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Well im now in Cameroon, and it is quite different to the other countries ive been to in West Africa.On my last day in Cotonou I didn't really do much, I spent the afternoon in a nice bar in an area of town where all the expats and people with money live, it was nice and quiet with big shady trees and not far from the airport.I could easily have stayed in Cotonou longer than what I did, despite the terrible pollution and the crazy roads and the chaos of it all, I actually really enjoyed that city!Along with Ouagadougou I would say it is one of my favourites, I loved zooming about town on the back of the motos, it was really easy to get to know your way around and people were really friendly, also I quite liked the chaos on the roads, it really felt like you were in a buzzing African city.So I took my last moto ride to the airport that night.I was there pretty early so just sat in the bar and watched what was going on through the window.It was extremely confusing, I didn't really know what I was doing so I just got in the one big queue with everyone else since it was time I was meant to be checking in, but then I realised that these people were all on an Air France flight to Paris, so I got out of the line and just stood to the side not really knowing what was going on, eventually I saw a lady with an Air Ivoire ticket so I stood behind her and then behind us a line formed, I just happened to be at the front which was nice. We got let through to the check in desks where I was told the flight was delayed from 11pm to midnight, so I went through and waited in the departure lounge with all the other passengers. Along the coast in West Africa the planes stop along the coast at major cities like buses, so the flight I was on, as it was Air Ivoire, originated in Abidjan in the Ivory Coast, then it was stopping in Cotonou to pick up and drop off passengers before continuing to Douala.When the plane arrives all the passengers jump on a bus which takes you to the plane, you then walk up the stairs to board the plane.I was in the 3rd row back on the plane, it was quite comfortable.We arrived in Douala at about 2am, I had to get my visa at the airport so a man took my passport and told me to go get my luggage then come back and see him.Even at 2am there were plenty of hustlers, one guy seemed to know what he was doing and tried to help me even though I didn't want him to but they were letting him through immigration and in the back offices so I figured he must be known to the airport people. After about an hour I got my visa, then this guy said he could take me to a hotel in the city.I wanted to stay at a catholic mission hostel which was right in the city centre, he told me he knew where it was, not surprisingly once we got into the city, he didn't.I was really annoyed when I found that out, it was after 3am and I was exhausted and he had lied to me and told me he knew where I wanted to go when really he didn't.So I told him to take me to a different hotel, that one was fully booked, so I told him to take me to another one and luckily they had rooms, so after waking the security guard they let me in, the b****** taxi driver refused to give me all my change though because he said he had driven me all over the town looking for a hotel and I should have told him to come directly to this one, I lost it at that point and yelled at him and told him that if he had told me in the first place that he didn't know where my hotel was then we wouldn't have needed to drive all over town, and I didn't actually want to stay at the hotel he had brought me to as it was too expensive so I was really angry with him, he gave me a bit more change, but not as much as I wanted, I was so angry!!So that was at about 4am, I finally got to a room and had a freezing cold shower before going to bed.I had paid the man when I arrived for my room but he couldn't give me change, I said that was fine he could give it to me in the morning, so at 6:30am they thought it would be a good idea to knock on my door to give me the change, at least the guy was friendly about it!I slept most of that day, then later on got out some local currency from the ATM and checked some emails then went back to bed.I managed to kill 3 mosquitos in my room before going to sleep, usually I can never catch them!!I also asked the hotel if I could do some laundry so the guy took me across the street to what I thought was a laundromat, they quoted me a ridiculous price for my bag of laundry but I was desperate so agreed, when I went to pick it up later I realised that they were a drycleaners, they had put each item of clothing on a coathanger in a plastic wrap, that was a little annoying, no wonder they were so expensive!! Douala was a lot less chaotic than all the other big cities ive been to, there were far less motos and less people talking to me. Although I have had the odd person yelling out 'darling? 'ello darling!' and one guy who followed me for awhile and told me in his limited English that he would like to be my girlfriend, I had to try hard not to smile at that one before telling him to go away!Also apart from the main throughfares most of the side streets are clay roads with really bad potholes!They are still getting rain every night here which is nice as it keeps the temperature down a bit, but makes huge puddles in the potholes on the roads. The next day I caught the bus from Douala to Yaounde, the capital city of Cameroon, once here got a taxi to my hotel, there was something nice I couldn't figure out about this city as I was going through it in the taxi, then I finally clicked, there is no rubbish here!!In every other place ive been to there are piles of rubbish on the side of the roads and pretty much everywhere you look but here there was none, there were actually even some rubbish bins on the side of the street!!Yaounde is a really nice city, it is quite cool as it sits at a bit of an altitude and is a real hilly city with lush tropical hills rising in every direction.Moto taxis aren't allowed here so the roads are a lot more calm and easier to cross, they have quite a good system for the shared taxis as well, you stand on the side of the road in the direction you want to travel in and if you want a shared taxi you wave out as they pass, they will then slow down and you yell to the driver where you're going, you have to say the nearest landmark to where your going, or what district, you cant really give a specific address, and if they are going your way then they stop and you get in, if they're not then they just keep driving and you keep hailing taxis until you find one that's going your way.Sometimes if you are standing at a major roundabout or something there will be a line of people all trying to hail a taxi so the driver will drive slowly past all of you until he hears someone yell a destination that is in the direction he's going in.On Wednesday night I got really sick, I got the worst food poisoning I have ever had in my life, i don't think ive ever been so ill!I couldn't move from my bed apart from to go to the bathroom.All day Thursday I couldn't move, my whole body was so weak and I felt so fragile, everything hurt, it hurt to move off the bed!I managed to emerge to get a sprite from the hotel reception and pay for that nights accommodation, but that was such a mission, by the time I got back to my room I couldn't even lift the sprite up to drink it (it was a 40oz glass bottle) and I felt exhausted!I spent the whole day and Thursday night lying in bed feeling terrible.On Friday I was feeling a bit better, still not good enough to eat anything, but I decided to try and use the internet, I only just managed to use it for an hour before I decided I needed to just get straight back to bed, then slept all Friday afternoon and Friday night. I think my bed had fleas or bed bugs because I am covered in bites all over!The room I was in was pretty dark and dingy, there were a few mosquitos in it when I arrived so I got some mosquito repellent from reception and sprayed my room, doing that brought out a family of cockroaches, they were huge and took ages to die, I managed to sweep them outside my room so by the next day I had a family of dead giant cockroaches lying upside down outside my room, nice!So on Friday night I asked if I could have a different room as I couldn't face another night with the fleas or bedbugs, but I think they came with me as last night I got bitten again.Today (saturday) I am feeling much better, still a bit lightheaded and dizzy sometimes but nowhere near as bad as I was! So I changed hotels, it's a little more expensive but hopefully I wont be eaten alive tonight!I look like I have measles or something!!Also this hotel is right across the road from this internet café, and this internet café is the nicest one I have ever seen in all of Africa!!They have flash computers with fast broadband, I have actually managed to download some photos onto my blog, im trying to do some more right now but it is still going a bit slow so I think most of my photos will have to be put up when I get back to London.From here im going to take an overnight train up north then a bus to a town called Maroua which is in the extreme north of the country where I want to do some hiking.I was originally going to take the train on Thursday or Friday night, but ive put it off until Sunday night.I actually went to the train station this morning to get my ticket but I felt really nauseous and was wondering if I should postpone again until Monday night!The ticket office was closed so I decided to wait until the afternoon to decide anyway.When you walk down the street here and you don't feel well it is really awful, there are always smells on the street, when you're not sick you notice them, but it doesn't bother you that much, but when you're sick, it really makes you want to throw up!Most of the time the smells are really bad and just not what you want to smell when you already feel sick!!Cameroon seems a lot more developed than all the other countries ive been to so far, the streets (especially in Yaounde) are cleaner, there are nice buildings and things just seem to be a bit more organised, also there are numerous bus companies for getting around, it was so nice to take the bus the other day, no one came up to me, I just walked up to the ticket counter, brought my ticket for a set price then sat and waited for the bus, that was when I ate the egg sandwich that gave me the food poisoning, yuck, I cant even think about it!!Also, in other health news, my burn has completely healed up!!Ever since I started putting that red stuff that the doctor gave me on it, it has healed really fast!Now you can only see the faintest scar of where it was, there is no severe scarring so that is good!Well I added a new album of photos called 'Bobo-Dioulasso' it has some photos of when I was there, unfortunately that is all I am going to be able to do as I think my photos are too big so it takes ages to download them!Well that's about all my news for now, will update again probably from the extreme north.
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