My Journey To Lagos.

I'm back 'on seat' in Lagos after probably the most prolonged tortuous journey I've ever had.

I left my house in Newport around 3:15pm for london in the car I'd hired from Hertz. There were no real problems on the road, made it to Heathrow Airport around 5 o'clock and checked in. As a Silver Flying Club card holder, as well as travelling Premium Economy I could jump the queue for checking in which is always useful. Interestingly, I found out that Virgin Atlantic are joining the growing number of airlines that limit the luggage weight to 2 items of 23Kg instead of 2 items of 32Kg as it currently stands. Normally I wouldn't need one bag over 23Kg for my clothes, but when I travel to Nigeria I always seem to have to carry something for the office, or something I need for myself, like Laundry Detergent or Books. And since I usually stay about 6 weeks I need a lot more clothes than for just a holiday. Luckily, the new weight limits didn't apply to Premium Economy so I got away with my two 32Kg bags.

So Anyway, The flight was ok, people around me were very pleasant and I didn't hear too many babies crying. An elderly lady with a large swollen foot was making a quiet moaning sound most of the journey but with my earphones in I didn't hear much. I even managed a bit of sleep. As we entered the Nigerian border I could see flashes of lightning through the window. It became quite a spectacular show as we got closer to Lagos. After the captain told everybody to prepare for landing we headed down into the storm and turbulence picked up. It seemed like the pilot was trying to weave his way through the larger storm clouds but kept having to bank, turn dive and climb quite erratically and that combined with the turbulence gave some very odd sensations. As I was looking out of the window at the lightning show there was suddenly a very bright flash that flooded all the windows I could see with very bright white light and it coincided with a 'Whoomph' noise. I think we were struck by lightning! it happens quite often apparently.

Shortly after that the lightning seemed to die away, I was relieved but then the captain made an anouncement along these lines: "Due to bad weather at Lagos Airport we are unable to land there and we will be landing in Accra instead. Once there we will refuel and head back to Lagos as soon as this storm has cleared".

Well, I'd been wanting to visit Ghana! We landed in Accra about 40 minutes later and it was still dark so I couldn't see much except for the lights on the houses and buildings.

We landed just after 6 am and first we were told that we would be returning to Lagos as soon as the weather was clear.

Then at 7:45am we were told that we would have to await another hour as the weather was not any better in Lagos.

at 8:20am we were told that we were about to take off and try to land at lagos if the weather was clear. Nothing happened. A text from Lagos told me that it was raining heavily but the storm had passed.

at 9:20am we were told that the crew were now unable to fly us to lagos as they had exceeded the number of working hours for legal and safety reasons, and we would shorlty be transferred to a hotel in Accra to await the arrival of a replacement crew. Obviously I can't complain about that, No pilot should fly a plane after working for 14 hours as I was told they had been.

at 10:25, we were told that it was not possible to find suitable accommodation for us, but a replacement crew would shortly be leaving Lagos and we would be able to start our return to Lagos in the next 3 hours. A trip to the airport terminal was offered to anyone who wanted to stretch their legs, we were told there was no shop or cafe, only a duty free shop and that there was no Air Conditioning so I decided to stay in my seat which was comfortable enough, and watched the films that were showing.

at 12:50 we were told that the flight from Lagos carrying the replacement crew had not left yet!

At 14:35 we were told that the replacement crew were just 20 minutes away, yay finally somethings happening!

At 14:50 the replacement crew arrived and took charge. The crew who had been with us since London had suffered a lot of the frustration of the passengers, and I admire them totally for keeping calm and authoratative. They had a look of total relief on their faces when they left the plane. From my window I could see the stairs to the plane and Once all the crew was exchanged, I saw two groundstaff high fiving each other on sorting the problem.

We finally took off and finally arrived in Lagos around 16:30.

But that wasn't the end. I found my bags and went out of the airport where I met N.... she helped me with one of my cases and we went to find the driver, who for some reason decided to wait near the car park instead of the entrance. We got to the car and headed out. I immediately commented on the noise of the engine which was makine a loud tapping noise, in sync with the engine speed, but was told it had been like that for a while. On Third Mainland Bridge The engine suddenly burst into a cloud of smoke, oil and water. I looked behind thinking we might have hit something and saw lots of smoke and pieces of metal and plastic bouncing down the road. The driver thought it was a burst tyre but it was definitely the engine. smoke started to come through the vents and the driver pulled over to the side of the road, where other cars were also stopped having broken down.

Third Mainland Bridge is notorious for robberies so I decided it was best not to sit around and got out, N... flagged down two taxis and later a tow truck. We took one of the taxis with my luggage and left the driver with the car to negotiate the towing. The taxi was fairly typical. in a very poor condition inside, but seemed to go quite well. I didn't have any Naira on me for the taxi or tow truck, only pounds so we had to go to change some money with the traders at Federal Palace hotel which is on the western side of Victoria Island.

Eventually we got back to the house and I could finally relax. It's funny but looking back I realise that I wasn't surprised at all by the car breakdown. Guess I must be getting too used to life in Lagos.

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