A first-timer's 48 hours in Port Harcourt

What to eat, where to go and how long everything actually takes — written by people who drive these roads daily.

Port Harcourt rewards people who plan around traffic rather than against it. If you are here for two days, treat the morning as your movement window and the afternoon as your sitting-still window. Anything you need to do on the mainland side is easier before 9am.

Start on our side of the water. Choba Market opens early and is at its best before the heat sets in — go for the pepper and the fabric, stay for the noise. It is a seven-minute drive from the hotel, or a twenty-minute walk if you are the walking type and it is not raining.

By late morning, head into the GRA. The restaurant strip there is where the city eats when it wants to be seen eating, and it is worth one meal of your two days. Give yourself thirty minutes each way and do not book anything tight on either side.

Afternoon belongs to the Pleasure Park if you have children with you, or to a long lunch if you do not. Evening, come back to this side. The Fifth Bar catches the breeze from about six, and on the last Friday of the month there is live highlife until late.

Day two: if you have business at Onne, leave by 6:30am. If you do not, spend the morning at the pool and the afternoon at Isaac Boro Park. Fly out from Omagwa allowing a clear ninety minutes from our door — thirty-five on a good day, but the road does not always have good days.