Final Trip to Yankari

This previous weekend I took a trip to Yankari with my friend Ryan Devoe and his family. With this trip I have now been to Yankari three times. The drive there was a long drive because we stopped several times for petrol, food, and to get our room at a hotel in a nearby town. Once we were finally there we went straight to the warm springs. After five hours in the car we were ready for some swimming. We swam there from about one in the afternoon to 4:30 when we had to leave due to rain. On the way back to the hotel we stopped to get real Nigerian “suya.” The kind that is sold at Hillcrest is Americanized and doesn’t have the true flavor of suya. This suya that we ate was much spicier and tasted better than the kind at Hillcrest. After roadside dinner we drove to the hotel at which we were staying for the night. While walking in we saw what we thought to be a pool. It had a diving board, it had ladders on its sides, and a nice sitting area nearby. Once we got to go check it out we found out that it was so poorly maintained that it had become more of a pond with its own ecosystem. The water was so green that you couldn’t see the bottom even in the shallowest part of the pool and there were frogs and who knows what else swimming around in it. By American standards the hotel was mediocre but by Jos missionary standards the place was a palace. The rooms each had two double beds, a small tv, and best of all an air conditioner and all of this was for a third of the price of the rooms at Yankari. The next morning after having slept in a nice air conditioned room we took off for the wildlife reserve again. Once there we went on our safari which in the end turned out to be a great experience. For the first hour or so we saw nothing but a few water bucks and different kinds of birds but finally we came to a swampy area where we found the elephants. There were about one hundred elephants that crossed the road fifty feet ahead of our car. The most exciting thing was the big male elephant which was about one and a half times as big as the safari truck we were riding in. Once we were back to the main area of the resort we ate and headed down to the warm springs for the last time. Along the way home we stopped quite a few times also. One of those times we were fortunate to have spotted a Nigerian version of beef jerky. Ryan and his family had eaten it before but I didn’t even know that it existed. It didn’t taste much like meat, all I know is that was spiced with pepper and was quite hot. Overall the trip was bunches of fun. I had to admit that I was sad to be leaving such a beautiful place behind.

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