Playing chicken

By the time everyone else awoke, we realized we had another three hours on the train. That ended up putting us in Ngaounderé at 10:30am. At this point we’d been travelling over twenty-four hours, and were only half way to our destination.

As we headed toward Ngaounderé, I peered out of the window to watch the roadside salespeople at each stop. In townships along travel routes, as soon ad a bush taxi or train pulls in there are a swarm of people (young and old) running to the windows selling anything from mandarin, baton de manioc, pineapple, papaya, carrots, honey or whatever’s manufactured in the area.

This actually isn’t a bad practice, since there’s always a need for something that someone else is selling. Maybe this is why Cameroonians are impulse buyers. And most of the peddlers appear to need the sale. While we were standing in the hall watching the sites, we met a guy I thought might be a PCV; he was. His name is Paul and he’s from Kansas.

Paul’s stationed in the North province, but he’s actually about to C.O.S. His two year stint is up and he’s about to do a six week travelling tour prior to heading home. Talking to him provided us with additional information pertaining to this week’s travel. Good thing, too, it’s better to know as much before heading to your destination; it gives people less of an opportunity to burn you.

Finally arriving in Ngaounderé we opted to reserve return tickets for Thursday now. One of Paul’s suggestions was to do it now so we could avoid participating in the informal economy. Afterwards we headed out to find one of the agencies heading to Maroua, Woïla Voyages or Touristique Voyages. After about ten minutes of walking we realized we were going the wrong way. A question to a young boy also on the road confirmed our thoughts; so we turned around.

Now on track, we figured to get some food now since the North is said not to be vegetarian-friendly. We gotta get some eggs, but we were having the worst luck finding some. When we finally did, the chargeur for Touristique called us from across the street to let us know our tickets were ready and it was time to board.

That’s twice we tried to get those eggs and something distracted us. Maybe it wasn’t meant for us to get them from that little guy. We ended up getting a few beverages from a vendor in the agency lot.

I would have to recommend Touristique to anyone travelling to the North province. They were quick and courteous, and you need that here. Furthermore, they had seating arrangements! I mean they actually had a chargeur stand in the doorway of the bus, and call off names according to the tickets in his hand. That means someone has vision somewhere.

Well now we’re off into the magnificent scenery. Everyone that’s suggested I travel to the north was right, the look here is totally different from anything I’ve seen in Cameroon thus far. With a four-hour ride to Garoua, I had plenty of scenery and scenes to see.

I don’t think I’ve passed so many donkeys, goats, recently sheared sheep, pigs and other farm animals since being here. It was almost like rolling through an extended version of ‘Ol McDonald’s farm. The land was pretty much flat, but there were nice hills and mountains along the way. The Adamoua Mountains are very pretty, and heading from Ngaounderé to Maroua you pass right through the Adamoua plateau and mountains.

The only excitement was watching the driver zig-zag from side to side, in order to avoid pot holes and on-coming traffic (as he passed vehicles or cyclists). But this was the most comfortable trip since arriving. Once he had to slam on brakes to avoid from hitting a donkey; and another time a baby goat. Though it was kind of nerve wrecking, I had to continue looking out of the window so I wouldn’t miss one minute detail.

As we rode to Maroua, it was under a beautiful starry sky. You could see everything clearly. I think I could even see one of the planets. There were still about three more hours to Maroua, so I had to keep occupied somehow in the dark. As soon as we arrived we got our bearings, and selected which hotel to stay. It would be the Mizao, since they supposedly take credit cards.

All the car taxis were trying to “gaffle” us on the price. They wanted either 1000 CFAs or 1500 CFAs. We may have just gotten off the bus, but we were’nt idiots. So we had to take a moto to hotel. This was each of our first time on a moto, so we were both freaked out. At one point the guy had to tell me to stop moving around. I couldn’t help it; each time I saw a ditch or he swirved, I compensated. The trick is not to look at the road, but the scenery.

So we decide to stay at Hotel Mizao since the guidebook listed them as accepting credit cards. Don’t believe the hype. It turns out the hotel is out of the forms needed to process the cards – and have been for some time. As a result they’re not able to accept cards at this time.

After the nice woman at the check-in counter called a few other hotels to see if they accepted cards, we decided to see if she knew of any place that would exchange traveler’s cheques. Just our luck that she was able to call a colleague of hers who claimed to be a director of a bank.

According to him there were no banks in Maoura that would exchange AMEX Traveler’s Cheques. We only half believed him. I guess its like the woman yesterday who said no one had beans, but the place next to her was able to find some. Hmm!

The woman then asked a person who appeared to be the manager on duty. His statement was just to take a room and he would find a solution later. That was awfully nice of him; guess seeing the $50 traveler’s cheque (the equivalent of 35000 CFAs on the street) said we were definitely gonna spend some money. And since rooms start at 22500 CFAs, we had enough to spare.

Little did I know that while channel surfing past stations I couldn’t understand, I would land on Canal+ showing the NBA All-Star game. “Mered!” What kind of luck is that? The color commentary was in french, but who needs to know what their saying?