Ever wondered what it feels like embarking on a group trip/adventure to an undisclosed location over 800km away from home? Join me as I tell my story.
I had an incredible year in 2023, though I travelled less frequent than I would have wanted, but embarking on a crossover trip to an unknown destination wasn’t part of the plan; but somehow, just a blissful way of capping the 2023 travel season. You know, they say,
You will usually run in on this kind of quote or in conversations if you value travelling. Whenever it comes to travelling, some people say that in travelling, the destination is not the thing you look forward to, rather it’s the journey that you enjoy. This really wasn’t my case. Figuratively, as weeks & days rolled towards the D-day for the trip, “Destination Unknown” was still the passcode.
This adventure trip was never on my list of travel plans at the beginning of the year 2023. But, that’s how spontaneous and interesting my travelling plans can be. This trip crept into my “23 travel plans and was born out of the sheer desire of one of my amazing travel networks, an individual with an outstanding yet versatile personality, he is quite an interesting fellow. We met via a community of passionate travellers/tourists, whose basecamp was a whatsApp group at the time. He was and still is a more avid traveller than I am, a photographer/cinematographer par excellence, a passionate and captivating storyteller. This bruh has scratched almost every fine dust of the northern part of Nigeria. We officially met sometime in 2021 when he was touring the South-South region of Nigeria. Together, we toured a few tourist attractions in Port Harcourt (Port Harcourt Museum inclusive), and I can vividly remember us running to a traffic control post in old GRA due to the outburst of sudden rains, and how we were trying to secure his camera from the obvious impending disaster; sadly, we got drenched, yeah… it added to the adventure. But, the camera lived another day, capturing more captivating tales of travel histories. Also, the case of us ordering a very large tray of bole that we needed extra hands and mouths to exhaust.
I present to you all, OLOBO, the legend of travel adventures, the PAU! PAU!! PAU!!! Master. An amazing somebody. Check him out Olobo.ng
Over to the crux of this post, a few months to december, Olobo had offered me a slot in his cross over group trip to an undisclosed destination. Bruh had refused to disclose the location of the adventure, for obvious reasons known to him and the organising crew. I was thrilled, enthralled and in total suspense of where the possible location could be. I had no idea, but I had a list of possible attractions within Abuja and adjoining states. Anyways, I made up my mind to join the trip sometime in December.
As the chilly harmattan breeze gently caresses the skins amidst the dusty atmosphere of the region, we were slowly being ushered to the end of the year. The festive season was in full swing, and the cities & towns were slowly transformed into beautiful scenery. Colourful ribbons, twinkling lights adorned the shops, streets, houses and trees, and the sweet scent of Christmas was becoming stronger with each passing day.
source: Nairaland
For this year, something felt different – a certain sense of restlessness stirred within me, I was adventure-deprived, trip-needy and an unsettled feeling that there was more to the festive season than meets the eye.
However, the wind of the festive aura was circulating around the world, and the holidays crept up, I wasn’t going to let the year end with no high notes, though I had other local trips (Calabar Carnival, Visit the Uyo Christmas Village and the Andoni Beach Festival etc). I obliged to join the adventure to the unknown. My mind was made up for this trip.
Consequently, on the 29th of December, at about 1345 hours I landed in the beautiful city of Abuja, met some friends and prepared myself for the journey to the unknown the next day.
~ From the stable of the TheLastGoodMan