Tourist in the Capital City

My weekend kicked off on a very good start as I explored the capital city of Nigeria with @belemo. It amazes me how I've had more fun in one day visiting this city than I did while living here for over a year.

Abuja is by far the fanciest city I've been to and there's no surprise why it's this fancy, it's the nation's capital afterall. We stopped by the popular Jabi Lake Mall to see if we'd get a few things and we were reminded that fancy means expensive here. Everything from games, gadgets and accessories were almost triple the actual price and that was so disappointing.

We couldn't visit all of the places on our list but we were very satisfied with our experience at the Jabi Park and Magicland Park.

At Jabi Park we found a snooker table where we paid 200 Naira for each game. @belemo won me but it was a tough win and I got better shots. We also got to ride on a scooter-like bike around the park which was very fun. I got really exhausted after playing so much and went to this corner where they make fresh, refreshing fruit juice.

We got to Magicland afterwards and we found it really impressive. It's a huge place with lots of fun rides for kids and adults. The scenery alone is beautiful and a little artsy.

The best part was the price of all rides ranged from 500 to 1000 Naira per person. That's actually very affordable for a near-death experience.

We tried the roller coaster and a water slide. I don't know which was actually worse because I thought I was going to die in both. The roller coaster lasted longer though and it was faster, and I screamed the loudest, so I guess that was the worst (but in actuality, the best). I had teary eyes afterwards and I was still shouting even when it was over. Talk about adrenaline!

The water slide on the other hand had way higher slopes and one could literally flip over if they don't hold on tight. After the rides, we evaluated the risk we had taken being that there were no seat straps on the two rides. Yikes.

Would I do it again? Yes, but only if the seats have straps. There are other rides with safety belts and straps but we found them less exciting than the ones we went on.

_{How cool are our face and arm paintings?}

I'm not sure there are other places like this in Abuja or even the rest of Nigeria so I hope this place is continually maintained for public use.

We'll be going back to our little less exciting city in a couple of hours and honestly, I've missed that place 😄