#AdventureTravel: Royals For A Night

I wish this was a pure picture post because I wouldn’t do enough justice to the awesomeness that is Kajuru Castle, Kaduna. It is located in Kajuru Local Government Area, Kaduna. The Kajuru Castle was built in 1978 by a German Explorer who had come to settle in Nigeria. He blew of the top of a rock and used the stones to build himself a Princess Styled Castle. This is one of Kaduna’s best secrets considering I only discovered it in 2015. I made it a priority to visit such awesomeness located less than 3 hours away from Abuja. So when I heard about a trip to the castle organized by Unravelling Nigeria and Naija Nomads, I was like

The castle has a strict policy that allows only 12 people to spend the night. So the chances of getting 12 adventure lovers together to have an awesome and well-rounded weekend was slim. However, it happened, the 35 hour weekend get away was very well planned by our hosts such that all we needed to do was show up at the pick-up point.

We were welcomed with goody bags and hot chocolate (weird people had coffee…lol). I loved my hat a lot!!! The 3-hour road trip to Kajuru was very eventful with all forms of ice breakers, games and even random selfies.

https://www.instagram.com/p/-5wYIZmxjb/

On getting to the castle, located it the middle of nowhere, we were welcomed by The Witch, aka caretaker, who was very warm and charming. She gave us a full tour of the property and became invisible like the rest of the castle staff. We had privacy to truly get comfortable.

Our activities for the first day included nap time (doubt anyone napped), pool party (which involved a lot of pictures and music videos…lol) and finally an all white bbq to end the night, where I made a cocktail to fit for Royals.

We even had this beautiful video made at sunset by Ibukun Williams

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Sunset in Kajuru || Kajuru, Kaduna, Nigeria || Music by @ozone_ar || #landscape #timelapse #mountains #natgeo #kajuru2015 #royalsforanight #farming #forest #naijanomads #unravellingnigeria #photography #iwp #Ozone #OZ

A post shared by Ibukun Williams (@ibukunwilliams_) on Dec 13, 2015 at 8:27am PST

Our host woke us at 6:30am to prepare for our morning warm up and hiking session in the beautiful Kajuru. Our trail guide Mr Garba has lived in Kajuru before the castle was built and I can say, he is super fit and active for his age.

 

After the hike, we all got cleaned up, signed the guestbook and took this awesome picture (Shout out to the Avengers for this) and prepared to head back to Abuja.

More Pictures and Videos here

PS: Do not visit Kajuru right before your office officially closes for the year, returning to reality was so hard. I miss the castle, the spectacular scenery and all the new friends I made. Can’t wait for the next location we are unlocking in Nigeria.

Royal Kisses,

Tay