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Well im down to my last week now, it feels really strange to think that this time next week ill be back in london!
I ended up spending an extra night in Yaounde last week as i was feeling too tired to face another long bus journey! On friday i took the bus to Foumban in the west of Cameroon, i had brought my bus ticket the day before and i was glad i did that so on Friday when i got to the gare routiere i knew exactly where i was going, i had some really agressive hustlers hassling me so i was glad to go straight to the bus and get my seat and be left alone! I arrived in foumban late that afternoon and felt really exhausted, i paid way too much for a taxi to take me to a hotel, i knew i was getting majorly ripped off but for some reason i was just too tired to try and bargain with the driver! i checked out one hotel which was dark and dingy so went to one across the road which was cheaper and much nicer! i had a room on the second floor with a balcony looking out over the town and the surrounding hills. the staff there were really nice and i had dinner there that night and as i was eating they kept on walking past me asking if it was ok. i went to bed early as i felt really tired and woke up the next morning with a horrible cold. In the mornng i walked to the palais royal through the grand marche (market), i was eating a biscuit for my breakfast and this guy approached me and went nuts, he was yelling and waving his hands in my face, it was quite intimidating, another guy walked past and told him to leave me alone, which is what i was already yelling at him to do, and he stopped for a second but then carried on, i dont know what he was saying, in the end i had to walk back in the way id come then do a wide circle around him, so in two days i had two instances of men being aggressive towards me, thats the first time thats happened like that, both times i didnt feel overly threatened as there were lots of other people around and it was broad daylight, it was more annoying and frustrating and both times put me in a bad mood, especially since i was feeling rough with my cold! i carried on to the Palais royal which is the royal palace of the fon (or Sultan) of the Bamoun people. The Kingdom of the Bamoun people which is ruled over by the Fon is like its own seperate country, they have been ruling that area for over nearly 1000 years. they even have their own language and alphabet which one of the previous Fons created, and their own religion. When Islam was spreading throughout west Africa the Fulani people in the north tried to convert the Fon and his people to islam, initially they converted because the fulani had helped them in some wars, but when the Fon realised that as a muslim he couldnt drink alcohol or smoke he decided to convert to Christanity, but then he realised he could only have one wife if he was a christian, so he created his own religion which is a mix of Christanity, Islam and traditional animist beliefs! The current Fon holds a couple of posts in the current government but apparently he doesnt have too much influence as he is pretty much just there because he is a king, although he has been ambassador for Cameroon to Equatorial Guinea and Egypt and there were photos of him in Paris with Jacques Chriac and he is good friends with current President Biya of Cameroon. The Fon still lives in the Palace that also houses the museum and the things in the museum are still taken out and used or worn in ceremonies. There were lots of beautiful wooden carvings and masks, some of which were very old. There were also lots of lepoard skins and python skins. After being taken around the museum these guys showed me a selection of musical instruments and did a little performance for me, it was so good!! They each played one of the traditional instruments and sang and danced, it was excellent and really made my day!! Then i went out to the courtyard where the Fon was holding an audience with the people, he only does that 3 times a week so i was lucky to see that, i didnt really understand what was going on, it was all in the local language but it was really interesting to watch! I then went to an artisans store, i didnt really want to but the guy had shown me where to go to buy my ticket for the palais royal so i thought ill just have a look, he just had a dark, dusty back room that was stacked full of carvings, it was like a treasure trove! I ended up buying another mask, its really beautiful and i cant stop looking at it!! I then went to a restaurant and had a cheap lunch but i was feeling so exhausted i just went back to my hotel and dozed in bed all afternoon, it was nice to be able to look out the window to the nice view. Foumban is a mainly muslim town and is the only place in west africa where i have seen women walking around in the full burka. The Imam had a nice voice and i quite enjoyed lying in bed and listening to the mysterious call to prayer, on one of them he had a young boy reading with him. That night there was no water in the town so i couldnt have a shower or flush the toilet or wash my hands or face, there was also a power cut for ages which provided a nice night sky from my balcony. The next morning, Sunday, i took a moto to the bus depot and arrived just in time for a bush taxi departing for Baffousam, so i squashed in the back row which should have seated 3 people but instead had 4 adults and 2 children, it was pretty uncomfortable. In Baffousam i got a moto to the gare routiere for the bush taxis to Bamenda, luckily i had a seat nearer the front so i got more ventilation from the window, i was feeling awful from my cold! In Bamenda, which is english speaking, i took a moto to a presbyterian mission house which was the cheapest place ive stayed at so far in Cameroon, and it was really decent and spotlessly clean, like most mission houses are, the only bad thing was that the shower was icy cold and the evening temperature in the area was quite cool so having a shower was pure torture, especially with my cold, it felt like the water had come from a snowy mountain and i could only put one limb under the water at a time!! It was so nice to be in an english speaking region, you forget how much easier it makes things when you can communicate properly with people, it was SOOO much more easy!!!!! Bamenda sits at quite a high altitude so the temperature was quite cool which was a nice change, it is surrounded my beautiful mountain scenery and is the gateway town to the Ring Road area of cameroon which is a beautiful mountainous area of the country bordering Nigeria. On my first day i felt too tired and crappy to do anything so i just checked emails and then went for a walk in town, most of the shops and restaurants were closed as there was a big ceremony for the installation of the new governor for the region which was quite interesting to watch for awhile, it seemed like the whole town was gathered there! I spent the afternoon in bed again cause i just felt like rubbish, i didnt have any cold and flu tablets to take either which didnt help, and pharmacys here arent stocked like they are at home. On Tuesday i was feeling a bit better so i got on a bus in the morning to take me to a town called Bamessing which is on the Ring Road, there is a really interesting pottery centre there so i had a tour and watched how they make everything, it was so interesting, they had a great shop as well but i didnt buy anything. They only sell 10% of their products in Cameroon, the rest goes to the US and Europe. After visiting there i walked back to the main road which was one kilometre away and got a man with a moto to take me to the next town which was called Sagba. To get there took about 15minutes up a steep hill, the driver ran out of petrol halfway so left me on the side of the road and went back to the bottom of the hill in neutral to fill up then came back and got me and took me the rest of the way. I got him to drop me off just before the town cause i wanted to climb Sagba hill, it only took 20minutes to walk up and the view from the top was really amazing, i could see villages in the distance and high mountains and waterfalls, it was beautiful. After decending the hill i walked into the town, which was pretty tiny and waited on the side of the road in the shade for a bush taxi to come past to take me back to Bamenda, i didnt have to wait long before i got a ride and was back in Bamenda. It was only midday so i got a moto to a different gare routiere and took a bush taxi to a town called Bafut which is also on the ring road but in the other direction. The scenery definitly wasnt as stunning on this section and i was stuck next to a guy in the car who was trying to get me to go back to his place to see his cobra which was kind of annoying. In Bafut i went to the Royal Palace which was really interesting, similar to the one in Foumban. This kingdom isnt as big as the one in Foumban but they still rule themselves like a seperate country and have been doing so for over 600 years. Like the Bamoun kingdom they also have their own language and religion and secret societies. The current king there has 150 wives but only about 48 of them are in residence at the palace. He inherited some of the wives from his father, those ones are more like mothers to him than wives and he doesnt have children with them but he still takes care of them. i had a guide who showed me around the museum, which was filled with more lepoard and python skins and even an elephant skull and foot, along with skulls of the kings enemies. We also had a wander around the compound where all the wives live, there were lots of little princes and princesses running around. After the tour i took a taxi back to Bamenda then went to a restaurant for some dinner. While i was eating at a table on the balcony a white woman came over and asked if she could share the table (it was a massive table and i dont think there were any other spare ones) with me until her collegues arrived. I said that was fine and asked where she was from, it turns out she was from NZ but lives in the US. She couldnt believe it when i told her i was from NZ, she has been running an HIV/AIDS treatment program in Bamenda for the last 10 years and comes out here every month and in that 10 years i was the first kiwi she had ever met there!! She is an alumni at otago university and also at the university of kansas city and was a really intersting lady to talk to. She had been working on a project which shows that hiv/aids actually originated in that region of Cameroon, apparently you find one subtype of hiv in the US, a different one in India and so on, but of every single subtype there is, you can find all of them in Cameroon, so thats why she is based here. She runs a treatment program and it sounds like hiv is rife in the region, there are signs all over the country encouraging people to prevent the spread of Aids, and in the southwest region in both the hotels i stayed at they had signs everywhere telling people to use condoms to prevent the spread of hiv. Apparently TB is worse than hiv and that is the biggest killer of humans worldwide, most people that get hiv also get tb because they have no immunity. Her collegues turned up and were a couple of local women that work for her, it sounded like those ladies had a pretty tough job trying to stop men especially, from spreading it, and they had some really sad stories of children being born with it and mothers not treating themselves when they are pregnant and having to explain to kids who are infected why they have to take drugs and what is wrong with them, they were really lovely ladies doing a great, but what must be very frustrating, job!
On Wednesday morning i went to the bus station at 8am for the 9am bus to douala which was going to take about 7 hours. I sat on the minibus with the other women and their cute babies until 11am when we finally departed. Before leaving a man stood in the doorway and read a prayer and every person on the whole bus prayed with him for a safe journey to Douala. It was a long journey and we finally arrived in Douala at around 6pm, i found a moto driver and asked him to take me to a hotel in the city centre, he didnt know where it was but said he would ask someone when we got to the main road, i was so impressed with his honesty, why cant all moto and taxi drivers here be like that!! It was a pretty hair-raising ride though, he sped through rush hour traffic and took shortcuts, i was relieved when we got to the main road! i had originally though i would stay at a mission house in Douala because its cheaper but i didnt have any idea where it was and didnt think the moto drivers would either so i thought id go to this other hotel first and if they had a room id just stay there for the night, but if they were fully booked then i would try and find the mission house. We eventually found the hotel and they were fully booked but i must have looked really disappointed cause the receptionist then said to me 'i have a proposition for you, you can stay in a room in the pastors house' i said that was fine, it was also cheaper than the other rooms but still overbudget for me, i really should have tried to find the mission, i felt a bit guilty overspending on accommodation like that but i thought well its only for one night and i felt like crap with my cold!! The room was literally a room in someones house, i shared the bathroom with the couple that ran the place. It was really nice, my room was comfortable and had air con. i went down for a shower and i had my first hot shower since i have been in west africa!!! it was true luxury! It was clean and had great pressure, while i was in the shower some church people were singing a hymn right outside the bathroom window, it felt like i was in heaven! Also the toilet actually had a seat and flushed by itself which was wonderful!! A lot of the toilets in hotels here you have to fill up a bucket of water from a tap and pour it down the toilet bowl when your done to flush it and most toilets dont have seats. That evening i had a delicious dinner at the hotel restaurant, for some reason a lot of the time ive been in africa ive really craved sausages, and this places had big juicy german sausages (it was run by a german couple) and they were sooo good! Had another early night, trying desperately to get rid of my cold! Then on Thursday i took the bus to Kribi which is a beach resort town in the south of the country (which is french speaking) and thats where i am now. i got here yesterday and went to a beachside restaurant and had a beautiful seafood lunch! My hotel is a cheapie in the town centre, i decided after my luxury stay in douala i better go back to budget so this one is a reasonable price and it is ok, except i had a massive cockroach in my room last night, i went and asked at reception for some bug spray and the lady came to my room with me, i showed her the crack in the wall that the cockroach had crawled into and we sprayed it until he came out then she chased him around the room and squashed him with her shoes, i had considered that option before i went and got her but i decided i didnt want cockroach guts all over the bottom of my shoes, he really was massive!! But she obviously didnt mind!! This morning i took a moto to some waterfalls that plunge directly into the sea, they were quite beautiful. I also took a pirogue up the river to a pygmy village with a guide, the village was pretty small and unimpressive but i got to meet the chief and he was so little, they all were, but he only came up to my shoulders!! He was kind of cute and let me get a photo with him. The tropical rainforest along the river was really beautiful as well. Had a nice lunch at a restaurant near the falls on the beachfront then hitched a ride on a moto back to town. I am here until Sunday when i go to Limbe which is another beach resort town further north back in the english speaking region, i stay in Limbe (which is not far from Douala) until my flight on thursday next week, i have booked myself back into the pastors residence at the hotel i stayed at in Douala for wednesday night, ive decided ill spend my last night in Africa in style, eating german sausages!!
So a nice quiet wind down to my trip now, it is really sticky and hot here and i am happy with my cold shower at my hotel. Kribi is a nice town and the beaches here are better than any ive seen so far in West Africa, they are still eroding badly but the undertow isnt as strong and the waves are smaller. You can see oil rigs off the coast and huge ships docked at them. I cant believe that this time next week i will be in chilly london, i hope i adjust to the temperature ok!! Ill probably update again from Limbe, not that ill have much to write about!! xo
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