EXPLORATION 102 | Fun in the Disappointments

Naimah bint Lukman
Jul 29, 2020
4 min read

Since the first day of exploration was not bad as I was able to achieve a few goals I had set for myself, I decided to repeat, this time with just Maryam. If you have not read my post on my first exploration story, click here. I woke up on the wrong side of the bed on the morning of the second day of exploration and I no longer wanted to go on the tour I had planned with Maryam. I did not know how I was going to tell her I was no longer interested because I knew how much it meant to her thus, I decided to put my phone on airplane mode around 8:55 am. We planned to meet at 9 am. I decided to later turn the airplane mode off and her call was the first thing I received. After so much contemplation I decided to pick even though I was still at that cranky state and I told her to wait for me. It took me a while to be my normal self and I later decided to go. I got to the meeting point at noon for a journey that was to start at 9 am. It was worth it in the end as I learnt a few things and met two really fun guys, Adam and Alao who were exploring with us.

Our destination on this day was Ado Awaye Mountains and suspended Lakes. We met at the University of Ibadan park to get a taxi to take us there however, we could not because of the ridiculous price they said we should pay probably because Adam dressed like a billion dollars. They told us to pay twenty-five thousand naira lol maybe I should drop my school fees. We resorted to taking public transport (Micra). Did you really come to Ibadan if you never saw the famous Micra? Those tiny cabs where two passengers sit in front. We took the Micra to Ojoo and on the way, we asked the driver if he could take us to Oyo. He wanted to put us in buses going to Oyo popularly known as Soole but we persuaded him to take us to Oyo thinking Ado Awaye is at Oyo. Few minutes into the trip thankfully we hadn’t left Ibadan, we checked google map and realized our destination is Iseyin road and not Oyo. Only God knows what we would have done if we moved any further before checking the map.

We had to change our plans and come up with an alternative since we did not plan on going to Iseyin. Maryam and I later agreed on going to Ibadan Cultural Center, Mokola. The driver was patient all along which is a rare attribute of Micra drivers. My Ibadan people should know what I mean. We convinced the driver to take us to Ibadan Cultural Center which he agreed to. On our way, we saw a large beautiful looking lawn and asked the driver for the name of the place. He told us it is IITA forest so we told him to take us there and we paid him.

Getting inside IITA, we were told that we should have booked an appointment online on the website for us to have access to the place. We tried our luck by entering the reception to talk to one of the officials. We explained to him we were Unilag students doing some exploration and would love to explore the IITA forest. This man told us to pay five thousand naira each and when we said we couldn’t afford it because we were students, he asked us how much we wanted to pay. Ah! So we are pricing gate fee now? Is that how it works here? We just left there disappointed.

The second disappointment of the day, however, we did not plan to give up. We decided to go continue our journey to Ibadan Cultural Center.

Approaching the Ibadan Cultural Center from the road

On getting to Cultural center they told us we needed an appointment to tour the building as it was a government property but we were not ready for another disappointment, so we asked if we could just move around the building without pictures and they agreed.

We managed to take few pictures while going round the building

An architecture student exploring a lovely building without being allowed to take pictures has to be the greatest sentence of all. I got to see the beautiful architecture of Demas Nwoko, folded concrete plates, the cultural relief on the walls and the lovely cultural columns but I was not allowed to take pictures of any. I am definitely going back there soon, this time following the due process and taking a good camera with me.

We stayed at the cultural center for some time before going to the famous Mama Ope canteen to eat amala. What is an Ibadan tour without eating soft and hot amala with gbegiri and ewedu and water to step it down (fit fam doesn’t do carbonated drinks)?