This entry was written on Thursday, May 6th. I tried to access the internet that night but was unsuccessful which is why it’s not getting posted until Friday.
Dayyibu and I left Wouram around 5:50am, Tuesday, to go into town where the bus park is. He had already taken Sulemanu there. We waited around for a bit for the bus to load up. We departed at 7am and arrived in Tibati around noon. It was a pretty bumpy ride. Sulemanu told me the road from Banyo to Tibati is one of the worst in Cameroon.
I had a window seat in the second row which I thought would be quite alright except that there was a piece of square tubular steel welded in place for support a couple inches from my head. Anytime we’d hit a large enough bump my head would go bouncing right into it. When I was awake I was able to keep from hitting it for the most part. However, it was very early in the morning for me, I was dozing off quite a bit, and I hit it quite frequently. By the time we reach Tibati my left temple was hurting pretty badly and I had a bump on my scalp for quite a few hours.
From Tibati we had to take another bus to Malarba, our first stop along the trip. We ate some soya (steak) at the bus park, bought some lollipops for the kids in Malarba, and waited for the bus to leave. I even dozed off for a little bit. We were told the bus would leave in about 30 minutes to an hour. It left after two hours.
We arrived in Malarba around three in the afternoon and the people there were very happy to see us. We passed out lollipops to the children, took a look at the community center they are building, and ate some dinner. We had foufou (corn flour and water) and fish. Afterwards there was singing and dancing in the community bukaru. Sulemanu distributed some money which was raised for the refugees in Malarba so they could buy food, clothing, and finish the community center which still had some construction that needed to be done.
We left the compound where we stayed in Malarba around 6:30 and got into “the junction” of Malarba to get a bus to Ngoundere. We waited around for a little over an hour before Sulemanu gave up and tried to find a car taxi to take us to Ngoundere. It was a little more expensive that way, a bit more cramped (seven adults in a five seater Toyota Carina, about the size of a Camry) but a lot quicker. We were on the road by 8:30am and got to Ngoudere at noon. What would have been a four and a half hour ride by bus, plus waiting for the bus to show up, took only three and a half hours.
Once we arrived, we quickly made the decision whether to try to make it to Maroua in one day or to leave that portion of the trip until Thursday. Since it would’ve added 8 hours to our day, we decided to just spend the day in Ngoudere. We found a room at a Lutheran Church Resting House. The room is nice with a single bed and a set of bunk beds. There is a communal bathroom with a shower down the hall. It has no lighting, no shower curtain, no hot water, no soap, nothing to dry your hands with, no toilet paper, no toilet seat, and a sink faucet that doesn’t turn on until you have the handle opened counter-clockwise all of the way and then the water SHOOTS OUT like an EXPLOSION and then you have to turn the handle back, clockwise to slow down the water flow but other than that the bathroom is fine. Whew! Run-on sentence…
In the evening, after we settled in and took showers, we went to the bus station for Maroua to reserve our seats for the first bus out on Thursday morning. We also went to an Internet café and walked around a bit. I did a tiny bit of grocery shopping and even got to see a train station. The train in Cameroon goes from Douala, through Yaounde, through Bertoua and ends in Ngoudere, stopping at small towns along the way. There are freight trains carrying oil and passenger trains too. The passenger cars looked to be from the 80s but maintained well enough. There is a first class and coach section labeled 1 and 2, respectively. In first class you can even get beds. Sulemanu said he does not like taking the train because it often runs at night and there are crazy people that ride it.
We ate some dinner, went back to our room and slept for the evening. We woke up around 4:30 Thursday morning to get to the bus park in time for the first bus out to Maroua. We were told it would leave right at 5:30am. At 6:10am we left the bus park and made the 8 hour trip to Maroua hardly stopping throughout the journey. It seems many of the other bus rides I’ve had in Cameroon seem to stop at every little town to drop passengers off or just buy stuff.
We got to Maroua around 2pm. The area before Maroua is very flat and very dry. I haven’t taken any pictures of Banyo since I got back from the Baka land, but Banyo is now very green now that it’s rained a bit. The far north however, is still looking very dry. I’ve been told the rainy season starts earlier in the south and happens later and later the farther north you get. It rained a tiny bit on the way up but not very much. We passed a few rivers that were almost completely dried up with children playing in the center of the sand at the bottom. Banyo and much of Cameroon seems to have a lot of dirt/mud/dust on the ground whereas the far north has a lot of sand.
When we arrived in Maroua, we took a motorcycle taxi to the Baptist Mission Resthouse. Here, I met Christelle Pusch, who was referenced to me by a few missionaries in the north. She’s in charge here at the resthouse and was able to arrange for someone named Jean-Luc to come talk to Sulemanu and me about heading to either Waza (animal game park) or Rhoumsiki (natural, beautiful scenery). Waza was still a possibility if it could be done for very cheap but the Jean-Luc said that without other people going, to take just Sulemanu and I to Waza would be well over 50,000 francs ($100) which I don’t have the money for.
Jean-Luc said that now is not the best time of the year to go to Waza anyway since the wet season hasn’t really started in the far north and there isn’t enough vegetation for the animals to want to migrate to Waza just yet. He said it’d be possible to drive all the way there using up all of the expenses and not even see any animals. I’ve heard a mix of opinions with some saying you might see some and some saying you might not see any. It’s not worth the risk and besides, it’s too much money anyway. So tomorrow Jean-Luc will pick Sulemanu and I up and we will head to Rhoumsiki.
It’s pretty hot in the far north with the temperature hovering around 100 degrees F. We were told it’s cooler today since it just rained a little bit yesterday so I imagine tomorrow will be around 105. Whew! Maroua is a very nice city. It’s pretty clean compared to Banyo, Yaounde and Douala. There are wide streets with wide sidewalks for people to actually walk on. That’s something I haven’t really seen much in Cameroon. It’s a fairly big town, maybe around the size of Bamenda. Population? I have no idea. It really depends on who you ask. Haha I don’t believe there are many government censuses in Cameroon.
One thing I’ve noticed is that almost every motorcycle taxi seems to have a two-stroke engine and either be a Suzuki or Qinqdi brand. They’re 90 cc and pretty small. They almost look like a French-made 2-stroke moped but they do have an electric start so I guess they’re considered motorcycles. Anyway, since they’re two-strokes, smoke fills the air of the streets as they whiz by. In comparison, for the most part in Banyo, the motorcycles are four-stroke and don’t smoke as much.
I’ll update sometime again in the next few days with the rest of our journey to the far north. Bye for now!
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