Canoe Trip

The first week of the Easter Holidays we decided to go canoeing. We have done quite a bat of canoeing in the past - down the Wye and the Monnow mainly and boy oh boy this was not like that!
I duly phoned a contact someone had said had canoes Mufu and we drove way out past Lekki to meet him, on his Ocada, at the side of the road. He then led us to this village. It was really well run with stand pipes and children everywhere. I had packed some sweets and pens incase there were kids about and I was quickly over run with children wanting lollipops. The little ones didn't know they had to take the wrappings off, so we spend quite a time unwrapping lollies.
We were then taken to our canoes and we had a paddler each! The canoes were in various stages of decay - each had a bailing bucket (not a good omen) and were hand carved out of tree trunks. The canoeing was fantastic there was no sound just insects and birds - magical two hours in the back waters of Lagos.

Edible fungus - but I am such a wuss I didn't eat it - isn't red poisonous?

Real dug out

my Paddler Taho

I am going to destroy this hat soon!

very willing to be disturbed!

In the school pineapple garden

After about an hour in the canoes we stopped at another remote village asnd we were introduced the the dead Chief's wife. The Chief is buried on the front step of the house - a thing that shocked our two teenaged companions. We were also taken to the school and they were very proud of their new toilets (although I saw kids peeing in the playground) but again our intrepid teenagers ( and their older companions) declined the offer of using the facilities. The pens came in very useful here though the kids and adults all wanted them.

School playground
Next stop after the canoeing was the beach at the Lekki free zone. This is where one of the previous rulers of NIgeria, Alowolo, was placed under house arrest for 10 years. It is also where Lekki, a portugese slave trader exported his thousands of slaves to the West Indies. It is hard to believe that such a beautiful place was the place of such misery and degradation.  All that remains of the slave compound is one of the pillars that they were marched through to the boats. This should be preserved to remind of of how cruel man can be to others but it has been left to decay- perhaps that is the better way .

beautiful beach and water but savage undertow

they caught very little when we were there

The slave post at Lekki

out of touch

I am so sorry we haven't been blogging, but I didn't know anyone was reading the blog!! I will now update weekly.
Some of the things we have done have been really interesting! We are now members of the yacht club and have started sailing little catamarans called Hobies. Great fun so when we were back in the UK we have bought floatation devices etc. I must admit though we only joined the yacht club for the social aspect and for the trips each Sunday to a lovely little beach.

water coming out of the wrong pipe

For those of you who know me, you know I don't "rough it", so these photos of the trip we took to Osogbo will really make you laugh. We went up to a World Heritage Site - sacred to the Yoruba people and stayed in a well known artists "guest house" OMG . At least the sheets were clean - that is all I will say. The shower photos show my naive expectation that hot water would come out of the shower head - there was after all a hot water tank on the wall plugged into the electrical supply. NO the water came out of the corroded pipes all over the electrical wires! After that we had cold showers. well the water is never really cold just luke warm. And that was one of the first things we did on coming home to the UK, took a huge drink of cold tap water- until you can't do that you don't realise how much you will miss it.

the guest house

the gardens at the guest house were lovely

these girls are 8 and 9

the electrics were - challenging

this bridge was made by a Welsh Engineer and the duplicate of it is in  Herefordshire!!!

the monkeys were everywhere- hunting is banned

In the Sacred Groves

changing a tyre miles from anywhere

the upstairs was added later and you can't get from the ground floor to the 1st floor except by going outside.

Back to Osogbo, we went with fantastic friends who have lived in  Nigeria for over 30 years and who know everything, but the car had 4 flat tyres over the weekend and the air conditioning broke down. Still Carl can now change a Toyota tyre incredibly quickly.