explore your world!

Most people spend much of their time in their home town and plan for vacation maybe out of the country. Who wouldn’t want to explore a whole new and different country? Given the opportunity, you’d jump at it, no denying that. Okay but what if you can’t afford vacationing in another country? Well I say, explore your environment! At least for the mean time, till you can afford to go places. And that’s what we did, I and my friends!

Back in June, my friends and I, which I refer to “the gang” went on a three-day vacation at Yankari Resort and Safari in Bauchi State Nigeria! It was my second time-the first was an excursion in my fifth year of secondary school back in 2003. Yankari has improved a great deal since then. More structures (accommodation) have been added, varying in sizes and shapes, with good roads within the camp. Driving at 30 km/hr from the gate to the camp is about 30-40 minutes drive. Why that slow? The animals graze around and cross the roads. Trust me you don’t wanna run down any. Being on the road most of the day though can be exhausting and we just could not wait to reach our destination. It was great relief getting to the main gate but you can imagine the long 30 minute drive to the camp. Hot weather, so much exhaustion from a long trip, looking out for animals and wishing and praying that one, just one animal will wonder around but all you see are trees. We couldn’t wait to get to the camp and our rooms. Imagine our elation when we spotted the entrance to the camp. At check-in, we were warned of the baboons roaming around, and not to have any plastic bag in sight because they expect food is inside and they will snatch it away.

Well, we heeded the warnings alright. As we reached our rooms, we were welcomed by a whole troop of baboons, as others will say, ‘the Congress’! We off loaded our luggage and headed to our rooms. And then the most amazing thing happened. In one of the vehicles we used, there were some plastic bags with containers of food in them. The baboons saw them, climbed the car, whereas others even opened the doors. At the time the doors weren’t locked yet. Okay okay, it was my fault, I think, well partially my fault as I was the last to get my stuff, but the key wasn’t with me and it was already too late when we realized the troop had made their move already. So yes, adventure of our first day, our food was literally taken from us, just like ‘taking a candy from a kid’!

We all had a good laugh. Welcome to Yankari Game Reserve!

We were tired alright, but we couldn’t wait to go around, well at least for some of us. So we got up, and went to explore our new home for the next two days!

Our first stop was the Hot Spring. It’s a natural spring and maintains a temperature of 31 degrees centigrade. The water as clear as crystal and it reflects its environment- blue/green/white. It felt good to immerse in such warm water after a long day on the road and with such hot weather. I turned in early while the others regrouped for some games.

SAFARI TOUR!!!

Safari tour! Yay! Finally day 2 was safari tour. The long awaited tour! Goodness I have been looking forward to this my entire planning of this whole trip, and tada…..!!! We were given instructions to stop the driver once we spotted an animal and we were going at I think, 30kmh. The safari was vast and sorry, I can’t give the numbers because I can’t remember them. We spent more than 2 hours going through but I don’t think we saw half the vegetation. We were all spent, hungry and the sun was up and couldn’t wait to get back to camp. We had brunch afterwards, and while the others retired to their rooms, my room mate and I headed for the hot spring. I don’t think I have ever swum for 4 hours straight, but I did this time and it was just super awesome!

Plan was to go another round for the safari tour the next day and explore the places we didn’t go but it rained so hard we had to cancel. We had a good sleep though, a really good one. And also looked forward to the barbecue which happened later that night  which was our last.

 

The leader of the Waterbucks who leads over fifteen of the female ones.

Our quarters for three nights!

As the saying goes, ‘every beginning has an end’, or something like that. And so did this one too. So far, it was a wonderful experience. Looking forward to coming back, but maybe after exploring other tourist spots in Nigeria!

Traveling with friends is amazing!!! Wonder when our next trip will be and where!!!