A Tuesday in Yaoundé

I stayed another day in Yaoundé.

I had the usual avocado salad and instant coffee at a street stand, the one I went to first, the man was actually serving salad instead of lettuce. How he washed the salad is another matter: he has a huge bucket full of water, which he poured into a smaller bucket and he washed the salad there. Well, so far on this trip I had only tiny issues with stomach, three times, I’m not afraid.

Then I went to Gabon Embassy. Of course no moto driver knew where it is so I used Google Maps to direct him. 250cfa. I put a shirt with short sleeved and the other pair of shorts, the clean ones. The embassy has no sign, only the flag marks the spot. Can you name the colours of Gabonese flag?

The gatekeeper opened the gate, looked at me and said the shorts are interdits. And nothing I said persuaded the man. I said I no longer had any long trousers, he said I should go and buy them. He said it’s not his decision but the consul’s. He said it’s “written” inside that shorts were not allowed, I asked him to show me, he refused because I was not allowed to enter. He said there was a small market – Contilon – nearby I should go there.

I was pissed. I walked to the market, which wasn’t really nearby, a woman walking on the street directed me but said it’s not a place to buy trousers.

In the market there were shirts and colourful women’s dresses – I even had a small hope for batik trousers – but there were no long trousers. I’m sure they were all in Gabon. I was even considering skipping Gabon and going directly to Congo. After all to be refused visa for being improperly dressed? By a fucking gatekeeper? The visa would cost a whopping 75000cfa, I’d give out the passport sticker for this money even if people came in naked.

Finally I saw heaps of second-hand clothes and there were trousers. They smelled of mothballs and of course none of them would fit me.

A woman at another stall said I should to go to town. To marché central.

So I did sit in a taxi and went to central market. There it was busy and confusing, I saw some men selling sport clothes, including a Cameroon football t-shirt that seemed my size and I even considered buying one but then I was there for the trousers. The sport trousers were few and they cost 8000cfa, too much.

I went into one of the dark market alleys and there they were: cotton-ish looking trousers. And the man had a pair that would barely fit me. But it was only for the fucking embassy so I didn’t care. I wore them on top of my shorts of course. 3000cfa, no negotiating possible. “It’s already a good price” the man said.

Back to the embassy by taxi and moto. The gatekeeper looked at me, approved and allowed me in.

Inside a woman did the visa. Express, which is the same day service, lasted maybe 30mins, done onsite. The cost 75000cfa, visa valid for a month since the day of issue, strict. She wanted hotel booking – the cheapest hotel on booking.com in Libreville seems to be €50/night, copy of passport, copy of my Cameroon visa and copy of vaccination card. She did the copies, 100cfa per piece. As if visa money isn’t enough. She did fill the form for me and she did ask what I wanted to see in Gabon. And I had no idea. I knew of only one place, Lambaréné, with a hospital established by a Nobel prize winner, Albert Schweitzer (he got the prize for his work in the hospital), so I stuttered the name and the woman seem surprised. She took my photo and fingerprints and printed the visa.

Outside the embassy I took off the trousers and went back to the hotel. I decided to stay in Yaoundé one more night. Douala too is expensive for accommodation, maybe I shouldn’t arrive there in the evening. Also, the 200km+ of the road take over 5 hours, that’s the road between 2 Cameroon capitals. Oh well. I read somewhere only 15% of the Cameroon roads are surfaced. I’ve seen it.

The receptionist in my hotel advised Buca Voyages to go to Douala and I took shared taxi, 500cfa, across town to Mwam, where all agencies were located.

Buca has two type of busses: simple and VIP. Simple costs 3000cfa, departs when full and has no AC. VIP departs on the hour, has AC and has even its own waiting room. I saw passengers boarding the bus, each getting a sandwich and a bottle of water or soft drink. VIP bus costs 6000cfa. And as I watched the VIP passengers getting on a bus I day-dreamed about the AC, the sandwich, the water, not having to wait for the bus to be loaded with people to extreme… It was time to splurge. I reserved the seat for 6am – without having to pay immediately – and went back to town.

First stop in town: post office. A man was selling postcards for 500cfa and he did not want to bring the price down. He said he was buying them for 400cfa. The stamps were cheap at 250cfa.

Next stop: supermarket. There is a French chain of supermarkets in Cameroon, Casino, and there was a branch opposite the post office. Inside the coffee shelf was actually full of local coffee bags but almost all of them moulu – ground. There was 1kg of coffee beans for 6000cfa, a bit much. I managed to find the last bag of 500g of arabica for 2000cfa. Most of the coffee in Cameroon seems to be mélange of robusta and arabica.

I went towards the Blackitude museum, the one closed during the weekend. On my way there were moneychangers and I did change some money, euro fetching 670cfa, 15cfa above official rate.

The museum costs 3000cfa and it’s difficult to justify its price. It’s one large dimly lit room full of ethnographic artefacts. The woman who was my guide was bored and barely spoke, she rather followed me around the room perhaps so I don’t take the photos, which are of course interdits. The nicest pieces of the museum were quite stunning Nok ceramics objects, complete without any signs of damage.

From the museum I went to maison du café, where I was on Sunday. This time it was full of people and the coffee wasn’t as good as when I was there before.

On the street I saw a huge building – Centre Artisanal. I went in – it felt like a government-commissioned hall for tourist stalls. Few stalls were open and it felt a bit sterile, there was surprisingly little coffee on sale but there were all kinds of cocoa and honey products. Nothing really interesting in terms of wood carvings.

On Google Maps I saw yet another museum – museum of peoples of the forest. I walked that direction.

On my way I saw a cantine and they had ndole so I had ndole, tasty as usual, with rice, 1500cfa.

Took me a while to locate the museum, I went into a back street while the entry was from the main street. The entry price? 10 t h o u s a n d CFA. 16€. Still cheaper than Louvre, which is 17€. Even the woman at the ticket counter smiled embarrassingly.

I walked back to my hotel, over the hilly streets, stopping for a half litre of fresh fruit juice (mix of all fruits that the man had), 500cfa, it was good. I popped in to some supermarkets on the way, the coffee only ground.

I came back to the hotel in time before the rain. After the rain I went out for Guinness, I chewed some bitter kola with it. The fish roasting women were gone perhaps on the account of the rain.

You can guess if I made it to my reserved 6am bus.