Showing posts with label traffic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label traffic. Show all posts
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Sanitation Day or Environmental Saturday
What to look for in this picture. NOTHING. It is an empty street. But that is precisely why I took the picture. The street was empty!! This is usually a VERY busy intersection. But today was Environmental Saturday or Sanitation Day. By law the last Saturday of each month from 7am - 10am you cannot be out on the streets. That is when they do trash pickup or street cleaning or something. But I think it is a brilliant idea!! It was so quiet and peaceful this morning. There were no sirens or honking car horns. Just peace. Maybe we should do this every Saturday!! Or at least maybe twice a month. I will be ready and waiting for the next one!
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
The longest drive EVER...
Ok, so I missed posting yesterday, sooooo.... Today I am doing two.
Yesterday we had an American Women's Club (AWC) Hospitality Coffee. It is a "social gethering" that they do once a month where you can bring people who are new and interested in joining. Well this time it was in Apapa. (Apapa is part of Lagos, kind of like Edmond is part of Oklahoma City.) Anyway, it normally takes 20 minutes to get there. But yesterday the traffic was SOOO bad that it took us 2 1/2 hours to get there!! It gave me lots of time to look around and take some pictures along the way.
As we crossed one of many bridges I looked out the window and saw a sea of roofs. They were all metal and mostly all rusted.
In order for for us to be able to go to Apapa we were required (by company protocol) to have an armed escort. This is the policy for several of the oil companies. So one of the larger ones arranged for us to take a bus with a security escort. This is a view out the front window of the bus. We were stuck on a long bridge in a huge traffic jam. We had large trucks on both sides of us and they were closing in just a little. It was a bit scary!
We couldn't decide if this bridge was lined with drying laundry or if it was clothing for sale. I think it is drying laundry. It went on like this for almost a quarter of a mile!
The yellow vans are the buses for Lagos. Most of the buses in Apapa and the mainland are yellow. The ones of Victoria Island (VI) where I live are usually white. But they are everywhere and they are ALWAYS packed.
In this picture you can see the security vehicle that was ahead of us. We also had one behind us. And again the sea of yellow buses.
This is a view of the inside of the bus we took. It was fairly comfortable except for the stopping and starting and then the huge bumps!! The back of the bus would bounce VERY hard. Kind of like the big tan van when we were kids.
The entire trip ended up taking about 2 1/2 hours there and 1 hour to get back and we only stayed at the function for an hour! But it was deffinately an adventure. I got to see a part of Lagos that I don't normally get to go to and I had an enjoyable time talking to the ladies on the bus. It was a LONG tiring day, but a good one. (I'll post more about the actual hopsitality coffee on another day, that was a whole other story!)
Yesterday we had an American Women's Club (AWC) Hospitality Coffee. It is a "social gethering" that they do once a month where you can bring people who are new and interested in joining. Well this time it was in Apapa. (Apapa is part of Lagos, kind of like Edmond is part of Oklahoma City.) Anyway, it normally takes 20 minutes to get there. But yesterday the traffic was SOOO bad that it took us 2 1/2 hours to get there!! It gave me lots of time to look around and take some pictures along the way.
As we crossed one of many bridges I looked out the window and saw a sea of roofs. They were all metal and mostly all rusted.
This is beneath one of the bridges. In this picture you can see at least one shop set up and you can see some of the abandoned cars that seem to line almost every street.
In order for for us to be able to go to Apapa we were required (by company protocol) to have an armed escort. This is the policy for several of the oil companies. So one of the larger ones arranged for us to take a bus with a security escort. This is a view out the front window of the bus. We were stuck on a long bridge in a huge traffic jam. We had large trucks on both sides of us and they were closing in just a little. It was a bit scary!We couldn't decide if this bridge was lined with drying laundry or if it was clothing for sale. I think it is drying laundry. It went on like this for almost a quarter of a mile!The yellow vans are the buses for Lagos. Most of the buses in Apapa and the mainland are yellow. The ones of Victoria Island (VI) where I live are usually white. But they are everywhere and they are ALWAYS packed.In this picture you can see the security vehicle that was ahead of us. We also had one behind us. And again the sea of yellow buses.This is a view of the inside of the bus we took. It was fairly comfortable except for the stopping and starting and then the huge bumps!! The back of the bus would bounce VERY hard. Kind of like the big tan van when we were kids.The entire trip ended up taking about 2 1/2 hours there and 1 hour to get back and we only stayed at the function for an hour! But it was deffinately an adventure. I got to see a part of Lagos that I don't normally get to go to and I had an enjoyable time talking to the ladies on the bus. It was a LONG tiring day, but a good one. (I'll post more about the actual hopsitality coffee on another day, that was a whole other story!)
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Traffic is a mess
I took this picture the other day while we were sitting in traffic waiting for it to move. We were at/in an intersection, nosing our way through it. The traffic lately has been very heavy. It seems the closer it gets to election time (mid-late April) the more congested the traffic seems. But go-slows (traffic jams) are not uncommon here. One time we got stuck in a big go-slow and when we got up to where the wahalla (trouble) was, it was a scraggly horse just wandering down the middle of the road.
This is a view from the top of Roy's "new" office building. (They have been paying rent on this building since October, but they still haven't gotten everything squared away to move in... It is a big joke here "when we move to the new office". And a touchy subject with the ones paying the bills.) This gives you an idea of how the intersections work here. There are no traffic lights, and no one pays any attention to street signs. You just nose your way out into traffic and demand a spot in the chaos. One day I will have to post a picture of the round abouts. I think those are worse than the intersections!!
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