THE CREEPY JOURNEY

Going long distance with car is one risky move that could claim the life of a person with the slightest mistake.

Irrespective of the risks, we still hope for the best but prepared for the worst when we use this medium of transportation.

I have used cars for both short and long distance transportation. It was fun, tiring, ad scary but made it.

One of my craziest moment on the road is when I used a tricycle (Keke) to travel from one state in Nigeria to another. The distance was over a hundred kilometers and the route I took was really scary. I made a post about it last year, you can access the post through the link here.

Being a person who travels a lot, I have quite an experience with the drivers. Some are rude, some are kind while some are just cool.

Mostly my travels are always long distance, from the Northern part of Nigeria to the eastern part of Nigeria.

The craziest journey I will like to share for this prompt is the one where I travelled from Owerri, Imo state to FCT abuja after failing ro secure a spot in the college of nursing mbano, imo state.

I was the passenger during this travel and it was a tensed and scary one.

Wanna know how it ends? Well, you should read on.

Photo taken with Camon 19.

So, that day, I decided to travel in the night and what's more crazy is that I wanted to travel with an unregistered park filled with hausa people, and have all the passengers to be hausas.

Before the night of my trip, I attended my brothers matriculation and prepared myself to start moving afterwards. I refused to rest.

I was not scared of the hausas because I'm actually good at speaking the language and I could just pretend to be from Kaduna if anything goes south.

Want to know what's more crazy? I had a very limited money with me. Just my transportation and less than 3 thousand naira to feed. All these happened during the COVID-19 pandemic, when there was lockdown.

Wanting to catch the first night bus, I got to the park on time, before 5pm and i got my ticket.

After the ticket, I waited patiently for the bus which filled after a short time. Unfortunately for me, m ticket was collected from me and given to another person. Reasons unknown and I could not raise my voice to avoid you-know-what. Didn't want to become he next suya. I was really scared but could not go back because I do everything I set my mind to.

The next bus came and I was given a ticket for it. Now, the wait begin. I waited over 2 hours for the bus to be filled which at last, came to pass.

I carried a bag, so I was asked to pay for load. I was surprised and annoyed. Why will I pay for load? I noticed that the talk was becoming something else, and the driver was fixated on collecting money for load, so I reluctantly gave him 500 for the load. During the wait, I ate something which made my money reduce greatly to about 1k.

We started the journey at last, but I was not comfortable at all. I was squeezed inside this bus as if I was a tomato in-between a burger. A tomato had space and could breath, but I couldn't because i did not have any space nor do i have a leg room.

Imagine being in one position with your legs tight and your body squeezed by other passengers for hours. What's more annoying? Body odour. Kai, omo, it was plenty.

I was scared, tensed, and at the same time, compressed by people with body odour. It was as if my village people came visiting.

I didn't tell my parents about my trip, and wanted to do it that way to get experience of how it felt like to travel like this. Also, I wanted it to be funded by me.

We got to a spot where we came down to stretch our legs and buy something to eat. On reaching there, I saw people buying different sweet things but I'm left with a very small amount of money. I dared not spend that money because either didn't know the emergency that may arise.

I almost turned to begging that night but my ego kicked in. Come to think of it, that idiot kicked in and made me starve for hours. It needs a whooping yaknow.

Well, I just bought water and groundnuts, stretched my legs, emptied my bladder, prayed in my heart and went for another round.

My nose adjusted to the smell and my brain stopped sending signals to secrete adrenaline. I began to trust my environment and it's people because I started noticing that these people were good guys. Even with all these, sleep was very very very far from my eyes.

We got to Abuja and they were not stopping. My heart skipped as we passed gwagwalada and was heading for Zuba. I decided to chill, may be they will enter Abuja town through zuba but I was wrong. These people were heading straight to Kaduna state. I was shocked and decided to stop. I came down, the time was around 4am and my phone was low.

Speaking hausa, I asked some people around where I was and they told me that I was in the Abuja - Kaduna road. What's creepy? Kidnappings take place alot in that location. More adrenaline was secreted and fear griped me, I went straight to a shock and sat with my back behind the wall and my eyes going 360 degree like that of a bird. While hiding my phone, I finally decided to place a call to my mom but there was no answer. My phone was low, about to run out of battery.

I dialed repeatedly but no answer. I almost broke down but that stupid ego kicked in again and shut the door of tears. The motivation it gave me was one in a billion.

When it was 6am, I called my mom and she picked up. I narrated everything to her but I hid some details so she will not get heart attack. She rushed immediately to me and picked me up. It took her over an hour to get to where I was dropped.

On seeing her, my guard was let down and I felt relaxed. I entered the car and a cool AC was blowing. Within few minutes, I visited the dreem dimension. When we got home, I refreshed and slept.

HOW WAS THIS EXPERIENCE FOR ME?

Currently, it's really funny.

It was filled with different emotions, suspense, sadness and fear. I was risking my life to get an experience. Thank God I did not develop Deep vein thrombosis.

My ego is the best, because it made me realize that no matter the circumstances I find my self, I should be calm and not be a coward and let myself down. Had it been I begged, the trauma will still hunt me till date. I believe in works not begging. I want to earn everything I will ever have, not beg for it.

**WOULD I WANT TO TRY IT AGAIN?

NOPE. HELL NO.

That day was a nightmare that came through.

Have a hausa man ever carried you on a motorcycle? Do you know the odour? Well, I was getting 10times that from different people. What's more? The back windows was closed because of cold. I had to open the window a little to put my nose there. Thank God my seat was closed to a window.

Though I currently laugh at the crazy things I did during the journey, I will never want to try out this kind of thing.

Thank you for reading 😊

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