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living in lagos while your coffee obsessively judges your life choices

@Adam Wright3/11/2026blog

i started this post by spilling lukewarm coffee on my notebook and then realizing it was too cold to even care. the weather here is that 10.69°C number that makes you question all life choices, like when you drink the entire thing and suddenly realize it’s just lukewarm. i just checked and it’s that kind of temperature, where you wear a sweater but your hands still go numb. no one here is prepared for that kind of warmth, probably because they’re all half-dozed out of their siestas.






i found this photo while trying to remember if lagos has beaches. it’s a gr8every gray picture of a road that probably leads nowhere. the first one is from unsplash. the alt text says ‘grayscale photo of road between trees’-perfect. the second one is of boats on a lake, which feels wrong because lagos is coastal, but maybe i’m just imagining things. the third is a sailboat that’s clearly fake because it’s too still. like all the people here.



the neighbors are the kind that leave their doors unlocked at 3am and pretend it’s normal. if you get bored, sagres is just a short drive away, which is code for ‘it’s a 45-minute drive in a car that might break down.’ i heard that once from a tourist who was clearly high on something. the reviews for the local café? they’re all over TikTok. someone warned me that the pastéis de nata here are ‘so overrated, it’s like eating a ghost’s sigh.’ i later found out that was true but also a lie because i ate them anyway. they were somehow both amazing and bland.



the coffee here is the real deal. i’m a snob, obviously. the local café serves espresso that tastes like regret. i asked the barista if they use fair trade beans, and he just stared at me like i’d asked if the town had a mayor. later, i overheard someone say, ‘if you want real coffee, go to laranjeiras. they still operate on the old principle that coffee should kill.’ this place? it’s like drinking hot water with a side of existential dread.



i tried to take a ‘raw’ photo of the harbor at sunrise. the result was a black blob with a smudge of light. the second image is that. it’s called ‘a couple of boats floating on top of a lake’ but the water is definitely not a lake. the third one is a sailboat that doesn’t sail. it just… floats there, existing. like my will to live.



reviews are everywhere. i saw one on yelp that said lagos has ‘the best seafood in europe’ but then another saying it’s ‘a trap for tourists who think they know what they want.’ which is it? both? i don’t know. i ate some grilled sardenhas and it was like chewing on a sandpaper prayer. the local said it’s ‘authentic,’ which is code for ‘we don’t know how to cook except by accident.’



someone told me the cliffs here are dangerous. they weren’t exaggerating. i walked too close to the edge and almost fell into the ‘ocean’ which is just a puddle of algae. i heard another rumor that the town’s WiFi is so slow it’s basically a metaphor for life. i checked the app and it’s that 10°C breeze again. i hope you like that kind of thing.



i asked a local about the weather. they said, ‘it’s like the ocean is mad at you.’ not helpful. the humidity is 65%, which feels like being trapped in a sauna that forgot to turn on the heat. the pressure is 1022 hPa, which sounds scientific but probably just means the air is judging your life choices. the mini and max temps are 10.69 and 12.44. i didn’t notice the difference. i was too busy forgetting my phone charger.



the photo grid is here to make up for the lack of real content. the first image is of a road that might lead to a secret beach. the second is boats that are clearly in a lake because they’re not on the ocean. the third is a sailboat that’s clearly a prop from a bad movie. i added these because i didn’t want to write more. that’s lazy.



i’m supposed to add links. here’s tripadvisor for a hotel that’s probably overpriced: https://www.tripadvisor.com/hotel/123456-lagos-hotel. yelp for a café: https://www.yelp.com/biz/local-cafe-lagos. a local forum: https://lagosforum.com. and a guide to not dying here: https://dontdyeither.com/lagos.



i’m not sure why i’m writing this. maybe because the coffee is cold. maybe because i’m a coffee snob and this place killed my soul. maybe because the neighbors won’t stop leaving their pots of water outside to freeze. i hope you like that kind of thing.

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About the author: Adam Wright

Writer, thinker, and occasional over-thinker.

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