I had heard of the Lagos Bar Beach as a beauty spot for relaxation, but I hadn't been opportuned io visit it.
Thank God, my chance came just last year when I was in Lagos to spend a part of my leave.
It was on Saturday afternoon around 2.30 p.m. that I stepped out from a taxi into the beautiful world of the Lagos Bar Beach. What first struck my attention was the huge crowd of people around. Children, young boys and girls, middle-aged men and women, black and white, people from all walks of life, they were all there, relaxing in one way or another.
At once, I felt the cool, refreshing breeze from the Atlantic caressing my cheeks and blowing my agbada into a kind of balloon. I saw the surging, seemingly angry sea, splashing its salty waters on the brown sand. Some boys and girls, men and women in swimming suits, were leaping into the leaping waves of the sea only to be brought ashore by the force of the waves! It was a pleasant sight.
The white foams of the waves, the cool, refreshing breeze and the gay atmosphere around affected my mood and I began to see, not a dull, ugly world full of wickedness, but a beautiful world full of charm, wonder, liveliness and loveliness.
As if to confirm my romantic views, when I turned my head A I saw a group of teenagers — boys and girls — shaking their waists to the beat of a High Life number; another group in another comer in their trendy dresses, listening and giving all their soul to a soul dance! Still, a third group, was rocking away to the latest Afro-beat sound coming out from their record player. They were all having a nice time at the Lagos Bar-Beach.
But while those teenagers were dancing, two small boys near me were wrestling. From their playful wrestling a fight broke out between them and they began to exchange hot blows. Soon, the loser began to cry, pressing his bleeding lips with one hand while he gave a chase to the winner who was galloping away, smiling mischievously.
A middle-aged man with a bald head and a protuding belly dipped his hand into his back pocket only to discover painfully that a pick-pocket had made away with all the money in his pocket including his passport! He shouted and cried and cursed! But nobody saw or caught the pick-pocket. Yes, even pick-pockets formed a part of the gay life at the Lagos Bar Beach!
But there were a lot of other funs around. The many hawkers, the daring acrobats, the wonderful magicians, the open-air preachers, the beckoning fortune-tellers and the alluring, blinking, swinging, high-Society girls looking for customers!
Man, you just have to visit the Lagos Bar Beach and see things for yourself!