After I embarked on a trip in 2013 to Jos (HERE), I decided to kick off the #KemiFilaniTours, but my busy schedule and bad procrastination habit (which I am working on) stood in my way.
#KemiFilaniTours is more like a travel journal, where KFB visits tourist /historic/fun centers (locally/internationally) and gives you the gist. I intend to make it a biweekly column if all things work out well, but if otherwise, then it will be monthly.
After several months, the dream has finally come to
live and the first tourist centre KFB visited is the Olumo Rock in
Abeokuta, Ogun state.
Olumo rock (a name which means ‘under
the rock’), one of the most popular tourist destinations in Nigeria,
sits in the ancient city center of Abeokuta.
I went in company of four friends: Penzaar of Penzaarvilleafrica, Erad (a graphics designer), Adetola (a baker) and Moji Oshindero (a sweetheart and DJ).
We visited the tourist centre in the wee hours of a Thursday, so that
we could be exclusively attended to but even then, we weren’t early
enough, some students were already having their excursion there.
The entrance:
The gate fee into the premises is 700
naira per person for normal climbing or stairs, however for use of the
Elevator, the fee is 1,500 naira. We used the stairs because the Elevator wasn’t working.
A video of when we talked about our expectations…I wanted to blown away by the stories from the tour guides.
A video posted by kemifilaniblog (@kemifilaniblog) on Nov 3, 2015 at 11:07pm PST
First look at the rock
And the climbing began.
The stairs didn’t go all the way to the top of the rock, it was only a first stage of climbing.
The first stop was the Lisabi Garden. The first tour guide we came across was this light skinned woman and she told us that we just climbed 120 stairs.
You could imagine our surprise, we didn’t know we had climbed that much.
A photo posted by kemifilaniblog (@kemifilaniblog) on Nov 3, 2015 at 11:37pm PST
A video posted by kemifilaniblog (@kemifilaniblog) on Nov 4, 2015 at 12:14am PST
A video posted by kemifilaniblog (@kemifilaniblog) on Nov 4, 2015 at 1:45am PST
We were told that Abeokuta was originally inhabited by the Egba people who found refuge at the Olumo rock during the inter-tribal wars in the 19th
century.
The rock provided sanctuary to the people as well as a vantage
point to monitor the enemy’s advance leading to eventual triumph in war.
Olumo means “all the troubles and sufferings were
over” .
Below is a video of us in the scary cave….we didn’t stop shouting ‘Blood of Jesus, Blood of Jesus…” lol.
A video posted by kemifilaniblog (@kemifilaniblog) on Nov 4, 2015 at 1:55am PST
Then the real rock climbing began:
I decided to take a break here 🙂
We were asked to take the ancient route to the peak of the Rock but we decided to pass through the modern route because of Penzaar…he was scared of heights…durr.
A video posted by kemifilaniblog (@kemifilaniblog) on Nov 4, 2015 at 10:08am PST
We finally got to the peak and it was awesome.
Once on top of the Rock, the view was breathtaking and
certainly worth the effort for the trip.
A video posted by kemifilaniblog (@kemifilaniblog) on Nov 4, 2015 at 9:37am PST
A video posted by kemifilaniblog (@kemifilaniblog) on Nov 4, 2015 at 9:42am PST
A closer view of my cute face …to think that i woke up with a minor boil on my left eye that morning, lol.
And then we bade the Rock bye 🙂
In all, the Olumo rock is a beautiful tourist site but i wasn’t exactly ‘blown away’ with the stories i was told by the tour guides.
Thanks for reading through.
I am totally open to ideas from you to make this #KemiFilaniTours more fun…so please tell it all via the comment section, thankyou.
You can also keep up with our updates on instagram, it is a newly opened account @kemifilaniblog..whoop!