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"What’s up, danger?" (from the song “What’s Up, Danger” by Black Caviar & Blackway) Why travel when you could easily be killed or kidnapped on your road trip? This question has been thrown at me by different people at different times. Most times, when I try to justify my passion for adventures, it seems as if my justification is not adequate enough for them to understand. The fear of death or danger is not strong enough to stop my love for the road. But they don’t understand this, and I can barely make them understand. It usually takes someone of similar interest to truly understand you. One of the most worried persons, when I’m on a road trip, is my mother, Nowadays, I don’t bother telling her when I’m on tour. However, I know she likes to pray a lot for my safety, and like her, I try to hold a prayer in my heart for me. When I travel, I hold the words from the poet laureate, Wole Soyinka, in his poem “Death in the Dawn”: "May you never walk/ When the road waits, famished…" But who can tell when the road is famished or not? The famished road almost feasts on my friends and me on a 5-day road trip across southwest Nigeria. We are four in the car on a road trip along Oyo road, heading to the only suspended lake in Africa – the Iyake Suspended Lake of Ado Awaye, Oyo, Nigeria. A man with a local gun, standing beside the road shoots at our moving car. This act is used to stop moving cars either to rob or kidnap the occupant(s), or both. We are lucky enough that the bullet passes over the car, and no one, not even the car, gets any damage. This experience makes us take a break for the day, as we immediately search for the nearest hotel to spend the remaining day and night. We laugh about it as we thank God for safety before retiring for the night. And by morning, we set forth for the road again with much vigor. It takes thigh-aching steps to get to where the suspended lake sits on the Iyake Mountain. We meet a tour guide, who leads us up after we had paid the gate fee. We are giving sticks to aid in the hike, which begins on jagged forested stairs. I usually prefer mountain climbing with my hands and legs (like I have done a number of times at different places, such as Shere Hills in Jos, Nigeria) to climbing on stairs, which makes me get tired easily with aching thighs eventually. We have to regularly pause for breaks – to rest, take pictures, and joke about how tired we are getting. The first landmark on the mountain is the Ishagi rock, which is said to answer prayers and bring rain. I hope it answers my prayer and keep us from famished roads. As we proceed on the mountain, we meet more landmarks such as big-foot-sized holes (called ase awon agba) and the elephant tree (which is simply a fallen tree with the trunk twisted to create the shape of an elephant’s head). One of the fascinating things about this place is the stories. It feels like being seated at the feet of a storyteller, who feeds your ears with mysterious stories that may put you in awe or disbelief. Our tour guide, Wasiu, is a good storyteller. As I stand beside the suspended lake with a clear blue sky above my head, I am filled with peace and happiness from the surrounding nature. I realize that I feel at home here. And this means that I will continue to dare death and danger for moments like this. As we end the tour for the day, and get back into the car to move to another city, I remember a line from “Song of the Open Road” by Walt Whitman: "Strong and content, I travel the open road…" It is this feeling from this line that drives me every time I travel.