Languid Limbé
Hi BoBers,
It was strange to be alone and on the road again after all that had happened in Yaoundé. The feeling quickly faded as I hit the fantastic yet completely empty highway that covered the first section to Douala. People apparently prefer the dilapitated old highway to avoid expensive police checkpoints. Another massive infrastructure project barely in use.
Passing through Douala, I spotted a church with striking, almost Gaudi-like, architecture called Heaven’s Gate - also the name of a cult whose members committed mass suicide in the late 90s. I wonder if they knew. I took some photos and some people started yelling and beckoning aggressively. I rode away. A few km later, a black Lexus came roared next to me, the driver, yelling, demanding why I was taking photos of his church. I braked hard and pulled over. Thankfully, he didn’t harass me further but it was a bit scary.
As the sun was setting, I arrived in a small town, halfway to Limbé. Searching for accomodation, I dodged a gaudy and expensive hotel, then a bar, whose aggressive owner showed me a tiny damp room filled almost entirely by a bed with a bare mattress, music shaking the walls. I refused. The last place in town was a brothel, with a lovely owner and reasonably priced, clean rooms. I took it.
The only problem was the giant steel door, connecting the corridor to the outside - the last girl would be leaving well after I planned to sleep. We decided that, since I was the only one there, she’d lock the door with my padlock when she left. She also told me not to respond or open the door in the night under any circumstances. Drunk men sometimes turn up in the night looking for company.
Around 6am I was woken up by a loud knocking on my door. Someone was yelling at me in pidgin, which I only half understand. Half asleep, I reflexively grunted an answer. For the next 15 minutes the knocking and shouting got louder and more aggressive. Fed up, eventually I opened my door. There was a guy in an office shirt who took a step back when he saw me. Turns out he was another overnight guest they’d forgotten about. He just wanted to get to work!
The rest of the ride to Limbé was uneventful if a little slow - I probably rested too long in Yaoundé. I found a comfy hotel in Limbé and got to work, first visiting Jodie, the girl I’d met in Yaoundé, who introduced me to a group of the volunteers at the local wildlife reserve. It was great to hang out and just chat with a group roughly my age. I also found out quickly that the boat to Malabo only leaves once a month. I had 10 days to kill until the next departure.
Malaria made a repeat appearance. Luckily, same as the last time, after 24 hours of medication I was feeling much better, though a mysterious intermittent nausea and a general malaise stuck around. I used the time to catch up on French practice, to work on the blog and took an elephant hike with the volunteers. We didn’t manage to see any (they’re usually more active at dawn and dusk), but did see lots of signs of them. They were all very well prepared with their hiking gear and pants tucked into their socks and very knowledgeable about the local fauna.
The hike got us talking about hiking Mt Cameroon. Sophia and Claire were keen so we organised a guide for a 3 day hike. The mountain is an active volcano which had a major eruption in 1999. The hike starts in Buea at 1000m for the peak at 4050m, so 3050m ascent in total over the first 1.5 days followed by a more relaxed descent. The hike was beautiful. We began in misty rainforest followed by grassy plains before reaching the rocky peak. On the way we stayed at two lovely lodges. The descent followed the old lava flows — a wide corridor of dark volcanic rock cutting through the green, scattered with small craters and odd outcrops of vegetation the lava had somehow spared.
Arriving back in Limbé felt amazing, until I realised that I’d left my wallet in one of the shared taxis we took down. Surprisingly calm, I immediately made plans to transfer money to my friends in exchange for enough cash to reach the next major town and have my new cards sent express. I then bumped into some other friends drinking with some of the local workers from the zoo, who had a totally different approach. We went back to the taxi rank and started talking. The drivers had seen us leave the taxi earlier and knew the driver. We gave him a call and it just so happened he was there at the rank. After a small negotiation he gave me my wallet back, cards and cash all intact. I gave him the cash inside and felt a little sheepish about how quickly I’d written it off. Sometimes I need reminding how things work here.
The next day I was back on the bike to Tiko, a nearby town and the departure point of the boat to Malabo, Equatorial Guinea.
Out of limbo,
J&BoB
