T A B L E+T A L K How do you bridge cultural gaps overseas? Share your methods in Table Talk's Wanderlust area R E C E N T L Y Road Warrior By Dawn MacKeen Frequent flyer guru Randy Peterson shares his secrets (01/12/98) In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great By Michael Wood Tracking Alexander the Great through the Hindu Kush (01/08/98) The Inuit Olympics By Mary Roach Inuit Games: Head Pulls, Knuckle Hops and other madness (01/07/98) Mayan dreaming By Douglas Cruickshank Mind-bending visions in the Yucatan (01/06/98) History and hallucination By Jan Morris Gdánsk stands as a symbol of enduring truth -- and stirring resurrection (01/05/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Wanderlust feature archive - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Your virtual travel agency - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -		____________niGerian ____________________________n i g h t m a r e = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = THE UNCLE AYOS EXPRESS PROVIDES A DEATH-DEFYING ADVENTURE, MAKING AN EIGHT-HOUR JOURNEY IN JUST A COUPLE OF DAYS. BY JEFFREY TAYLER | I was expecting bus travel in Nigeria to be somewhat less comfortable than motoring on Capri or yachting around the Greek Isles, but I had resolved to plan my 700-mile trip from Lagos, on the Gulf of Guinea, to the Sahelian city of Kano so that it would be less so. Careful planning would reduce discomfort. My guidebook said this and I knew it to be true. So I decided to buy my ticket in advance, for the best seat on the best bus leaving at the best possible time: early in the morning. It had been a long day in Lagos. With my driver, Rotimi, I had taken in the chief sights of the metropolis, including the cockroach exhibit at the National Museum and the military dictatorship's Operation Sweep raids against the leprous beggars and bedraggled hawkers that flooded the traffic jams of the chaotic center. Toward evening we ended up near Iddo Motor Park, from where buses departed for Nigeria's north. We turned off the thoroughfare and rattled into the park's cratered lot, scattering vendors and lurching to a halt by a crowd of men with visors and ticket books. "Kano? You go Kano?" asked one, shoving his head through my window. "Kano by what?" Rotimi shouted back. "Kano by bus. This bus here." A sturdy, cream-colored vehicle stood gleaming spotless behind him, emblazoned with the words FEDERAL URBAN MASS TRANSIT SCHEME and decorated with long green stripes on its flanks -- the very picture, all in all, of safety and reliability. The driver, dressed like a postal worker in a crisp blue-and-white uniform, stood by its side polishing the rearview mirror. He smiled and tipped his cap to me. "Kano by this bus -- eight hours," said the ticket man. "Going time at 7 in the morning." "I'll take a ticket now," I said. "Tickets in the morning. Be here by 6:30." The tickets he was selling then were for the night bus, which he said was dangerous owing to the activities of highway robbers after dark. I agreed to come back at dawn. Rain fell heavy that night, breaking the heat, knocking out the electricity and turning the gutters into rapids flowing with banana peels, castaway rubber sandals and corn cobs. At 6 in the morning Rotimi picked me up at my hotel. We drove out into cool streets mottled here and there with puddles reflecting the auroral light with such fidelity that one might have thought they were windows opening down onto a subterranean dawn sky. I was sleepy but looking forward to rolling across Nigeria's jungle-and-Sahel countryside in the comfort of the FEDERAL URBAN MASS TRANSIT SCHEME's finest carrier, and I told Rotimi so. He waved his finger with a cautionary flourish. "It is not good to speak of the road before a journey. Let us just say you will be in the hands of God." We pulled into Iddo Park. Immediately touts surrounded us, hawking Kano and other cities. We said goodbye and I hopped out. I pushed my way through the crowd -- to an empty lot. "Where's the Federal Scheme bus?" I asked. "Bus left early. Bus filled up and left early," answered the hawkers in a strophic, choruslike chant. I pushed my way back to Rotimi's car. Rotimi was unfazed. "Ah, Nigeria," he said. "But don't worry -- we find you a new bus. Hop in." We rattled around the craters, splashing hawkers and displacing carts, until we came upon a ticket seller for what turned out to be the only other vehicle heading to Kano that day. He and Rotimi exchanged a few lyrical words in Yoruba, the native language of Lagosians. The seller opened my door. "He don't delay," said Rotimi. "He go to Kano now. Half-price of the bus and just as fast." We parted and I got out. The seller took my arm and pulled me through the crowd. "Here de bus." Ahead of me, listing to the left, stood a ramshackle blue Toyota minibus whiskered with two green-white Nigerian flags. A pair of pasted-on eyebrows raised in alarm -- stickers proclaiming, cryptically, "GOD DEY!" -- graced the upper corners of the windshield. The bumper mouth was covered with a splattering of crushed bugs and sparrow carcasses. The skin-thin tires seemed to be of various sizes, and all were as smooth as a baby's behind. A wavy white line resembling the EKG of someone in acute cardiac distress ran down the sides. Across the brow, I noticed, was the lettering UNCLE AYOS EXPRESS. Seven hundred miles to Kano, I thought with a shudder. Involuntarily I stepped back and found myself shaking my head in denial. Where was Rotimi? The door flew open and a pencil-thin man sprang out, proclaiming in a helium-high rasp, "Kano! Kano! We go to Kano now! Eight hour to Kano!" "Our driver, Ayos," said the seller. "He excite for the trip." Ayos grabbed my hand and pushed me into the front seat. "Eight hours to Kano," he repeated, jumping around like a puppet animated by invisible strings. Julius Caesar and the Koran lay on the dashboard in front of me. I looked behind me: Crammed into the middle rows were a scowling young Yoruba man with a megalithic head and a pair of tired-looking Hausa women with high headdresses and a brood of half-naked tots. Behind them were others lost in a profusion of tie-dye shirts and wraps. Ayos collected my fare and disappeared into the crowd. A legion of one-armed teens soon collected around the bus to plead for alms. Ayos returned, and from the driver's side, pushed a final front-row passenger into the seat next to mine. This man, who introduced himself as Ezekiel, was glum and sleepy-eyed, and found that no matter how he sat, the gearshift knob poked up between his legs. A troop of youngsters gathered around the Toyota's rear. Ayos shouted to them in Yoruba, stomped on the gas pedal, then yanked at the gearshift between Ezekiel's legs. The youngsters pushed us off, the engine caught and sputtered, and we lurched ahead, scattering the beggars. The children pounded on our sides for good luck, and Ayos acknowledged this with a beep -- more like a strangulated bleat -- of his horn. Off we charged toward the main road and shot out into the shantytowns. Everywhere we drove there were puddles and peddlers and piddling toddlers. N E X T+P A G E+| Smooth sailing -- for a while ILLUSTRATION BY CALEF BROWN