Why you should visit Yola today!

I was quite excited about the prospect of visiting Yola, Adamawa State, Nigeria, and that’s for many reasons. One of them being that it sounds exactly like the name of this magazine, and it’s almost spelt the same. Another one was to add to my list of visited Northeastern states in Nigeria. The terrorist attacks in the north east has made the region a most difficult place to go to, and having gone to Maiduguri (regarded by many as the heart of the terror group), I wanted to see how the other states looked like, because, you see, there’s always beauty in a storm.

Upon arrival at the airport as part of Simply Poetry ltd’s MadeInNigeria team, I expected to see dozens of military men guarding the facility like I had experienced in Maiduguri, but I could hardly find any. It wasn’t difficult to tell why. The place was nothing like Maiduguri. The ride to the hotel was deliciously peaceful. The roads were neat, and the street lights worked.

Apart from my very pleasant stay in Yola, these are my favourite reasons why you should visit Yola today.

• It’s Quiet

If you feel clustered by how busy cities like Lagos can be, and for some reason you need some air and space, Yola may just be the right place for you. I arrived in Yola on a Friday, and it was so quiet. So I thought, ‘maybe on Saturday, things will get moving’, but Saturday felt just like Friday, and Sunday felt just like Saturday. The days just felt peaceful!

• Good food

During the trip, a friend came to me and said, “Chuka you can’t believe this, I just ate the best Egusi Soup I’ve eaten in a very long time. I can’t even remember eating Egusi as good as that in Abuja.” With that, one of my fears was squashed. So I said to him, “You must take me there.” He agreed, but somehow, we couldn’t go again. So I found my way to ‘Item 7’, a restaurant close to my hostel, and I promise you, I ate one of the best jollof rice I’ve eaten in a long time. The chicken was well prepared, and the water was refreshing. And yes, I ate there again before leaving.
So when another friend, Dare, insisted on buying Masa for his wife, I could understand. Masa is a meal in the north that looks and sometimes tastes like bread when fried and is normally eaten with Suya. But the Masa in Yola looked entirely different. It looked like cake instead and had a delightful aroma to it. My conclusion, the food in Yola is great, and they are creative with their meals.

• Awesome Places to visit

Adamawa is home to Sukur, located in the Mandara mountains. Sukur is a world heritage site and has been so since 1992 and this is because of amazing landscape. I couldn’t visit Sukur as well other amazing tourist attractions to time but if you come to the city, you should visit those.

Sincerely, thank you for reading.

You are the reason why we keep telling these stories. Our mission is to inform, educate, and inspire through objective storytelling and journalism.  We are deeply grateful for your belief in our mission. To enhance your user experience, we've got off a lot of things such as obstructive ads. However, telling these stories and making these researches require funds. If you enjoy our content and you want to see us continue, please kindly support us by donating here.

You can also send us an email hello@yolar.co. Thank you for your continuous support.

About The Author