Exploring Calabar: A Bittersweet Road-Trip To Calabar

Not all those who wander are lost. – J.R.R. Tolkien

When the word ‘Calabar’ is mentioned, what comes to the mind is often thoughts of peace, serenity, tourism, beauty and carnivals. Day and Night I have nursed the dream to visit this wonderful city of Calabar.

A lifelong dream so you should have seen my expression when it was announced that my department had picked Calabar for the next field trip, i knew from that moment that I needed to pay for the trip, the problem was how would I convince my parents to pay for a non-academic field trip lol, the first time I brought up the topic, my parents gave me a classic Nigerian parents response (it ended in tears).

Now as a student, this is one of the most challenging task, getting finance for your trips.

Pro Tip: Get a Sponsor to finance your trips or start a side hustle in school.

I was able to gather money from my travel savings (I start saving every semester towards my next adventure) and my side business. You might wonder why it was so important I travelled with my department, well, as a student departmental trips are safer, cost effective and more fun.

Finally, I got the money and was able to pay just few days to the payment deadline, what a relief it was. A day to the trip I nearly got the biggest heartbreak ever, the trip was almost cancelled but we thank God we went, we saw and we conquered.

Traveling From Benin To Calabar

Like it always was with us as a kid at the eve of any party, I was restless all through the night. The rendezvous point was like 5minutes away but I had taken my bath since 4am and prepared my bag as light as possible. Though the temptation of hitting the road was somewhat high around 6:00am, I did well in suppressing it for another 30minutes before leaving my hostel. With morning dew landing gently on my face I tore through the streets for the bus stop.

At The Rendezvous Point

On getting there, I had to wait for over 1 hour for the bus and then waited for 2 more hours for every other person, longest wait ever I would say because at this poing I was already seeing myself in Calabar. When it was time to leave, they provided jollof rice with chicken and water for everyone, see my smile at that point (my love for food). Before long, people started unwrapping their packs of food. I joined the bandwagon.

The Journey To Nowhere

Settled comfortably with my coursemates and I singing and dancing to various songs the journey began. The farther we traveled, the more excited I became, with high hopes that we would be getting to Calabar at least by 7pm if there was minimal traffic and if our driver smart enough.

Too bad I was wrong on both accounts, the traffic we encountered on the way ehn, then our driver was just another case, he kept taking longer routes and paid deaf ears to anyone who tried to show him the right route.

At about 10:00pm, we were somewhere in the middle of Akwa-Ibom, the roads were empty and to make matters worse he said he doesn’t drive at night that was when we knew hell wasn’t too far. He stopped the vehicle and said we were going to rest there till the next day, hell no, right in the middle of nowhere (I was still forming hard girl but deel down I was already in tears). After 30minutes of profusely appealing to him, he finally decided to drive us down to Calabar that night (the way I kept on praying in my heart).

We finally got into Calabar by 1:15am. My mum was already worried sick. She had stopped hearing from me since 8pm when my phone ran out of battery. On getting to the hotel I immediately called home and my mum picked without allowing it ring twice (the love of a mother).

At this point, I cared less about taking my bath, eating too was the least on my mind. All I needed was a good night rest. Good enough to make me mentally and physically ready for the much-anticipated lifelong dream tour around Calabar.

Did I get my goodnight rest?? Watch out for my next post as I would be giving you the answer to that and also taking you on a tour of Calabar.