I was hanging on the side of an old series 3 Land Rover pick up, grabbing onto pieces of luggage as we slugged through a water filled mud hole and dangerously tilted sideways.
We were somewhere in a rainforest, somewhere in the western part of Cameroon. Going somewhere, very slowly.
This was our second day of travel on the way to Yaounde, Cameroon and it was also the most adventurous.
After exiting Nigeria at the immigration office we climbed into a canoe and crossed a big brown river to enter Cameroon. According to the immigration officer he had never seen white people use this border.
On the opposite bank an old Landy awaited us. It was the only means of transport out of there. "It doesn't look to bad," I thought. "More than enough space for the 8 of us and our bags." Little did I know that we were not the only people who needed to get out of this jungle.
It was when we came out of the Cameroonian immigration office that reality started to sink in. The front half of the pick up was already stacked higher than the roof. Our bags somewhere in there. And they were busy piling bags of pig feed in the back half. I asked Tony, the guy who escorted us: "How many people needs to fit in this vehicle?" "Fifteen, sometimes Sixteen," he replied. I couldn't believe it.
A Lady with a baby and an old man sat in front with the driver, which left about thirteen people to fit onto the back half of the Landy. It was crazy. Stacked like sardines lacks description.
According to the GPS it was 62.7 km from the border to our destination town, Nkambe. In total it took us 6 and a half hours. Of which we were moving for about 4 hours and stood still for 2 and half hours: those where the hours we got stuck in the mud or the Landy overheated or the police stopped us and fished for bribes.
Except for the extremely bad road, the overloading and the slow speed, the experience was exhilarating. Miles and miles of jungle was spread out all around us. It was beautiful. It felt like we were completely isolated from any form civilisation. Back in the day when Livingstone roamed around the continent it probably felt something similar. It was great.
We arrived at Nkambe in the afternoon and started searching for a place to camp. A Baptist pastor was friendly enough to host us in his sitting room and the next day we were off to Bamenda: the first town back in real civilisation.
From Nkambe to Bamenda was another strenuous journey. This time we were in a 20 seater bus that transformed into a 35 seater. It was a 160km stretch- it took us about 6 and a half hours.
In Bamenda we waited for another 4 hours until finally, at 10 pm the bus departed for the last 500km's to Yaounde. This time around the road was good but since the driver enjoyed loud African music sleep escaped us.
The next morning at 6 am we pulled in the bus station in Yaounde, dirty, hungry and very tired.
Thank God we survived it.
Until next time,
Willem