I found a website for a bus service I once used, not sure even when, 2008 or 2009, coming from Owerri to Calabar. ABC transport. It advertised a N6500 bus from Benin to Calabar at 11am. But when I walked around Benin City and asked around noone was able to tell if that’s true, the phone number given on the website was switched off, then the website was out of order.
However people told me about AKTC. Akwa Ibom Transport Company. Akwa Ibom is a state adjacent to Cross Rivers, the state in which Calabar city is located. Mention Calabar to anyone in Nigeria and they will sigh. If only Nigeria looked like Calabar… The witches and wizards. Dog meat. The best food in Nigeria. Human meat. Mortuary water used to cook.
It’s a nice city, well-maintained, water and forests surrounding it. Water and forests are always a nice combination.
I left hotel around 8am. The taxis in front of the hotel didn’t want to go below N700 for a 2km ride. Finally the last taxi engaged in a long chat with me. The driver quoted high fuel prices (petrol in Nigeria costs N145 per litre, that’s $0.40/€0.36/1.54zł) I told him taxis are taking advantages of visitors and I might have tripped him. He said he’d go for N600 only so that I can no longer say they were taking advantages of visitors.
We talked so much in the car that we missed the AKTC motor park. The driver said he liked “the gist.”
The ticket office informed me I came too late for the bus to Calabar, I could still go to Uyo, in Akwa Ibom and get the Calabar bus from there, “it’s only an hour.” Fine by me. Ticket price: N2500. Not bad and we will be on the road for over 6 hours.
I managed to have jollof and stew and egg for breakfast, N150, a woman on the street was serving food. I even bought myself a proper handkerchief to wipe away the sweat. A Nigerian friend once seeing me wiping sweat with my sunhat criticised me saying I should have a piece of cloth dedicated to swiping away the sweat. So I obliged.
The seat were comfortable although the Nigerian busses don’t have any place for the load on the roof. Maybe they are not allowed. So all the obligatory sacks of rice and flour are inside, there was no free space on the floor.
We went fast. Looks like the AKTC is a government operation, Akwa Ibom government operation, so we weren’t stopped at checkpoints. We were stopped once, the policeman complained about speeding. And speeding the driver was..
We passed Onitsha, according to Ryszard Kapuściński the site of the largest market in the world.
The road was either very good, often dual carriage motorway, or very bad, with deep potholes and mud.
We stopped in Umuahia, in Abia State, for lunch. I had jollof rice with stew and three snails. Snails are not cheap, the ones I had in Idanre and Benin were N700 a piece (in London they are £7 a piece) but here they were N250 a piece so I splurged and they were delicious. OK, they were smaller than the ones before but still.
There was one checkpoint in which I had to step out of the bus. NIS. Nigerian Immigration Service. They “registered” me in a writing pad in their car, apologised I had to stand in the sun, asked for “something.” There was a bottle of palm wine on their seat.
In Uyo, I bought ticket for Calabar, N1000 and the bus left almost immediately.
On our way women were also selling snail skewers. I remember eating such a skewer in Cameroon and if was fiery with pepper but I resisted. Not sure why.
It was a slow ride. Busy road. Heavy lorries abound. Many checkpoints. The border between Akwa Ibom and Cross Rivers is on a bridge. There is a checkpoint on each side where traffic is only allowed one-way.
An hour of the journey turned into more than two. It became dark. Lightnings lit up the sky. Calabar welcomed bus with rain. A very heavy rain.
I thought I’d go to the very end of the bus trip, to the AKTC motor park but a woman behind me told me it was better to get out at MCC/Mobil junction and I did. Ankle-deep in running water I got out my big rucksack from the back of the car and I ran towards some roof to stand under it.
15-20 minutes later the rain wasn’t getting any weaker, it was almost 8pm, I had no hotel. I asked a woman standing next to me about taxis, she pointed out to cars passing by but also said the cars standing on the side of the road could take me. Every car in Calabar could be a taxi.
So I walked out onto the rain and on the pavement, flooded by water, a man stood with an umbrella, barefoot, and shouted “drop” to me. I said Atekong, that’s the street the hotel I wanted was on, and he said N700 and off we went.
The driver didn’t know where the hotel was so I led him using Google Maps. We went into some small streets, the car’s lights did not want to switch on, for 100 meters we drove against the traffic. I even wondered if it’s safe to just get into an unmarked car, at night, in this rain, but we got to the hotel, the driver still barefoot. I asked him to wait in case the cheapest rooms were our or the hotel was full. But they had rooms and, as described on iOverlander, the price was N8000 but I said I’d stay two nights, the price went down to N7000 if paid in cash. Sure. It was a single room silver. This is what a bed in single room in Nigeria looks like.
There is AC and fan. There is even working fridge. But instead of a shower there is a bathtub, though it has hot water. There is some leaking around the toilet plumbing and there is water on the floor. There are mosquitoes in the room. One can’t have everything.
The hotel location is very good, it’s just outside night hotspots. I went out looking for food. I skipped roasted fish – again it was catfish – one place had it for N2500, a place next door for N1000. I ended up eating on the street, eba and egusi for N300. I went to a place called Tata Fish for beer.
The waiter called me master. He asked me if I wanted a woman. A woman came to me, a very pretty one, tall, slim, short haircut and said she would suck me if I bought her a bottle of beer. Then she just asked for a bottle of beer.
The place was full, the music as always very infectious, half of the bar was dancing, the rhythms were hot.
When I paid the waiter asked “anything for your boy?”. “Next time.” Next time. I paid N1500 for 2 bottles of Guinness, not cheap.
On my way back to hotel I bought some suya. A gizzard skewer was N100, I bought five, they were very tasty. I slept before midnight.
Coming back to Maman 