Umeokoli Cordis-Maria Yotamara 
The dream
I have always wanted to visit the sand dunes at the desert of Yusufari. I stumbled on a picture of a lady dressed in hijab on the internet that looked so much like pictures from some of the clients who have explored Dubai’s sun dunes safari. Immediately, I decided on visiting the destination, that is Yusufari desert and I was actually ready to give anything except my life to get there. That ignited the zeal to move all the way from Lagos to Yusufari desert in Yusufari Local Government Area of Yobe State.
Intermediary
Yobe State is in the North-East and noted as one of the most dreaded states in the entire North – East because of activities of insurgents, bandits and kidnappers. So thinking of planning a trip to such destination is a crazy idea especially when the thought of the trans-sahara historical slave route keeps flashing through one’s mind.
Embarking on the expedition
My travel buddies (Nwachukwu Kingsley Uzoma, Iyiola Mariam, and Makanjuola Ibrahim) and I have always talked about how we would all like to visit the sand dunes in Nigeria and then clear our doubts and that of the general public as to whether Nigeria has sun dunes and if indeed we have whether it is explorable as those of Dubai and other destinations. It was time for us to explore the whole of North – West and though we did a lot of research as to how to get there and the best and safest routes to Yusufari. That wasn’t feasible initially and so it wasn’t even in our itinerary as planned by one of my colleagues on the trip. Our North – West escapades got us to Dutse, the capital city of Jigawa State where we arrived from Kano State. Carefully studying the map, we got to realise that Jigawa State is the only state that borders Kano to the East as against other states that border Kano to the west such as Katsina and Zamfara. We thought of the proximity of Jigawa to the states on the North – East and the possibility of visiting them, and to our pleasant surprise, Yobe State happens to be the closest on the North – East.
It was there and then that we agreed to visit the Yusufari desert. We agreed to sleep at any of the closest town; either Wusur, Gashua or Nguru, so as to continue to Yusufari early the next morning. We boarded a cab from Dutse Park to Hadeija and from Hadeija we headed for Gashua. Both trips lasted for about six hours and then the next morning we got a cab for just N500 return trip to Yusufari.
As we do traditionally, we visited the Gidan Serika (Palace of the Emir of Yusufari), who received us warmly and expressed how happy he was to have us around, commending our intention to visit the sun dunes. We were offered the palace’s safari truck and a driver, who doubled as a tour guide and of course, it came with a price. The drive through the sun dunes was fun, watching the driver battle with his steer as it looked like the earth was gaining more control over his vehicle.
The drive struggled with the harduous natural elements – sun dunes but he was obviously used to it, keeping grip and control of the situation. Guess what? He does it with love, smiles and always ready to answer any question thrown at him not minding our frequent disagreements with his driving. The safari experience was fun, it was not different from what my clients narrated of their experience in Dubai when they explored the sun dunes safari. For our safety and to avoid falling into the traps of bandits, we didn’t go live on Instagram and Facebook as it was our tradition when we are on expedition of a destination and even if we wanted to, there was no network reception for it.
The safari drive started at 10.40am from the palace and it took over an hour before we got in contact with the dunes. Beautiful sight to behold as we inched our way through the expanse of dunes. At that moment they were the most beautiful thing that we had ever set our eyes on. The guide has different locations for different types and features of the sand dunes. While the first location we approached had a brownish colour, we got to other part where what we saw could be described as mysterious. There were about four colours of dunes that didn’t mix with one another. It was magical, delightsome and exciting to behold. We just couldn’t contain our emotions and excitement. Nothing actually could describe the feeling at that moment, seeing the beauty and platitude of nature playing before our eyes.
Is this really Nigeria with such attractive and magical scenery, not just any scenery for that matter but of sun dunes? We exclaimed. Tips The experience was what one could describe as all shades of amazement and if you would like to experience the magical elan of Yusufari desert as we did then it is important to note of some of these tips: Make sure that you lodge at a neighboring town a day before the sun dune escapade so as to leave as early as you could and out of harm way. If you’d like to visit, it is safer to go in group.
Have enough cash on you to take care of any unplanned expenses as we paid close to N30, 000 for the palace’s safari truck. I had a budget for the trip but I also had a lot of extra cash, which was why I got back in one piece. Make your location discrete. You can tell just few trusted friends about your current location. The safari experience is always fun. Just like my colleague would call them; ‘Risky adventures of beautiful outcome.’
*Umeokoli Cordis-Maria Yotamara, is of Nigeria Tourism Lovers and member of Naija7 Wonder team
