This is an as-told-to essay based on a conversation with Helene Sula , a travel blogger and author of "Two O'Clock on a Tuesday at Trevi Fountain: A Search for an Unconventional Life Abroad."
From London to Lagos: How One Traveler Pulled Off a Pioneering Road Trip Through Africa
30.07.2024 - 21:06 / cntraveler.com
At a checkpoint in a remote part of Guinea, an official scanned his eyes repeatedly over Pelumi Nubi’s car in disbelief. “I asked him, ‘What are you looking for?’ And he replied, ‘The other person.’ Then he looked me dead in the eye and asked, ‘Where’s the driver?’ I was holding the steering wheel. My right-hand driving confused him, but people couldn’t fathom that I was doing this by myself. It’s interesting what societies expect from women, and the box they keep us in.”
When Nubi rolled into Lagos in her trusty Peugeot 107 in April, she became the first Black woman to travel solo overland from London to Nigeria. Her welcome by cheering crowds was the culmination of a 74-day, 16-nation journey through areas of West Africa that might make many a traveller gulp. After trundling through France, Spain, and Morocco, the British Nigerian had planned on traversing Mali and Burkina Faso, but instability there forced her to reroute via West Africa’s less-travelled nations such as Guinea-Bissau, Republic of Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia.
Fish at Ajina Market in Lagos, the destination of Nubi's epic journey.
“I was trying to connect two places I considered home,” says the 29-year-old, who was born in Lagos and grew up in the United Kingdom. Travel wasn’t always Nubi’s ambition. She had been pursuing a PhD when Covid hit and wiped out three years of research on genetically modified fruit flies. “I didn’t want to restart my PhD without funding,” she says. Following a period of despondency, she pivoted to travel, driving solo through Namibia, and cofounding travel magazine The Black Explorer.
When, in 2022, Kunle Adeyanju became the first Nigerian man to travel from London to Lagos by motorbike, Nubi wondered, “Has a woman done this before?” It turned out no Black woman had done it, so after completing a crash course in basic car mechanics, Nubi began her odyssey, driving for up to 12 hours a day and spending more than half the nights in her car or camping. “Some hotels opened up their car parks,” she says. “Sometimes I parked on random streets in residential areas or in campsites. I really enjoyed wild camping on the beach in front of the Mosque of the Divinity in Ouakam, Senegal.”
Senegal's Mosque of the Divinity and the beach beyond, where Nubi wild camped one evening.
Did Nubi ever feel in danger? “It was cold in the Atlas Mountains in Morocco so I booked a hotel room. The hotel worker offered me a discount if I gave him a massage. I told him no. Then, at dinner, I was the only person in the restaurant because it was off-season. As I was leaving, he grabbed my thigh and said, ‘What about that massage?’ I slapped his hands away and told him, ‘Don’t ever touch a woman like that.’ In other places, I felt
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