'Rainy Day Saturday': 12 Hours On The Road

I am officially declaring Saturday, 23rd of October, 2021 as ‘Rainy Day Saturday’. Here’s why;

How can one travel through 4 different states for 12 hours on the road and all I could see is wet grounds and a sign that it had either rained or it is currently raining???

In my previous article, I explained how an unexpected journey gave me something I never thought I could recover.

I would like to explain my experience of the journey and some of the significant things that happened during my 12 hours journey on the road on ‘Rainy Day Saturday.’

As I got to the bus stop, I entered the bus that would take me down to Lagos. In the early hours of the day, there had been signs that it would rain on that day. My Samsung weather application on my smartphone had notified me before I travelled.

I love rain but not when I am outside the place of my comfort. – My home or a warm place of shelter. I think most people would agree with me on this. Or who would prefer to be out of the house or far from home when it is raining ‘Cat and Dog’???

Regardless of the weather forecast of the day, I still packed my bags and prepared to travel. That is more of the reason I titled my previous article ‘My Unexpected Journey …’

I was prepared. I planned to leave but not that day and not so quick as I expected. I did not care much about the rain since I would spend most hours of the day inside a bus.

About 30 minutes into the journey, the rain started drizzling. But after some time, it became heavy. The driver could not see the road through his windscreen although his vehicle wiper was so effective. This made him park at a bus stop. We had to wait for the rain to stop before we continued our journey. We waited for about 45 minutes or thereabout.

As we continued the journey, the driver had to look for passengers to fill the bus because it was just me and a friend of mine (the one I wrote about in my previous article) that was inside the 18 passenger bus. The driver cannot move on with just two people in the bus. – That is a bad market for him. Travelling a 12-hour journey with just 2 people instead of 17 people.

In reality, the rain did much to slow down our journey as only a few people came out of their houses to the bus stop with the intent to board a bus to travel a 12-hour journey.

Honestly typing, if I was at home when the rain started, I would rather wait for the rain to stop before I left the house. I left home by past 5 in the morning because I did not want to leave by daybreak due to some personal reasons.

As we moved on with the journey, our driver was able to get a reasonable amount of passengers. He got more people to enter the bus as we got to a nearby town. More folks trooped in when we neared the state capital. 

Even at the state capital, there were signs that it had rained earlier this morning. It was a 2-hour drive from where we took off. I was not bothered too much because it is still in the same state.

However, my thoughts changed when we got to a neighbouring state and I saw that not only was the ground wet but it was raining heavily but we still moved on with the journey. I was even thinking the driver would park at a bus stop but he did not. We moved on with the journey in the heavy rain.

For the next 10 hours, from one state to another state it kept on raining. Even when we got to our final destination, the rain was either drizzling or there are signs that the rain had just stopped.

I developed a relationship with the driver since I sat at the front with him. I charged my phone with the car charger, gisted with him and made an electronic money transfer to him not only as a means of payment but also as an exchange for physical cash.

However, this was because I had no physical cash on me. It was sure that no driver at my landing bus stop would accept electronic money transfer as a means of payment for transport fare. – Lagos drivers and their acts.

When I got to my landing bus stop, I used the physical cash that the driver exchanged to transport myself to the next bus stop. I had one more bus stop to reach before I got home. The money on me was not enough, I had to put a call through to get some money that would take me home.

After I did, I got the fund straight up into my account but there was a problem. - I needed physical cash to pay for the transport fare.

I asked the person sitting right next to me in the bus. “Once I pay my transport fare, I cannot have the exact amount of money that you need.” He bluntly replied me and left me to my fate.

Lo and behold, the person sitting at the back of me assisted me with it. Even before I had done the transfer, he gave me the amount I was going to transfer and I sent him the funds. A few minutes later, he told me had received the alert! Lucky Me!

I got home 12 hours, 20 minutes after we took off.

What a stressful day!

In one sentence, I could say Saturday, 23rd of October, 2021 was the ‘Rainy Day Saturday’ that I travelled for 12 hours on the road transferring electronic money to pay for my transport fare and to exchange for physical cash.

Thanks for reading!!!

All photos including the Lead Image are exclusively from Unsplash.