Travel Horror Story: How Google Maps left me in the middle of nowhere in Enugu

Limitless travel in this country is only possible as far as Nigerian roads can take you.

As I shared before, adventure kept calling me to weird places while working and living in Enugu in 2017. Read all about my chilling drive through Milliken hill.

On one of such occasions, I tied on my boots and got into my car with a friend, Susan, who was present for many crazy adventures. This time, we were visiting Ezeagu Tourist Complex. Ezeagu Tourism Complex consists of a waterfall/rapid, a connection of caves and a warm spring.

I had been gearing to visit Ezeagu since i heard it had a warm spring i could take a dip in, similar to the Wikki warm springs in Bauchi. All the information i got about the destination from the Internet was that it was in Ezeagu.

From Google Maps, the journey from the city centre to Ezeagu was about an hour's journey. So, off we went, on an auspicious Sunday afternoon, to Ezeagu Tourist Complex.

First of all, we had no idea where this place was. Secondly, this was the first time I set for quite a distance, but once again, "the problem is that I don't hear word." It would be best to mention now, in my defense, that I had only begun driving on my own in 2016, and had only previously driven in Abuja. Google Maps was my best pal for directions, understandably so because, one, I suck at directions, and two, Abuja roads are quite straightforward and properly planned out.

At the beginning of the journey, the roads were extremely terrible — riddled with large pot holes and long stretches of rough patches — but seemed direct enough, with the usual "continue straight for 5 kilometers".

Now, all was well, till we got to this particular round about, i think somewhere around the famous 9th mile, and it was quite difficult recognizing what exit Maps wanted us to take. We literally took all the exits till we found the right one, and Maps confirmed by saying, "continue straight."

We should be good now, we thought.

Not even a minute down the road, Google Maps said, "turn right." Only problem was, there was no right turn, and any right turn would have had us veering off a bridge I had no idea we were even on in the first place.

After asking a couple of people for directions, we got on another sensible route and continued on our way. I remember Google Maps was still leading us.

If you ask me how we got to a stretch of road with no car in sight leading to God-knows-where, who would I ask?

All we knew was, we were driving, and Google Maps, my close pal who was basically stabbing me in the back, was still leading us.

It was at this point, I actually gave up on ever finding this place. We were on this road alone for over an hour. The only silver linings were the breathtaking mountains and hills along this road, and the peace and quiet they brought.

Somewhere along the line, we gave up on Google Maps, and were left stranded in the middle of nowhere with no idea what to do.