Sunday night in Lagos

Well, my first Nigeria stay is almost over. I’ve been having daily adventures with my team and will have lots of great pictures to post when I get home.

Keeping up with my running has been tricky because it’s awfully hot and humid, and it’s also been pretty stormy. The running ‘track’ is actually a muddy footpath. You have to jump from side to side to dodge large orange and black lizards that sun themselves there amongst the hibiscus and bougainvillea. It’s an obstacle course of sorts!

My stay here will be complete if tomorrow I can get our driver to stop and buy a certain purple fruit I had not seen since Gabon. In Gabon, it’s called an “atanga”, though I am not sure what it’s called here. It’s a shiny, egg-shaped tree fruit of a deep violet color. You drop it in boiling hot water for about 30 seconds, and then you pull it out and eat it right away, dipped in salt. Once ‘cooked’, it’s a kind of grayish color. It tastes a slightly bitter and very buttery, with a texture like an avocado. When I saw them at a roadside stand here in Lagos I got so excited that I started jumping up and down in the car, my mouth watering.

For any of you who may be wondering, the flight attendants at the hotel have pretty much been keeping their nasty lifestyle to the privacy of their own rooms, so luckily I have not been affected by the ongoing debauchery. Haha.

I’ll be back in the States this Wednesday evening. Hope you all have a great Halloween!