The motorbike finally settled to a halt.'Try and keep him here' I say to chrys while I rushed to pour the four liters of fuel we just purchased into my tank. The commercial motorbike operator(okada man) understood as much English as would be expected of an utter illiterate and we didn't want him running off without ensuring my V6 engine would come back to life and get us out of the huge mess we were in. Chrys had used up all the hausa words he could muster to persuade the bike operator to convey us where my vehicle broke down( strategically out in the middle of nowhere) and he was well in a haste to return to civilization or at least some form of it. Out here all there was to see was the extremely contoured path that should have been the road as far as the eye could see in either direction and thick forests to the left,right and virtually everywhere else.
My Jeep had chosen this spot to breakdown after a relatively smooth trip from ilorin up until this point. The nature of the breakdown appeared as though It had run out of fuel which prompted us to beg a Passer -by to move us further forward to the nearest village(gwaria) in search of a motor mechanic and fuel.
Fuel we got,motor repairer we did not so we decided to take our chances and hope the car would work. The first attempt to ignite the engine after topping up with fuel drained almost all hope of a positive outcome that faithful monday evening. In the same instant the okada man took to his heels not bothering about the fare we were due to pay him or how we were to get out of there given the condition of my car.
Sudden reality set in as we watched him zoom off. We were hence stranded,alone and in very real danger as it got darker by the second.
The route to kaiama from ilorin though rather direct is a quite lonely one for most parts and is made even more intriguing by the fact that you would have to leave Kwara state pass through Oyo state and then reenter Kwara to reach kaiama. Regarding the road,you have what I call the 'honeymoon' Phase 1 from ilorin to somewhere called kishi in Oyo state. This part is what I would describe as a proper road trip with well tarred roads,many road users,road side stalls for food and other travel essentials at many different points along the way.Also if your car was to have an issue like mine did you could get help within minutes because of the volume of commuters.
The same however cannot be said of the legendary Phase 2 the 'real deal'.Spanning from kishi to kaiama. It is by a huge margin the worst road you will ever see(thats a promise). With pot-holes meters deep,very little tar,this part of the journey is so bumpy that folks very often stop and ask to vommit on the way.The roller-coaster effect of leaving one ditch for another,the unbearable dust and the fact that the commercial drivers always fill their tin-can like vehicles to the very brim with human beings makes the journey a dreaded one for travellers.
And for those of us who dare confront the brutal route with our private vehicles,there are always wounds to lick following each trip.
Here we were then,out in pitch darkness in the middle of nowhere. The few cars that had passed were filled to the brim,some even had three passengers in the front seat plus the driver,making four in front (I know you won't believe this but it's very true) and complete four at a back seat that often made passengers puke. We were therefore left with no other option than to sit back and hope for a miracle,else we would we pass the night in the car out in the open. Lo and behold that miracle did happen.
I thought long and hard about what could have gone wrong with my mitsuibishi montero SUV with no answers. I however never relented in my efforts to kick start the engine when I made a ground breaking discovery. Each time I kicked the engine and applied the accelerator shortly afterwards it showed real attempts to work then went off again. Based on this I decided to give the accelerator a continuous pump and to my amazement it worked like a charm. The vehicle roared back to life. Chrys's face was as someone who just had a supernatural encounter.
The car started moving slowly but as I pumped on the gas it picked up. At this point Chrys,an almost free thinking,cool 'badman' I met at the NYSC camp (Yipata) who I am sure never attended any religious fellowship or gathering while in camp was firing prayers on all cylinders. It should have been hilarious to me then but the amount of focus I needed to keep pumping on the gas and simultaneously manouvre the tortuous death trap of a road would not afford me the time to laugh. I strongly doubt if chrys will ever pray as much as he did that night in his entire life.
After much,much prayers from 'pastor' chrys,my dead leg and newly emerging queeks and crackles from my car we finally arrived in kaiama. We made it,we survived the valley of deaths shadow and we were 'home' not clean but safe.
It was past midnight now,we got food to eat and I retired to my room within an hour. On my bed that night I pondered what might have happened to my friend and I earlier that day,we could have been robbed,kidnapped or even eaten by who know what wild beasts the thick forests of kaiama local government had to offer. I thanked God and cracked a smile when I remembered how hard chrys prayed before falling into the deepest of sleep.
Part 2
'Who is that??' I thought to myself as I looked across to the far end of the field. She was fair skinned,smoking hot with a face that said 'Segun,come and get to know more about me'. Her black and brown dreads made sure she was conspicuous enough to be spotted by searching gazes from a whole lot of guys asides myself,so there and then I knew I had work to do to win this damzels heart within my three week stay in camp.
To be continued...
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