Ringroad

The good old Landy

After four days in Kribi, we headed to Limbe. Limbe is also at the sea, indeed, the view is a little bit spoiled due to some oil drilling platforms nearby. Limbe is the starting point for climbing Mount Cameroon, with more than 4000 meters the highest mountain of West Africa.
However, from Limbe, there is also access to the Ring Road further to the north. As Daniel wanted to climb the mountain, Marcel and Barbara wanted to do the Ring Road, there was a free place in the car!

Village children on the Ring Road

The Ring Road is just 400 kilometers long and is in a very mountainous area near the border to Nigeria. All together we spent five days exploring this beautiful area. The first day, we went partly back on the road towards Douala. However, before reaching this huge city, we turned north towards Bamenda. There are thick banana and palm tree plantations on both sides of the street. Later, it became hilly and, unfortunately, also more and more cloudy. All of a sudden it poured like crazy. Unfortunately, not only outside, it rained also heavily into the car, well, this happens, when travelling in a very old car…
Shortly before getting dark, we reached our aim for today, Bamenda. Unfortunately, the mission, where we wanted to spend the night, was booked up, but according to the GPS, there was another inexpensive option in the old part of town. Strange enough, this hotel, based in the old town was called "New City Hotel". However, the hotel was okay with good beds, private bathroom, each room contained two condoms and a poster on the door saying it is a HIV free hotel…!

Termites house

In the evening, we cooked a delicious dinner with fresh mushrooms bought on the street, a few onions and rice. However, cleaning these forest mushrooms was a major issue and not as easy as our mushrooms back home…. The bathroom did not look that great any more after this extensive washing of our mushrooms… But at least it tasted great.
The next day our adventure on the Ring Road started. The road was in good condition and it was very nice to drive here. After the village of  Wum (what a name) the nice road deteriorated and it became worse and worse. There were gigantic holes in the middle of the road, for sure, it was not tarred any more since a long time, and then there was a really steep gradient, which we made only with the second approach…. We also passed villages with funny names like We, Su Bum and, finally, Bum.

Computer specialists

Shortly after the gradient, we found out, that we lose quite some oil. Somehow, the oil tube got a hole. Now, we had to improvise, as it is not possible just simply to shorten the tube and to attach the remaining piece, as this requires special tools, which we did not carry with us. So we cut a piece of a water hose and created a cover round the original tube as a strengthening. The whole thing we wrapped in firm adhesive tape and hoped this would do till the next bigger village with a garage and some good mechanic…
For sure, the whole action took quite some time and we found ourselves on a bad road in the middle of nowhere and it was soon getting dark. But what for did we carry tents and sleeping bags? So, we watched out for a suitable piece of land. However, in the mountains it is not that easy to find a reasonable big enough place for a car with roof tent and another tent next to it.
Shortly before it was completely dark, we found a more or less convenient, nearly even spot with some grass bundles and whipped our night's lodging.

Ringroad

Our dinner creation was interesting, if not exactly gourmet style, as we involuntarily garnished our rice corn mixture with a few ants and various night butterflies. At least we had two bottles of beer to wash it down….
The next day, the road was not really an awful lot better. Partially, the rain had dug deep channels in the red sand of the track, in parts it was nearly one meter going down – basically in the middle of the street…. Later this day, we read a small note in the guide book saying, that the authors recommend walking this part of the Ring Road… Well, as the name indicates, this road is more or less round, the author fails to tell, how the driver would get back to his car after walking these 20 kilometers… Good fun!

Mechanics

Despite the bad roads, the area is wonderful, very mountainous, many small villages with extremely friendly people, rather unspoiled from tourism. No wonder that there are not so many tourists out here given the road conditions!
The early afternoon we reached Nkambe. A local mechanic tried more or less without any success to repair the leaky oil tube. As it took quite some time and it started to rain anyway, we based ourselves in Millennium Hotel. The room was nice, apart from the curtain rail that nearly killed me, when it fell down, while I was writing my diary. The fact that the wash basin was not connected with the drainpipe was also no problem, as there was no running water anyway.  Instead, a very nice hotel crew brought buckets full of really hot water to the rooms.

Fon Palace

In the late afternoon, we got to know three Belgians, who support a school in a village nearby. They were accompanied by Denis, a Cameroonian, who studies in Belgium and is originally from the village with the school project. In the evening, we squeezed everybody in Denis small car and went to a local bar with attached restaurant for dinner. It was an extremely funny evening, partly, as it took the kitchen nearly two hours to prepare our food. The waiting time most of us filled with quite some beer on an empty stomach…

Fon

The next morning, another mechanic came and tried his luck (skills?) to attach the oil tube. This attempt was a bit more successful than yesterdays one, as it was still leaking, but only a little bit. So, by midday, we could continue our journey.

Fon Palace

The street became a little better now, and we were able to move faster. Along the Ring Road, there are many villages, where people are still living a very traditional life. Here, they still have Fons, village chiefs, who live in palaces and are highly respected men. It is a very men orientated society, as a female tourist one must be careful not to insult the etiquette. In the village of Mbot, we found a Fon palace right at the street. There were several men, who were happy to explain the drawings on the walls and the masks at the door entrances. The Fon himself is a very friendly man who even permitted us to visit the palace and to take photos! Once again a great experience with the spontaneity of the Africans!

Barbara

This day, we went even further to Kumbo and drove to the highly recommended Merryland Hotel. Maybe too much recommendation in the guide books, as neither the employees nor the hotel was that great. Well, it was clean and there was warm water. This is a kind of important at an altitude of nearly 2000 meters, as it was pretty chilly here…. Above all it started to rain again.
The next morning, we found a nice small restaurant with great omelets for just 250 CFA. These are about 35 eurocents per omelet. After that, we headed for the road towards Yaounde. Slowly we lost height and in the late afternoon, we reached Bandjoun. It was another four hours to Yaounde, so we based ourselves in a not quite clean, but okay hotel. At night, however, here I had to fight the cockroach battle of my life. Unfortunately, I had not washed down a dead cockroach. So, consequently, at night the relatives came to the burial, basically, all available cockroaches of the entire hotel were in my bathroom… This was almost an invasion, but these animals do not like bright light, and so most of them disappeared in holes and I simply kept the light on in the bathroom. For sure after flushing the dead one down the toilet….