Ready for Your Next Great Travel Adventure?
To help get you started, and to set the scene, below are descriptions from my books of some of the world’s most amazing destinations. These clips are to help you learn about the location, prep for your travels and drive up your excitement about a specific place.
After the quotes, you’ll find a brief overview, with guidance for rising entrepreneurs. These destination pages are being continuously updated so check back before each trip.
NIGERIA
Lagos
…over the Atlantic Ocean to trace the outline of the continent’s western shore until the Niger Delta came into view and we touched down in Lagos, Nigeria. The boom of the city’s noise smothered us, and the knocking of the people jostled our way. Unlike the organized infrastructure of Capetown, Lagos’ streets, shops and restaurants fought for existence under the demands of every person. Every surface edge was covered with wheels or feet, fighting to move on to a known destination. More temporary corrugated shacks than permanent steel buildings housed the economic future as sellers scrambled to get buyers attention.
Nigeria was another world of turbulence, a wild entrepreneurial culture that would sell all that could be imagined in any way, an opportunity in people, resources and intentions that struggled to perform. The city was built around a lagoon, its busiest areas disrupted by flowing water. We followed the Ring Road to the southern edge of the metropolis then stuck our toes into the waters of the Gulf of Guinea at Bar Beach, an area worn over by lingering nearby oil spills that were never cleaned up and garbage that had washed up from every corner of every continent.
Lagos was another level of man-made, modern chaos entrapped in its own function. “I would not exactly call Lagos a tourist city,” I lamented. “But we stopped here to see relentless West Africa, to see the contrasts, the scope of disorder in which most people live.” Lagos was a city limited in development in comparison to an urban setting like Rio. The stretch of poverty was not absent nor ignored as we searched for the popular symbols of improvement within the busy rush. No world heritage grand monuments or marbled cathedrals were here, instead we saw the layers of human existence piled on century after century. People traveled by oxcart and luxury sedan, ground cassava with their hands and munched fast-food chicken…Everyone reacted, pushing and pulling their way through to the life plan they had claimed as their own, under the sun and dust of this African delta…
As we tossed around inside the urban arteries of this pounding human body, we traversed the children who should have been in school offering to wipe car windows for a few pennies; the women who carried loaded down baskets of food or trinkets to sell for all the funds they would have that week; the men who shouted and begged at anyone with money to pay for any service they could name or invent, all enveloped in a grey dust that limited the reach of the tropical sun from brightening up the landscape…
…we had returned to the sands of Bar Beach with the pounding waves of a distant South Atlantic Ocean cascading up…and then receding into the fading West African night.
– Describing Lagos, Nigeria in Walking with J by Karsten Quarters
Minna, Niger State
A few years ago, in the small city of Minna, in Northern Nigeria, two young boys were walking in front of me on an unpaved street covered in the yellow dust of Saharan desert sand. They were wearing shorts, collared t-shirts and flip-flops, and carrying empty water buckets.
They were talking about Hawaii-Five-O…the American television show.
I followed them.
They were walking to a well. To get water.
They walked the equivalent of about seven city blocks before stopping at the well. A real straight-from-a-rural-town well situated in the middle of a dusty square block. The boys attached their buckets to hooks and lowered them down to get water.
As they performed a water-gathering process first invented eight thousand years ago, they talked on and on about guns, cars, and the exotic Hawaiian scenery.
As I listened in to their conversation, I was struck by the contrast between the action they were performing and the conversation they were having.
The action was ancient. Not yet updated for this part of the world.
The conversation was as modern as you would find between any two teenage boys.
The fact the village water well is a gathering spot for conversation was not a surprise. Nor was the fact they have televisions and the Internet with access to foreign television shows.
The revelation was in the juxtaposition between the old, ancient technology, as a backdrop to a modern world conversation. The conversation could have taken place in any school playground, in front of any screen, next to a tap of running water. But they were standing at the village water well.
The conversation at the well reminded me of the incredible power of global entertainment and media content…
– Describing a globalization reminder in the city of Minna in Life Dream: 7 Universal Moves to Get the Life You Really Want through Entrepreneurship by Case Lane
Place: The Federal Republic of Nigeria, in West Africa, the most populous country on the continent, seventh in the world
Visited: Once, father’s ancestral homeland
Most Recent Visit: 1986
Original sites: Use your imagination
Familiarity: Medium
English usage: Often
For Rising Entrepreneurs Expanding to Global Markets: If not for a few fake princes scamming unsuspecting senior citizens by e-mail, Nigeria would be a target country for globalizing entrepreneurs. The market is dynamic, ambitious and unrelenting in its quest to move forward. But past misdeeds have scared off the less intrepid. If you do not believe the bad jokes, there is opportunity.
Country Details: U.N. Country Data Stats for Nigeria
Reading Recommendations (click the book cover to learn more)
Want more details about visiting Nigeria: contactcase(at)readyentrepreneur(dot)com
Disclosure: Book links are affiliate links to the Amazon.com bookstore meaning as an Amazon Associate Case Lane or Ready Entrepreneur may earn compensation from qualifying purchases. Advertising may support the maintenance of this website and the information you are receiving.
