to head over to the Nigerian National Museum then off to the airport to fly up to Abuja, Nigeria's capital to meet up with my friend's friend's parents (confused yet?).

Nigerian National Museum. Our guide was VERY strict with pictures but I still managed a few.


Female genital mutilation tools. The museum also had the limo that Murtala Mohammad was assassinated in, though I wasn't able to get a picture of it. Lagos's airport is named after him.


We arrived at the airport less than 15 minutes prior to the flight. Traffic was horrendous as many roads were closed due to Macron's visit that day. Fred turned on the siren (yes, we had a siren and yes, it was entertaining) and got us through the traffic in a rather erratic manner. When we arrived at the airport, he ran inside, got behind the Air Peace ticket counter and picked up our boarding passes. We made the flight.


Didn't get any pictures from the flight as I was in an aisle, but our host picked us up at the Abuja Airport and took us into town. He hadn't booked a hotel, which seems typical in this part of the world and was relying on booking upon our arrival. The only issue was that Macron was in Abuja (he made a short trip down to Lagos that day) so almost all of the hotels were booked up. Several hours of hotel hopping landed us here. Not the nicest but fine for one night.



Day 7


Another slow day. We slept in, then our host picked us up and took us to the next hotel. He wanted to put us up in the nicest place in town (which looks really nice online) but they were fully booked, as were most places still. We ended up at the Chelsea Hotel which was fine for two nights.


We spent most of the day sitting around relaxing, but we did go out for a drive later in the day. We were trying to arrange the Yellow Fever vaccine for me but we weren't able to. Everywhere our host called said they had the vaccine but not the card.

We drove near Aso Rock.


Abuja is a planned city, so the city layout and roads are significantly better than Lagos and exceeded my expectations.