Posts
So, for the long weekend, I jumped on the bus and headed to the South-West province, to the port town of Limbe. The journey, I have to say was rather long, as most travel in Cameroon is, but well worth it. We even left late, not for the normal reasons, but because there was this massive parade of people parading down the streets outside the bus station... walking to church with a giant cross! The journey: it was beautiful to see the landscape change from the green hills and deep red earth of the North-West to the rainforest and rock covered volcanic landscape of the South-West. We passed rows upon rows of banana trees, then papaya trees, then pineapples, then rows and rows and rows of palm trees... quite a sight really... all that while sitting quite squished on the sweaty and smelly bus... listening to grooving African tunes versus gospel music versus the guy behind me singing his own tune out of his head.... The bus is always full of adventures... we also listened to the bus passengers engage in some sort of intense argument I couldn’t quite understand but the words: church, God, baptism, baptism, baptism, death, crazy, and baptism were ‘religiously’ repeated throughout the argument... getting the whole bus all riled up. Then there was the “Superclean” salesman who came on for part of the ride and demonstrated his product’s quality cleaning abilities to us, three times of course... in Pidgin, English, then French... wouldn’t want to leave anyone out... there were many stops along the way, luggage piled high on the roof, and various fruits and snacks for munching. There was a spot along the way, where everything seemed to get a little quieter on that bus, even if just for a moment, as we descended quite a bit of altitude... the road was amazing... paved and even guard rails... and the view over the valley was quite spectacular, covered in lush green forest, with random metal roofs throughout the hills, reflecting the sun’s light.
Arriving in Limbe was almost like arriving on another planet! We could notice right away some of the differences between the two provinces, the cleanliness, the paved roads, sidewalks... (yes, there were actual sidewalks for people to walk on without dodging traffic!), benches along the coast to gaze out over the ocean... and best of all... the French food... I lived on baguettes, croissants, and chocolate all weekend... mmmm.... we wandered the town, visited the Wildlife Centre where many rescued chimpanzees, monkeys, and gorillas are living out their days. We admired the German colonial architecture, the oil refinery (yuck!), the Botanical gardens, visited the lava flows from the 1999 eruption of Mount Cameroon... you could see the trail of volcanic rock left behind through the mountain range, ending on the road, where a detour had to be built. It was also interesting to see the new plant life just starting to sprout again ten years later. Yup, really quite a sight... I was wandering the sandy beach, with my toes dipped in the warm waters of the Atlantic; Mount Cameroon towering behind me and out across the sea, I could see Bioko Island, basically another volcano that is part of Equatorial Guinea... amazing. In the evening, we would eat some fresh seafood, watching the fishermen pack up their gear, vacationers snap their photos on the beach, and the sun slowly set behind the clouds over the Atlantic... a nice getaway from the hustle and bustle of life in Bamenda!
