Traveling is the hallmark of the upwardly mobile. This is easy to appreciate as you simply can’t travel if you are not mobile. Yeah correct, but this is not exactly true, as not all who travel are mobile or moving upwardly. In truth you don’t always need to own a car or be successful to do some traveling. Commercial traveling services come in handy in this regard. It is an often used option by both the haves and the have not’s. It’s the perfect option for those who can’t drive, don’t own a car, or simply can’t find the way by themselves.
Commercial travel, especially by road has really come a long way in Nigeria and no I don’t mean the condition of the roads which have gone from bad to worse but the quality of the vehicles available for use. We have gone a full 180 degrees from the punishing slow mammy wagons of the Sir Louis Ojukwu era to the relative luxury of fast moving air conditioned MarcoPolo’s and Toyota Hiace buses that tempt many a driver to take to the sky.
Either by road or air, constant junketing is supposed to be the feature lifestyle of the rich and successful; business moguls, CEOs, celebrity artistes, top politicians, and everyone in between. And for the rest of us, we really just can’t help feeling successful and progressive every time we make that odd trip out of town now and again. The feeling, for those who have experienced it, is a good one, strong and contagious, it soon as has everyone living up to it (even if momentarily) just like we have seen the rich and successful do.
At the motor parks-as the larger majority who do their travelling by road can testify-the mood is unmistakable, the vibrant bustle of life, vivid and hopeful is shared (however unequally) by everyone. Well-dressed passengers, sometimes accompanied by friends and/or family get busy with travel arrangements and last minute preparations all of it accompanied by a fair amount of bargaining over price and hankering over sitting arrangements.
By size Nigeria is a large country and a journey by road is only significant if you travel a couple hundred kilometers crossing through several states and lasting an average of five hours. This is obviously a very long time for anyone to remain glued to a seat. Every experienced traveler puts this into consideration and comes prepared for it one way or the other. Some travelers make a point to board the vehicles with empty stomachs so they don’t have to worry about emptying their bowels in the middle of the journey. Womenfolk seem to be strong adherents of this rule and a number of them can be found scurrying around like rodents seeking for a spot to pee one last time just before takeoff. It’s sometimes the last chance to answer nature’s call as some drivers never make any stop over’s in the course of the journey.
At the other end of the spectrum however are those travelers who board the vehicles with their bellies stuffed to the tip and forever remain on the lookout for something to eat as the journey progresses, believing that there is nothing worse than being stuck for hours in a fast moving metal cage with nothing to eat and drink. In the end they are inconsolable if the driver doesn’t think it necessary to stop over at a restaurant. On some occasions they get a chance to hit back at the stubborn drivers if he runs out of fuel and turns into a petrol station. Here they waste no time in scampering out of the vehicle in search of something to eat and drink. However following closely on their heels are the avoid-eating-while-you-travel passengers seeking for the best spot to void their overactive bowels.
In the absence of our aperiodic fuel shortages, such stop over’s at petrol stations are usually short and sharp. The driver angered by the behavior of his ill-mannered and delinquent passengers blasts his horn, revs his engine severely, threatening to leave behind whoever delays any further. The accompanying moments are a frenzied exchange of items between hawkers and passengers, passengers and drivers. In the midst of these many an experienced traveler would never forgo the ritual of buying souvenirs for loved ones as the intensity of welcome on arrival is relative to the size of the package in hand.
But the drivers are human too and when the journey is really long no one needs to urge them before they pull out of the highway and head not into a typical road side restaurant but into one of the mushrooming high end eateries that are becoming a growing middleclass culture. Usually these places have a pact with the driver that guarantees him free meals in exchange for a bus full of hungry and weary passengers. In some of those eateries’ a plate of food sells for #1,500 or more. Which is by all means way, way above the average in a nation with its’ minimum wage set at #18,000.
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