Nigeria - part 2

The Redemption Hotel International was featured in my guidebook, offered “breakfast and varied hot menus” and boasted a prime location next to the inbound long-distance minibus stop. It had a single room, whose double bed was already occupied, inappropriately in such a religious country by a (presumably) unmarried couple of fleas, attested to by occasional but not prolific bites no matter which half of the bed I chose to sleep in. There was electric wiring and sockets in every room, but no actual electricity; each evening a generator would be run for a couple of hours, powering a flickering black and white television through the evening news and an electric lamp to illuminate the evening meal. The family who ran it – Mr George, his wife and her sister – were charming hosts and even better cooks. Full board accommodation including three excellent home-cooked meals every day cost around five pounds despite the artificially inflated currency, and as I needed feeding up after my recent illness, I took most of my meals there.

Management and staff of the Redemption Hotel International

The food consisted mainly of a variety of mildly spiced stews, usually based on fish or chicken, accompanied by either rice or a very filling green staple with a texture halfway between mashed potato and play-dough. I was told this was made from cassava, but when writing this I have browsed the internet to find pictures of something similar without success – nothing I have seen has quite the same intensity of green colour. It was not very varied cuisine, but the possible permutations were increased by a variety of fresh fruit for dessert. My favourite was mango, ripened at source a completely different fruit from mango ripened in a supermarket, soft, properly juicy and sweet, and very messy to eat. Fortunately, although there was no running electricity, there was ample running water, and failing that I had only to step outside and hold out my hands – the rainy season had begun in earnest.

To pass the time, I took the ferry across the river delta to visit some memorials commemorating the early days of the slave trade and a then succession of subsequent 19^th century local rulers or Edidems (under British overlordship), splendidly named Eyo Honesty the Second through Eyo Honesty the Sixth. The passengers were mainly tired looking housewives, already on their way home after early-morning shopping in Calabar, weighed down by heavy bags, and a fertile audience for the hypnotic patter of a salesman trading in some sort of tablets. As far as I could tell they were either slightly out-of-date vitamin pills or possibly aspirin, but if his act were to be believed, they were capable of curing anything from headaches to heart-disease. Business was brisk.

Otherwise the wait for my Cameroon visa was peacefully restful, with only occasional minor interruptions by local policeman eager to make a lucrative “arrest”. My passport duly bearing a systematically misspelt stamp (including of the words Cameroon and Calabar), and mindful of only a couple of days remaining on my seven-day Nigerian visa, I caught the ferry to Oron, whence boats to Cameroon allegedly departed. The alternative option was a bus. My guidebook mentioned a minimum seven official police checkpoints on the way to the border (implying an uncountable number of further unofficial checkpoints) – checking out the sea-route seemed an effort well worthwhile.

Oron was a smuggler town, and strangers were not welcome. Wandering the few yards down to the beach in search of the passport office, I came across various small boats being loaded. Their crews unequivocally proposed that I return to my hotel and remain in there until my boat departed next morning. A determined lady marched me up to the passport control, and then firmly suggested that I followed the crews’ advice for my own good.

The international boat to Cameroon proved to be a fifteen foot dinghy powered by a small outboard motor steered by a very short man balancing on the stern, three patched inner tubes for its dozen or so passengers being provided as its life-saving equipment. As we set off down the flat-calm of the river delta, it seemed slow but unthreatening. More alarming was the customs-control gunboat which swiftly detected us, demanded via siren and load-hailer that we halt immediately, and then boarded. A “duty” was payable… Happily this was the only such obstacle en route, which to me totally justified the choice of boat over bus.

After a few hours we came to a small island, a few thatched huts visible through tall grasses and mangroves. Rounding the cove, it became clear that it was not some rural island backwater, but rather the largest spirits warehouse in West Africa. I have only once seen more strong alcohol in a single location, and that was in Tesco’s national UK distribution centre. There were cases and cases of the stuff, mostly premium export branded whisky and brandy, but with a wide selection of alternatives, especially gin and pastis. Presumably it was the principle source of “duty-free” supplies to most of Nigeria. My fellow passengers fortified themselves at one of several bars, but I was relieved to see the boatman resisted this temptation.

A couple of hours later, many of the passengers were regretting their choices of aperitif as we left the twin shelters of the delta and island and entered the open Atlantic. The weather was still tranquil light rain with little wind, but the rollers were high enough to obscure the view of the coast, and we seemed to be quite far out to sea. I surreptitiously took possession of one of the inner tubes. I am no sailor and not at all knowledgeable about such matters, but a fifteen foot outboard open dinghy did not feel like the best option for an ocean voyage.
It was almost dark when thankfully we finally landed, apparently in the wrong place. A cheerful official met the boat and asked us if we had purchased tickets to Limbé (we had). This was Idenao, he explained, two hours back up the coast. The boatman would now refund us the difference in price. After a brief, sullen protest, the boatman did so. I had the impression it was a regular and ritualised transaction. The official’s smile broadened as he stamped our passports. “Nigerians are all thieves. Welcome to Cameroon”.