JANGOLOVA (TRIP TO ALTON TOWERS)

I met two really nice people shortly after I moved to my house. Actually one of them (Boma) helped me get the house through a man I met outside the rail station (don’t ask). 





After two lectures in my main course, I asked him if he knew anyone in my department who had successfully passed the first semester; I desperately needed some mentoring or positive encouragement. And that’s how I met Jade, she had done a semester successfully but although I met her for reasons of a course mentor we became fast friends or more appropriately immediate friends and all our discussions on the course have been futuristic and nothing much of the past has come up really. Firstly, there’s so much to talk about; our similarities, our love of Nigeria and things “Naija”, our restless entrepreneurial spirits, world domination, Xfactor, photography, fashion, our busy Pakistani landlord (we have the same landlord) and of course the indecisive weather of the United Kingdom. Unlike most, we’re quite unperturbed as far as the sun never reaches 30 degrees, it can rain or blow.

Through Jade and Boma I heard there was a trip to Alton Towers at Stoke-on-Trent and even though I had not heard about the place I was getting bored to my brain so I joined them. I met the others and after a few hours we were at Alton Towers and the fun began. I discovered on the trip it was an amusement park and memories of my childhood and a particular throwing up experience that happened in Kano. Well, I quickly pictured Wonderland, Abuja in my mind and wished for the best. However, I realized Wonderland was just the introductory session to this place. We joined queues for long minutes, got tossed and turned and scared to death but is the craziest thing I had ever done in my life. The worrying part was that I wasn’t scared at all, now that scared me. A few of my new friends were whimpering at some points, others concluded they had died at others, some were in dire need of their mothers and some didn’t go on after the second ride. But I just joined the queue at every spot and entered the ride. Of course I thought a few times that if I released my breath it may be my last so I held it a lot of times and closed my eyes often. Once I open my eyes on a ride that spun you round and round in the air and all I saw was green. I couldn’t be sure if they were leaves or I was seeing things so I shut them till the ride ended before I opened them a lid at a time.

The first ride was “Hex” it’s a hunted castle with voices, smoke, billowing curtains and red eyes but nothing a ‘Willy Willy’ episode couldn’t match, so ‘no shaking’. The second ride was “Ripsaw” now this is when the show began. We watched a group before us do it and it was quite scary but we all got strapped unto heavy metal and got turned a twisted around a swing-like thing, up in the air and down and it was fantastically scary but exciting. At this point one of us dropped out but they rest of us soldiered on. We got to “Air” although most of us didn’t know what it was we joined the queue. After about 45minutes we got strapped on, lifted off the ground with our legs dangling in the air and were sped over trees and spun around, this was my best ride of all time, too short-lived anyway. I grudging came out wanting more, my adrenalin levels had soared. Off to the next ride, it was “The Blade” and I wasn’t bothered because it was a bigger replica of “Pirate ship” in Abuja so I walked in boldly and enjoyed the horror I saw on Jades face. It was one hilarious ride. That’s when one of the guys remembered, ‘Jangolova’ it was so funny we spent a few minutes reminiscing our childhood. Off to “Oblivion” and it was as the name implied. We were warned of not going on if we had heart conditions, hypertension of high blood pressure. By this time we had lost 3 soldiers, they rest of us got strapped in and it had a heart stopping experience. It was the famous vertical drop and it scared the breath out of my lungs. Seriously, if you can go on this ride you can do anything. After this, we went on “Submission” which was a milder but longer experience of “Ripsaw” (to me) then my childhood terror, “Enterprise”. I saw Kano all over again but I still joined up and got sick to my stomach for the spinning but quietened it with chewing gum immediately after.

We had spent the whole day and it was time to go home. By now we were exhausted and drained, physically, spiritually, emotionally, mentally and financially (not so much) and all we could think of was food. I must say, at this moment food meant different things to each person; some were hungry and wanted a burger or steak, some were still reeling from the rides and others were calculating their change.

Every joint in my body was screaming and my back was stiff from holding my breath for long periods at a time but I kept smiling as I poured a hot bath, it was a good day. “This Good Day” - Fernando Ortega #nowplaying.

*Jangolova; a slang for Seesaw
*WillyWilly a chilhood horror movie in Nigeria
*No Shaking; slang for nothing to worry about