Visit and stay at IITA - Trip to Ibadan

We left the zoo at about 2:30pm and headed towards our lodge for the holiday. The amazing place I spoke of earlier. It’s the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture IITA. They don’t seem to really like adverts but this is not one though. It’s an expose on my Salah break or holiday. Anyways, less than 20 minutes later, we arrived there. It’s said to be a diplomatic facility so you kind of expect some really serious security measures in place and they really took it seriously. 

There are two gates, one nested within the other at the entrance of the facility. At the outer gate your vehicle gets screened for bombs and whatnot and then at the inner one where you sign in and present your valid means of ID. In our case my dad used his national passport since he was the one who made the reservations.

Check in was smooth and the rooms were magnificent. Well considering the fact that they waiting lounge was wonderful, I kind of expected such excellence when I got to the room. The hallway leading to the rooms had lovely pieces of pricey art. 

One of the art in the hallway

The housekeeping staff were wonderful. Well, all the staff were well behaved though and courteous as expected of people in the business of hospitality. Ooh and their Wi-Fi actually works unlike at Epe Resort (no hard feelings though) where a 2G network loads a basic text site faster than their Wi-Fi router.

I did have one problem though. Okay two actually. One, the TV channel selections. They were bleh. Two Zee World channels, Telmundo and African Magic Epic? Seriously? I liked the Disney Junior selection though. And yes I watch cartoons. Two, the food. It was more of these American junk food. Burgers, pizzas, fries and whatnot. I did enjoy the Ogbono soup I was finally able to eat after we (actually my dad) complained about their food menu. I enjoyed the breakfast buffet though. It had more variety than any of their other meals. Then the day they had a special evening menu consisting of African dishes, I was able to eat this really spicy goat meat pepper soup with basmati rice and chicken served in chicken stock.

Asides that, the place is a pretty good spot with a well maintained basketball court and tennis court. They also had a pool, a relatively large sized one at that. The whole lot of vacationers there were families with kids aged 18 and below so if you’re looking for a family vacation spot this is the right place to go. Oh and this is not a review by any chance. Just a narration of my stay there.

Lest I forget, they have a lake surrounded by lush green forest. An 8 km man-made lake (well that’s what they said). It most likely had a water body which they expanded.  

We passed by several rice, corn and yam farms too.

One of the nurseries there.

 I didn’t get to go into the forest though. No tours were holding while we were there. I wonder if I would have gone even if there were any holding. Who knows what animals could be in there?

Anyways so there you go that’s how my vacation during the Salah break went. How did you spend yours?