The airport in Enugu was just as chaotic as the one in Lagos. Our group had a single ticket for all of us, so we stood quietly to the side, waiting to be attended to and observing the scene. Several staff members were bustling around the check-in counter simultaneously. They darted back and forth from one side of the computer to the other, performing various tasks like tagging suitcases, tossing them onto the conveyor belt, and returning to the main area. It looked like Brownian motion, yet somehow, they managed to get the job done. When our turn came, they heaved several backpacks onto the scale at once to calculate the total weight and noted down the number of items.
We started thinking we’d soon get our boarding passes. However, our belongings were set aside, and nothing happened. Then our luggage was weighed and counted again, and again, and yet again. Finally, the bags disappeared through the opening in the wall, we received our boarding passes, and everyone relaxed. Shortly after, some of us were called away to check our luggage, as we allegedly packed powerbanks in it. I went through the staff entrance to the area where cargo is loaded onto the plane. After a long struggle to gain entry, I discovered that the culprit was a bottle of water in my backpack. Apparently, liquids must be in the carry-on and cannot be checked in with the luggage! The most surprising thing was that, despite all the seeming disarray, both of our domestic flights departed on schedule, and no one’s luggage went missing.
Abuja has been the capital of Nigeria since 1991. The capital was relocated from Lagos to the country’s geographical center; the city was purpose-built for this role from the ground up. We entered Abuja through the City Gate and happened to run into the Minister of Tourism, who was giving a press interview. Somehow, we kept meeting various high-ranking officials throughout this trip.
We strolled through the market and visited the grand mosque, the first and only one we saw in the country all week. Nigeria’s population is split roughly evenly between Christians and Muslims. We were visiting the Christian part of the country. From Abuja, one could continue the journey to the Muslim north, and half of our group was heading that way. As for me, however, it was time to wrap things up and fly to Europe which was a pity. The second half of the trip promised to be just as interesting as the first. But then again, as they say, “one cannot embrace the boundless”, or you simply cannot visit every corner of the world.
We spent the night at the Zuma Rock resort, located at the foot of the rock itself. Zuma is a massive natural monolith standing 725 meters tall. It reminded me of Uluru in Australia, though the rock types differ, and Zuma is twice the height of Uluru. In Nigeria, Zuma is believed to be a portal between the living and the dead, a place where the spirits of the deceased supposedly migrate into the rock. For some reason, I had assumed we would climb Zuma, perhaps because I climbed Uluru. It turned out that only a handful of people have ever reached the summit; the climb is technically difficult. On top of that, there is a belief that such a person will soon die or that something bad will happen to them. We couldn’t even get close to Zuma; we simply took some photos with the rock in the background and headed back to the hotel for dinner.
The next day, the group began to disperse. Half of it set off to explore Northern Nigeria, while the others scattered to various destinations. I took a direct flight from Abuja to Istanbul and then flew on to Bulgaria to spend a month on the Black Sea coast before my next trip.