Eleko Beach

I finally have something exciting to write about!  This past Saturday we were invited on a beach trip to celebrate surviving the "End of the World".  The party had been in the works for a few weeks, so our host was very confident that we would indeed survive the coming apocalypse -  he even had t-shirts made. We spent the day exploring Eleko Beach, lounging in hammocks, finding shade(we're so close to the Equator!), and trading expat advice.

The beach house and the shirts!

One has to drive about an hour out of the city to get to a clean beach safe for us oyibos*. The drive there took us down a long, bumpy, dirt road through a village, and then down a heavily forested path. But then we were there! And the beach was quite pretty, with very little trash (a huge change compared to the beaches in Lagos and VI). You still can't go into the water though because the currents are very strong.  But that wasn't  a big deal to us though -  the temperature in Lagos hovers around 85-90 degrees year round, so the water stays quite warm and isn't exactly refreshing! A few brave people did wade in a little bit though.

Us in front of a shipwreck along the beach. 

Intense wave action.

Ryan + waves

Terrifying clear crabs!

My favorite parts of the beach experience were the merchants from the village that came by to sell us goods. They sold  table cloths, wall hangings, jewelry, aprons, baskets, sarongs, wood carvings, and paintings. We purchased a large table cloth, some matching napkins, and an apron. There were a few really funny wood carvings available such as a depiction of people waiting in line for visas and another one of a person using a computer. They also had carvings of boats, buses, nativity scenes (I really want one), elephants, and people climbing palm trees to fetch coconuts.

Merchants selling table clothes along the back fence of the house.

There were about 15 people in our party, but our group was the only to have a security team trailing them all day! Nothing like bringing a couple of armed guards to a relaxing day at the beach. Better safe than sorry!

Our security! 

Our friends, Chris and Valerie, own the property and were gracious enough to invite, entertain, and feed the group for the day.  They had a great food spread for us including cheese steak, coleslaw, roasted corn, potato salad, pasta salad, and a cold chickpea salad. Needless to say, it was a welcome change from hotel food. Chris has been living in Lagos for 10+ years, so he's been a wealth of information for us. It's very entertaining to see him interact with the locals (especially the merchants) because he speaks the pidgin english very well, and the natives get a kick out of conversing with him. 

They pay rent for the house to the villagers and they take care of the property when they aren't there. This obviously isn't the house they live in all the time, but just a weekend retreat. The house has no electricity, but they have installed a working toilet, sink, and shower by using a generator to pump water out of a well. Chris and Valerie take very good care of the villagers, so the villagers took good care of us, and even let us snap a few pictures on our way out. 

On the way back to the cars it's a tradition for the new expats (us!) to hand out candy to the local kids. They were all waiting for us when we started packing up. The kids know that they're supposed to stand in a line to get the candy, but we did a bad job of enforcing this rule and were swarmed for the prized lollipops. There were probably around 20 kids waiting!

Village kids waiting for the candy. 

The village. You can't see how bumpy this road is, but it's very bumpy and apparently much worse when it rains.  

Taken while driving through the village on our way back from the beach.

On this particular day there were lots of people going to church and having Christmas parties. The village is probably more indicative of how the rest of Nigeria lives, so it was good to get some perspective since we are so isolated on the island. 

The gang!

All in all a great day and we can't wait to go back to the beach!

* Oyibo is the term Nigerians use for white people, or any foreigner, really. It isn't meant to be an insult. The translation means something along the lines of "no skin" or maybe the absence of dark skin.