The border crossing – classic across a river – is swift and easy. The procedure on the Gabonese side is a bit unusual though. At the border, we receive a form to fill in, but only when reaching the next big town, Bitam, we give it to the police/immigration in exchange for a stamp in our passports.

A policeman at a roadblock just outside Biyeyem claims that the pattern on our tires isn’t deep enough. I quickly make up that I’m a professional cyclist and knows from experience that our tires are perfect for the local conditions. Besides, we actually have deeper pattern on our bicycle tires than many cars have around here.

Ambam, just 30 kilometers north of the border to Gabon, becomes our last halt in Cameroon. Tomorrow, we will cross over to what is said to be a calm but expensive country. We stock up as much groceries and food as we can carry, so to save the few bucks extra they’d cost in Gabon.

Summary Cameroon
Cameroon. A beautiful lush green, many animals (tortoises and monkeys amongst those sold along the road), although I guess just a foretaste of the extraordinary rainforest that must lie further inland. The beaches north of Kribi were a good surprise – beautiful, white sand and clear water, yet no tourists. Cameroon, like many countries in Africa, turned out to be a forgotten paradise.

My deepest memory is from Albatros, about midway between the coast and the Gabonese border. Charismatic Jean-Yves and his exotic hideaway in the midst of the forest gave us an interesting insight in the nature and the local culture, and how they coexist. To anyone planning to visit Cameroon, I recommend a few days’ visit at Domaine del Albatros. Despite limited resources and the distance to larger towns, Jean-Yves has been able to build a place out of the ordinary.

In a village, we meet a man with a nice, 1980’s racing bicycle. He tells us about the problems he face at the police roadblocks. “They stop me and demand a receipt for the bicycle. But because I don’t have any, I have to ‘pay’ – otherwise they commandeer the bicycle, and it will cost me even more to get it back again.”

Further east, we stay the night at Auberge Domaine del Albatros. It is situated along the road, along out in the forest. On a large, green meadow, between the road and a hillside, lies scattered four or five whitewashed huts with thatched roofs. The owner, Jean-Yves Akame, lets us stay in one of them huts for just five dollar. Inside is a large bed, a table with comfy chairs, a shower, toilet and a sink.

The electricity has been gone the whole day, thus the shower doesn’t work. So in the evening, Jean-Yves instead brings us a bucket of water and an oil lamp. In the hut closest to the road, he has built a bar. We meet there in the evening to discuss his project. He wishes that more tourists find their way to his auberge – he wants to show them around; tell them about the local culture and environment. His wife has made us tea; we sit for hours chatting.

The next morning, he takes us with on a short walk up through the forest and some cultivated fields. His knowledge about various plants and insects is astonishing – there seems to be a use for more or less every type of grass and plant that we see. The sap from one can heal wounds, the leaves of another can be folded into a cup to drink water with, and yet another is used to mark out property, or in a group of four to indicate a grave.

Unfortunately, most of my pictures from our two days at Albatros were destroyed on our way to Cape Town, but I still promised Jean-Yves to convey a warm welcome to the who finds his or her way to his auberge. I’m sure that a longer visit there can become a highlight of a journey through the country.

We stay at an auberge in Akom II for 2,500 CFA a night.

From time to time, the sun slides forth behind openings in grey-blue clouds – heavy with rain – and lightens up the lush, green bush and the brick-red earth.

After 25 kilometers, we pass through the country’s only resort town, Kribi, and turn inland on a dirt road. We overnight with two young women – Doris and Estella – in Afan-Oveng. We bath in a small river nearby, and fetch drinking and cooking water from another small stream.

Reaching Londji Plage (Longji Plage), we camp on the beach in return for a small fee to its owners. The seaside village is not far from Kribi – a famous resort town in southern Cameroon. The beach is quite beautiful.

Cameroon is also famous for its rainforest in the east of the country. But the only forest we’ve seen has come loaded on trucks. Several ones pass us by each day, heading westward to the port of Douala. The rainforest of Central Africa is one of the worlds largest and most diverse, second only to the Amazonia.

Although still very fatigued by the malaria, we decide to continue our cycling south. We stay overnight with a nice family along the way, on which compound we are allowed to pitch our tents.

We collect our passports and Congo visas at two o’clock, but before then both I and Lina test ourselves positive for malaria. Besides, I also had iron deficiency and some fungus and bacteria in my feces, so we get loads of drugs with us to Edéa.

Leaving our bikes and luggage behind, we take the bus the two hours’ ride to the capital Yaoundé. We go there in search for our two only remaining visas on the trip – to Gabon and to the Republic of Congo.

Gabon is easy. We hand in our passports at ten a.m. with one filled-in form, two photos and 35,000 CFA, and collect them just before two p.m.

We then run on to the embassy of the Republic of Congo (Congo-Brazzaville), where we have to hand in our application before two p.m. in order to receive our visa the following day. We just manage to get there in time, and the procedure is as simple as at the previous embassy: One filled-in form, two photos and 70,000 CFA. Again, we get a one month visa, valid from a date of our own choice.

After having searched the city center for a place to stay, unable to find one that is cheap enough, we try and ask a taxi driver for a recommendation. We are lucky – he drives us to a far-off suburb which we would never have found ourselves. There, we get a self-contained room with a fan and TV for just 6,000 CFA. It’s clean and neat, too. Tomorrow, we will collect our passports at the embassy in the afternoon before we head back to Edéa.

In the morning – when we see the town in daylight for the first time – I’m most thrilled to discover that they have chococam. It’s a peanut and chocolate butter that’s been available in many of the previous Francophone countries of West Africa as well. It is perfect to use as a spread on baguettes – good for snacks along the way. Also, the avocado season has seemingly just begun – six of them cost just a dollar. Yummy!

After finding out that neither Gabon nor the Republic of Congo has any embassy in town, we say goodbye to our host Ejyke and continue south to Edéa. It is a nice road, yet with surprisingly little traffic for being the only tarred main road between the country’s two largest cities. Also, people drive more sane here than in Nigeria – maybe thanks to the signs that occasionally line the road with texts such as “Sept mortes” (seven dead), beside which the wrecked remains of some bus or car lies left as a remembrance.

In a village some fifteen kilometers before Edéa, I halt at a house where palm oil is being made. I talk with Araba. He tells me that he works there for the money. Left behind in his home village, not far from the capital Yaoundé, is his wife and only child. It is now past eight months since he last saw them, because the money he earns aren’t enough to cover the seven euro bus ticket. His sorrow for not being able to see his family is unmistakable. There is a thin smoke coming from below the old oil barrels in which the palm nuts are heated. In a corner stands the machine that is used to extract the oil.

Reaching Edéa, we stay at decent Auberge Ration. There, we will leave our bikes locked-in while we head to the capital Yaoundé in pursuit of visas to Gabon and the Republic of Congo.

They first said that we’d reach by six in the morning, after already pushed the time forth once as we departed four hours late. But early in the morning, “The engine has a small problem [...] and we can’t go with full speed.” We reach by three in the afternoon – fifteen hours late.

Alongside me on the cargo deck lied Ejyke Emanuel. He invites us to stay at his place in Douala, “Call me when you reach the petrol station at Camp Yabassi.” After receiving our entry stamps at the immigrations office – easy and swift without problems – we start heading towards town. But when we ask three guys along the road for directions, we’re instead invite for beers. And why not? William from South Africa, Sherman from Singapore and Martin from Sweden (!) work as sailors; their ship is at dock. “They had to fix something; something was broken,” Martin explains.

We head back to the harbor where we sit down at one of several nice seaside bars. Themselves already quite drunken, they invite us for three rounds of beer and a plate of fresh, grilled fish. The ship they work at provides the oil platforms we passed by during the night with necessities such as food, fuel and spare parts. We have a good time together anyway, and thank them for a good start on our journey through Cameroon.

They arrange a taxi for us that escorts us to Camp Yabassi. We follow on our bicycles – though rather wobbly. Upon reaching, the driver phones Ejyke for us, and he shows up in just a minute or two. After leaving our stuff at his place, we head out to a pub nearby where he invites us to yet another round of drinks and fresh fish.

We sleep in Ejyke’s one-room apartment: I and Lina on the bed and Ejyke on the floor (he refused to take the bed himself). It’s terribly hot, and a lone table fan isn’t sufficient to keep the many mosquitoes at a distance. I lie away and listen to Nigerian 2Face Idibia: “If love is a crime, I’m willing to be hunted.” His latest CD Grass 2 Grace, which Ejyke bought in Nigeria, is on repeat throughout the night.