As part of my ongoing plan to get the most out of this life, I signed on to a truly exciting and interesting trip that my cousin planned to Africa. Roughly a week in Kenya and then a week in Morocco. You will notice from the outset that no part of this trip was scheduled to occur in Nigeria. Yeah, about that.
I arrived in Charlotte, well ahead of schedule for my flight across the Atlantic to London Heathrow. Unfortunately, the plane was not quite as ready as I was, and I got to experience one of the most frustrating traveling experiences for the second time in my life. I landed at Heathrow at the time when the next plane I was supposed to be on was leaving. One difference this time is that I was trying to get to Kenya, which is decidedly more remote than Colorado. The other difference is that the airline seemed to recognize this, and pre-emptively booked me for an alternative flight path in to Kenya. Through Lagos. Where is Lagos? If you paid attention to the text above, or if you’re better than I am at geography, you might know that it is a very large city (population > 8 million) in Nigeria. I did not know this. I thought it sounded vaguely Greek. Well I’ve never been to Greece, but Lagos is no Greece. Lagos is a disaster. Correction, the airport at Lagos is a disaster. The city and country as a whole might be lovely, but I’ll never know because I’m never going back. The place looked like it was recovering from a legitimate military conflict, and not recovering well. I would have felt more comfortable alone on a dark subway platform. I don’t exactly have the highest standards when it comes to airports. Floors and walls are pretty much a must though. Not in Nigeria.
My specific problem (beyond a very real conflict with their interior decorator) started at Customs. The first gentleman I met seemed to digest the situation immediately and respond appropriately. I was transferring flights, so I wasn’t going to leave the airport. Therefore, I did not need a visa or a passport stamp, and I could proceed to my next flight. It was foolish of me in retrospect to assume that would hold up. I’m going to blame my optimism on the second red-eye flight in 48 hours. The person in military garb eight feet to my right had different ideas. He snatched my passport out of my hands and just told me to wait. He then proceeded to stand where he had been before, looking neither at me nor my passport. After a few minutes he took me aside and told me to wait again. I was eventually allowed to collect my luggage, all while he held my passport. I came back with the bags and was greeted by a woman in a very nice bright dress, who had gained possession of my passport while I was away. I was to follow her, somewhere, for something. The flow of information was about like this for the rest of my seven hours in Lagos. She took me past several other armed checkpoints, most of which tried to stop me even as she tried to push me through. Turf wars were waged while I stood by, just trying to keep an eye on my documentation. I went through security. Like the security you go through before a flight, except I had no boarding pass, and, as I may have mentioned, no passport. She took me to an “office,” Which was just a small-ish room with some odd furniture and a guy sleeping on a metal bench. He woke up and said good morning and eventually sat up and watched the local news, but I have no idea who he was or what he does at the airport. The woman just left me there, taking my passport with her.
After a time, I was escorted back through security and to the Kenya Airways counter, where my passport was presented for me and I obtained a boarding pass. Well, my guide obtained one for me, which she placed inside my passport. We walked back through security, where no one examined the passport that I didn’t have. I was allowed to pass anyway, and my guide walked me towards my gate. Suddenly she stopped, still holding my passport and boarding pass. She asked, “Do you have something for me?” At this point I reached for my wallet, trying to decide what was going to be enough to get my documentation back, while not going so high that I gave away money unnecessarily. I had about four singles and then the next smallest bill was a $20. I handed over one $20 bill, more than a little nervously. She took it in one hand, and then handed me my documents from the other. I was then directed to a place I could wait for the next four hours for my flight, while being constantly watchful whenever someone in a uniform showed up. There were a lot of them. But they didn’t stop me, I boarded the Kenyan Airlines flight, the greatest flight of my life thus far.
Editor's note: The U.S. Department of State says of Nigeria - Reconsider Travel. Uh, no shit
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