Our time here in Cameroon has been excellent thus far. We have been to every province, and meet a ton of great folks. We have enjoyed it so much that we our going to extend our visas a bit and stay until the first week of April (we are now illegally legal residents). Some of the highlights have been:
Seeing Brian for Christmas – obviously, as it was one of the reasons for coming.
Meeting a ton of great folks through Brian – cause they are super cool.
Seeing gorillas in the jungle of the south east – took 4 days on really bad buses but was totally worth it.
Climbing Mt Cameroon – Then watching folks run up it in back in 4.5 hours, a 26 mile run climbing and descending 10,000ft.
Seeing wildlife in the north – Saw elephants, giraffes, antelope and tons of birds.
So we arrived in Douala on the 23rd of December, just in time to make it up to Brian’s village of Bambui for Christmas. Our first impressions of Douala were that it was a hot, humid, busy commercial town, and we were eager to leave for the beach. After grabbing money from the bank, we had a wonderful half hour argument with the taxi driver over price, which quickly turned into a argument with him and 10 of his friends over about 1 us dollar (it was the principal of the thing). Essentially he had changed the price, and we the rich whites should just pay the extra. While I think they were impressed with our arguing stamina, they didn’t let up, and we eventually paid the extra but al least got to show them that not all whites are pushovers... Once that argument was over we flagged down a car that was headed to Limbe, the beach town we were going to stay in. Problem was that this guy was not a taxi driver, and just wanted some gas money, which pissed off the taxi drivers to no end cause he picked us up just outside the taxi stand. So after being drug out of the car, he paid the angry taxi driver a bit of cash, and were on our way out of Douala, finally. After about and hour in traffic jam and another hour actually moving we got burgers and checked into our tent on the black sand beach and had a swim.
Once out of the large francophone cities we really started to enjoy Cameroon quite a bit. Both the food and the people were a welcome change from Mauritania and Senegal. The food in Cameroon is really flavorful, and quite spicy, as opposed to the steamed veggies and bland rice we had become used to. Not only was it really good, but it is everywhere. Every bar has a few folks selling food outside, whether it is delicious grilled beef, fish or pork, or endless other side dishes. Even when the bar is closed these ladies serve lunch on the patio, and have as many as 10 types of food in pots for our choosing, rivaling any Vegas buffet. Best part is we leave stuffed to the brim for less than a buck. One of the best breakfast choices is to go down to an omelets shack (which are everywhere, and are really just shacks) and get a spaghetti omelets. These delicious morsels are just what they sound like, a wad of spaghetti with a couple eggs thrown in to a pan with too much oil, and they come out like a delicious egg pancake from heaven, with tea for less than a buck.
So after relaxing at the beach for a night we took a bus to Brian’s post on Christmas eve. The entire day of Christmas was spent making and eating food. Essentially everyone has an open house where everyone else comes by to have some food and chat. So we made some Indian food and had a few guests over, and then made the rounds of all the people brain knows. When it was all over we had about 6 or 7 meals and a bad case of food coma.
The following day we began to make our way down to another beach town called Kribi for new years. For 3 days we hung out at the beach with a group of really cool PCVs and ate a ton of fresh grilled fish. The fish was so fresh that we would watch people dragging in nets on the beach, and bring the catch up to the grill in buckets.
After we got our fill of fish and beached, we started to head toward the eastern province. The route took us back through Yaounde, and then took another 3 days on buses. The route down there is so bad that one of the pot holes (more like a crater) that we got stuck in almost tipped over the bus. I was sitting in the front with the driver, and felt us almost tip, and saw the horrified look in the drivers face, and we all gently evacuated the bus to let him try to get out without worry of tipping with all the passengers. So after 3 days of being bounced around and chocked nearly to death by dust we made it to the post of Brian’s friends, Matt and Sara, who work for the WWF running Lobekie National Park.
While down there we took a couple hikes with our pigmy (the PC term is Bakah) guide little Jon. One of the hikes was an overnighter to a wildlife viewing platform. On the ride to the start of the hike we had to stop to let a family of gorillas cross the road, and for one to try to stare down our truck down. After a while into the hike we heard a group of gorillas yelling at us that we were getting too close. They were close enough that we could smell their musk, but could not see them because of the dense vegetation. All that any of us could do was to try not to wet ourselves, and stare at little Jon to tell us what to do. After we heard them crash off through the woods we collected ourselves and continued to the platform. The platform was rather uneventful, but nice to hang out in silence and watch monkeys and antelope in the forest clearing. On the way out the next morning we ran into the same group of gorillas, and this time were not only close enough to smell them, but saw where they had breakfast.
The drive back to Yaounde was made much easier thanks to getting a ride with them most of the way in the WWF truck. The well oiled WWF operation was a great relief from the regular African way, with everything either broken or about to. The drive took 2 days instead of 3, and at the one night at the WWF compound saw us in a comfortable accommodation and the truck with new front and rear suspension by the morning. Usually that would have delayed us the majority of a day.
More to come with pictures soon. Just wanted to get started catching yall up.
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