Nigeria!

Nigeria Nigeria Nigeria... Before entering Nigeria we heard nothing but bad things and horrible stories, most people we met told us not to go and if we did go through as fast as possible. However when I meet fellow travelers so far anyways I have a good, or at least decent story of Nigeria to tell. After spending an entire day to travel the 100 Km from Niki to New Bussa on the dried up river bed the good Ol Sami needed more than a few repairs. After the drive it had: A broken Motor Mount, A blown Transmission Seal, 3 broken shocks (2 completely missing), our carburetor wont rev right, a Cracked rear axle housing and our exhaust had broken in half in a different spot! After going to about 3 Nigerian Napa's (a guys garage who has more than the average broken down cars) we found a seal that wasn’t the right one and not even the right size, but it slowed down the leak so we only had to fill the trany up with oil about every 3 hours. We used some JB weld on the rear axle and were back on the road heading east! Our goal was to make it to the town of Abuja by dark but having to stop and fill up with oil every three hours made it take a bit longer than expected. Along this drive we saw firsthand the reason Nigeria has such a bad name... We went through towns were the smog and pollution were so bad that you couldn’t see more than three cars in front of you, you couldn’t take a deep breath and our eyes were actually burning. The people here were also unlike any others we have encountered. We had the driver of the car in front of us hit a guy on a motorcycle. Instead of apologizing or giving him his insurance info (like they have insurance) He got out and started a legitimately minute long all out Fight with the driver of the motorcycle! Eventually they were pulled apart and the entertainment was over... for about thirty seconds. People begging for food or money every time we stop our car have become an every stop occurrence however this was the first time the beggars had ever turned violent. After telling them we had no food left etc they literally started hitting our car as hard as they could! As if it hadn’t taken enough damage already! By this point it was getting dark and we were not looking forward to Abuja which was still at least 45 min away. It was main roads the rest of the way to Abuja and even two lanes going each direction! We hadn’t seen this big of roads in over a month! We finally arrived in Abuja and pulled into the Sheridan Hotel (you can camp in their parking lot if you eat at the restaurant) which is where we met Marcos. Marcos is a Swiss guy who was leaving the restaurant as we pulled in. He came over to check out what we were doing and what not and after talking for a while he mentioned that he had a few extra rooms and we were welcome to come stay if we would like and save some money. He was the first other white person we had seen in over a week and seemed like a nice guy so we quickly agreed. When he pulled up for us to follow him in his brand new Land Cruiser our hopes of a hot shower grew! We followed him for about ten minutes before arriving at his place, The Security Guard opened the gate and we pulled in. We were greeted at the door by his Chef who quickly asked if Steak sounded good for dinner, as if we wouldn’t have loved it anyway the fact that we had been eating nothing but plain rice and beans for the past two days had to have helped. As he showed us around his house our dreams came true when we found not only a Hot Shower but AC in our room as well! He then added that he also had a full Shop and if we wanted to stay the next day and get our Cameroon Visa's we were welcome to use it to fix up the car!
After a good night’s rest we got up this morning, dropped off our passports at the Cameroon Embassy and headed to his shop. I was able to fix the motor mount, exhaust, carburetor and finish up the rear axle! Tomorrow morning we will pick up our Visa's and head Towards Cameroon and if all goes well (stopping every 3 hours to fill up on oil) we should make it to Cameroon by Thursday evening!