Anglophone adventures

Moto

So I spent the last two weeks taking my moto through the NW and SW (anglophone) and W (back to francophone) regions of Cameroon. Internet was pretty terrible througout, so I stockpiled stories and photos to dump them on you now. Rather than try to do anything chronologically or choose between photos and stories, I have instead plopped all the most interesting photos here with all of the memorable stories. 

On the road! This was taken before most of the dust happened...

Paperwork

First off, some bad news: I won't be taking my moto outside of Cameroon. I had high hopes for the Cameroonian bureaucracy, but it turns out that it will take anywhere from a day (heavily bribed) to months (average) to get my registration and an unknown amount of time to get the license plate. Both of these things I need to apply for my Carnet de Passage from the CAA (Canadian Automobile Association) so that I can legally cross borders with the bike. The Carnet takes a minimum of 6 weeks processing time, plus shipping. I don't have that much time, so I'll be headed to Gabon and Congo the old fashioned way.

Stamps and photos. That's what makes it official

Gendarmes

The gendarmes set up roadblocks all over the place. I was a little worried about them at first, since they apparently stop everyone. However, I have only been stopped twice thus far and they've looked at my (incomplete) paperwork, nodded, and waved me on. I think they're afraid to argue with a white guy, or they just don't care.

Roads

Over the two weeks and couple thousand kilometers, I saw all sorts of roads ranging from the high-quality multi-laned paved variety to... other. 

Sometimes they were smooth

Sometimes they were rough

Sometimes they were hilly

Sometimes they had lava

  

Sometimes they were idyllic country carriage roads

sometimes they were rutted (i watched a box truck half disappear in the rut to the right)

sometimes they were muddy

Sometimes they were more like single-track mountain bike trails

Sometimes there was no road

Peace Corps Volunteers

Up until now, I'd been staying with locals or Couchsurfers for most of my trip. Once in Cameroon, however, Evan and Lisa introduced me to a whole new jackpot of free housing and local knowledge: The Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV). Lisa had been one here a few years ago and put me in touch with her friend, Ryan, in Buea, through whom I met Nate, my next host, who told be about Ashley (below) and Ryan and Jamexas in Kumba, who set me up with some people in Mamfe who ended up not being around, but connected me with Cynthia and Eric in Bamenda, then Kristin in Njinikom, who introduced me to Steven and Alina in Fundong and called ahead to Christian in Kumbo who put me up for a night and we had drinks with Shannon and Ryan before heading down to meet 13 PCVs who all happened to be meeting up in Mbouda to celebrate Eric's birthday. They're the ones who gave me Annie's number, with whom we'll be staying in Ebolowa in the South before going to Gabon.

A common PCV (and Cameroonian) pasttime

PCVs are great for several reasons: 1) a refreshing taste of American culture in a very different place. This can be a good and bad thing, as it does remove one a bit from the local culture. However, this is why it's great that they are 2) very well connected with the local community, introducing their guests to interesting local people, cuisine, culture and places. 3) They all tend to be pretty cool people, as it's a self-selecting sort who decides to leave all that is familiar and comfortable and well-paying for two years to bucket bath, eschew moto riding (as per PC rules) and eat inordinate amounts of cassava on the other side of the world.

if I were a baby still, I would want to get weighed every day just to sit in this swing

As someone who came very close to becoming a PCV myself (I deferred my application in lieu of Outward Bound and independent travel the day my acceptance to PC Armenia was sent. I still have the welcome packet), it was great to get a glimpse of what life is like for a PCV on the ground.

Educating the mothers

Another side effect of staying with a tight network of PCVs all over a country is that you become intimately familiar with all of the Peace Corps drama and gossip. After a week, I had gathered enough gossip from my previous hosts that I was actually the bearer of new information for my next hosts, as I knew more than even they did. I still hope that I never actually meet Josh, knowing about how he's getting med-sepped from PC because he got robbed in Bamenda, but it's not so surprising that he's leaving because he wasn't so comfortable here to begin with and he's kind of just using it as an excuse to leave without having to ET which is worse and it sucks that he got robbed but he was kind of dumb for walking around commerce ave at 2am when there are always tons of taxis around and he was kind of asking for it to begin with but he's still a cool guy and will probably be missed when he's back in the states. Especially since he has no idea who I am.

The PCV gossip mill: "the only thing that actually works in Cameroon"

"Ashia"

The first word I learned in Pidjin, a language spoken in the anglophone regions of Cameroon that's loosely based on English. It doesn't quite have a direct translation in English, but it's used daily here whenever you see someone in an unenviable position. Carrying a heavy load down the road? Ashia. Working in the hot fields? Ashia. Crashed your moto? Ashia. Hung over? Ashia. Have to go to work? Ashia. No job? Ashia. Riding your moto on a local street? Ashia. The response is almost always a smile and "thank you!".

"White Man!"

First off, there aren't many white people here. Those who are here are generally government or aid workers and mostly concentrated in major cities. A few make it to the villages, but usually in a taxi, company car, or riding on the back of someone's moto. When I come riding through, the look I get is generally ambivalence (lots of motos around), confusion (why is he wearing those weird clothes?), recognition (Whoa! Is he white??), and reaction (Waving, pointing, smiling and screaming "White Man! White Man! White Man!"). The same is true for white women, or people of any ethnicity who are culturally western or "white". Even some local Cameroonians who have lived in the states or Europe for a few years can lose their "blackness" and get nicknamed "the white" by their friends.

Fright

Once, I realized I missed a turn, so I pulled over to look at my map. The road was mostly deserted, but a young boy was walking his bicycle up to me, so I took off my helmet, turned to him and said, "Good morning! How are you? Is this the road to Buea?" The boy froze, his eyes went wide, he fumbled with his bike to try to turn it around, gave up, tossed the bike to the ground, turned tail and sprinted 50m away to stop and watch me cautiously. Dumbfounded, I just sat there watching and thinking, "This actually happens?" He didn't return to his bike until after I had ridden away.

Dust

After a few days of unseasonal rain, the true dry season set back in. The result is a lot of dust. I'm told it's better than mud.

Not the best fashion choice in a society that would rather "buy clothes than buy food"

Uphill

On the way way from Kumbo back to Njinikom, the road turned back into the crazy single-track that I'd seen before. This time, however, I had to go up and over a 2500m (8200ft) pass. At one point, the road was so steep that even gunning it in 1st gear wasn't working and I stalled out. It was too steep to push the bike up on my own, so I put it in gear and ran alongside it while gunning the engine of the passengerless bike. After about 10m, I realized that I was running uphill pushing a motorcycle at 8000ft and collapsed, panting. About an hour later, I finally crested the summit and prepared for an equally steep downhill on the other side.

unfortunately there is no inclinometer on my bike, but you'll have to trust me that it's steep

Tumble

I took my first (and hopefully only) two tumbles on the bike around the ring road. Both times I was barely going walking pace, if that, so I was fine and the bike was fine. The first was on a super steep, rocky, single-track of a road from Fundong to Bua Bua. I had stopped to let another bike pass (the locals are crazy on these bikes... I'm impressed) and getting started on the downhill again was tricky, leading my to tip my bike over. No biggie. The second time was taking a turn up a hill on a crazy dusty road just before Kumbo. Turns out dust is slippery. A bruised foot, loose mirror and plenty of "ashias" later, I was back on the road without a problem. 

Repairs

Despite my bike being new, I've had to do a few repairs. I intentionally bought a cheap Chinese bike because I knew it's what all the locals rode, so if I ever had any problems anyone with a wrench could probably help me fix it. In most ways, I was right. My starter cables got caught in my chain once, locking up my chain and back wheel (I was going slow, thankfully) and rendering my bike effectively dead. Within moments, someone passed by, took a look at the damage, and started loosening bolts, tearing out wires, twisting them back together, taping things and tightening bolts again. I was back on the road in an hour. 

Clearly the best location for a repair shop

Other times I'm not so lucky. My front brake was rubbing, so I took it to the street where all the mechanics hang out. Apparently anyone with a box of tools can set up shop and pretend. I think they just mess with people's bikes until eventually they learn what they're doing. The guy who I came to dismantled my brake, then jammed his screwdriver between the pads to jack 'em open (rather than try to adjust the spacing and alignment, which is what I was thinking the plan was). So not only did he mangle the pads, but he also took off a little rubber gasket in the process and took 30 min to put it back together. When he was finally finished and the brake was still rubbing, he said, "oh, it's squeaking?" and applied oil to the disk. Thanks, dude. Nothing is better for a brake than greasing it up, I'm sure. It took a full day of riding the front brake to squeegee all of the oil off so that it could actually provide some stopping power. Win some and lose some, I suppose!

you can see a bit of my starter cable on the bottom there...

Nature

Most of the places I was in were hilly jungles, which leads to lots of waterfalls and pretty vistas:

they smelled nice

NW Cameroon

Met these guys while riding around Mt. Cameroon. They took me to see their swimming hole

This waterfall was surrounded by a church and images of the virgin mary

almost hidden waterfall in a not-so-hidden valley

Bridges

In Africa, you see some crazy bridges. Some are super-modern overpasses that connect to dusty dirt roads on either side:

not nearly enough use to justify it, but it was nice to ride on

Some are leftover from pre-WWI German colonialism:

People still use this one

And some are straight out of Indiana jones:

Locals opt for the ferry here

Villages

I passed through tons of villages on this trip. Some big, some small, some anglophone, some francophone, some with electricity, some not, some with paved streets, others with walking paths. Here are some of the images:

Back in the land of Christ (with some juju mixed in)

Mt. Cameroon (4000+ meters) beyond Buea

A small village school

Said small village (I unfortunately forgot the name)

Snakes

I saw this snake jump from a tree to attack the frog:

gotcha!

Then I think we scared it off and it let go:

Freedom!

End of story.

Bugs

Africa has lots of them. I've seen some crazy spiders and crickets and cockroaches, not to mention all of the flying things that like to eat us.

That's a big pile of termite house

Whatchu lookin' at?

Chimps

In Kumba (SW region), I stayed with a PCV named Ashley for a couple days. She, another Canadian aid worker, and I went up to a local crater lake to go swimming. There are these crater lakes all over Cameroon, and some spit out toxic gas from time to time and kill everyone and everything in the area. We just hoped that this wouldn't happen and headed on up. On the walk in, Ashley was explaining that there were rumors that you could see monkeys along the trail, but that nobody she knew had seen them and the locals all said they had moved away from where people are. As such, we didn't see any monkeys on the walk in despite our eagle-eyed attention to the jungle around us.

Then, while swimming, we heard an insane ruckus from the treetops across the lake. Pretty soon we saw two chimps chasing each other around the trees (it sounded like it must have been at least a dozen, I guess they're just really loud...). Even the locals were psyched, as seen here:

Fascination

Food

Unfortunately, I didn't take many photos of food this time around. Imagine lots of root vegetables (cassava, manioch mostly), or rice or plantains with some sort of sauce or beans or meat.

Acchu.

Next

Off to Gabon and Congo! Hopefully I'll be able to upload some photos along the way.

from Traveler to Tourist

Many people have asked me why I chose the destinations for this trip. My answer has generally been something along the lines of, "I want to go to places off the beaten track, where (mostly American) people don't visit very often." This was quite true of much of Central Asia, and even so for China and Mongolia, although to a lesser extent. Morocco, however, is a different story.

First off, Morocco has been a tourist destination for at least a hundred years, I figure, with the French colonization and proximity to Europe. In Central Asia, people are still getting the hang of this "tourist exploitation" thing, but in Morocco they have it down pat. At every turn, in even the small towns, people are constantly trying to sell you knick-knacks, tours, or useless services (like pointing you in the direction of the tourist plaza you just ran away from).

It took some philosophical adjustment to get used to this new environment, but I figure that's part of the point of the whole "two regions" requirement of the fellowship, anyway: to throw you off balance a bit. In the end, I was able to treat it as a game, and a little holiday vacation from cold nights on the steppe and being labeled a spy at every turn...

But first, business

One of the main reasons I made this mid-way stop in Morocco was to get a visa for Cameroon. Turns out that's not as easy as it sounds. After a week of visiting and calling various embassies, I was left empty handed and with new plans to stop in Senegal next week to give that a try. I'll save that story for another time. On the plus side, I was staying with my Moroccan CouchSurfing host, Rachid, at the time, and between frustrating embassy encounters I was distracted by:

Hanging out with Rachid and his friend, Aga

Delicious tagines (and a lesson on how to cook them)

Dressing up in a djellaba for Friday mosque

Couscous (a tradition on Friday after mosque)

Getting lost in the Medinas

Exploring old Kasbahs

Visiting a Hammam/bathhouse (can you guess which side is men and which is women?)

Sharing some meals with Rachid's family (Dad, me, Brother Said and Mom)

And, of course, drinking lots and lots of sweet minty Moroccan tea (they call it "Berber whiskey")

Step Two: Explore Morocco

After the frustrating failure of my diplomacy, I was quickly distracted by a wonderful early Christmas present, the arrival of my girlfriend, Anna, for the holidays. I'll let her take it from here:

I (Anna) arrived at the airport with no less than 60 lbs of gear - 20 or so of it was actually mine. It wasn't a total burden though, I got to walk through the Paris airport carrying a motorcycle helmet and a techy-looking duffel bag. People either looked very confused or very impressed - either way it made me feel cool. The pilot on my flight from Paris to Casa even informed me, politely, that all I would need for the flight was a seatbelt - the helmet wasn't necessary, before exploding in laughter. The only thing that kept me from exiting customs in Casablanca wearing the helmet (to help Shawn find me, of course) was the larger urge to finish my 24 hours of traveling and give that man a hug (helmets get in the way of that).

Us and all of our Shawn's motorcycle crap. Fortuantely, we were able to leave half of this behind in Casablanca

I was insanely jealous that Shawn was already multiple days of eating delicious food ahead of me, so we immediately went out and "splurged" on a $15 dinner.

Shawn even dressed up! (Thanks Mom, from Shawn!)

Then, we actually splurged by renting a car (thanks Kevin and Arlene!) so we could escape the time-sucking nature of bus travel or hitching, but still have the freedom of stopping where we wanted. The picture below is of us right before we crossed the Tizi n' Test pass that crosses the High Atlas Mountains. It is a "yellow road" on our map, which apparently means that ALMOST two cars can fit on the road and there are lots of holes. Everywhere. Needless to say, travel is slow. And stressful, Shawn might say, when you have a passenger screaming every time you round a corner and have to slam on the brakes for the truck coming up the hill.

The Renault SYMBOL that carried us

We stopped in Taliouine,a little countryside town known for growing saffron (so I bought some) where I discovered that I do not, in fact, hate olives (so I bought some a lot, on several occasions). We began our week long road trip by going to the market, where there were oranges, onions, beans, cauliflower, etc. etc. (so we bought some). Shawn practiced his French (C'est combien? Q'uest-ce que c'est?") and made us dinner, while I fulfilled my role of lady on holiday by reading on my Kindle (imagine having the time to read!) and occasionally checking to see if the laundry Shawn had done was dry (it wasn't, ah well, better sit down...).

A traveler's washing machine...

After many failed attempts at this picture (in one, Shawn is still running toward the wall), we gave up and just stood really close to the camera...

We stayed a few nights, so we could spend the day trekking around the town. The town is surrounded by these amazing rock formations (and no trees, really). We hiked up and out of the town, through some smaller villages and back to the road, where we attempted to hitch back until our generous ride stopped and said, "Two minutes", then walked off. We walked back.

Taliouine is in the background.

A view of the hills surrounding Taliouine.

We continued on, staying in various cheap hotels that felt like dungeons and had gross bathrooms. We ended up pushing pretty hard to reach a town called Merzouga, which is on the edge of the Sahara, where we stayed at the best place in Morocco, Hotel Kasbah Panorama. It's situated on a hill, which gives a beautiful view of the dunes. We were there during the lull before the holidays (New Year's), so we were treated really well by the family who owned it. Hands down, the best food we've had here, no one tried to get us to buy useless crap, and it was peaceful. One of the owners, Ismael, showed us around a bit and talked with us about Berber culture a lot - education, history, etc.

This is Jovanna. She is cute. Her partner, Jovannie, followed us into the desert (brave cat!).

Ismael, whose family owns the hotel, took us to the souk (market) in Rissani and showed us where you can buy spices. There were so many types and they smelled so good, so I bought some a kilo of spices...oops.

Then we went into the desert on camels - ours were named Bob Marley (left) and Jimi Hendrix (right)!  This is the first time we learned that if you don't lead a camel, it goes where it wants...

This is me, fighting to keep my seat atop Bob Marley's back. (Look at how red that sand is!)

Saharan dunes, plus Youssef, our guide, who spent some of the walk talking on his cell phone.

Hiking the dunes for a sunset view.

Small Anna on a big Saharan dune at sunset.

Shawn playing on the dunes at sunrise. So early. So cold.

The nomadic Berber camp we slept in, while fennec foxes walked silently around our tents all night, taunting me (my biggest hope was to see one of these critters - no foxes, but lots of burrows and tracks).

The well - only 1 meter deep and - BOOM - cold, clear, fresh water.

 The night we stayed in the desert, our guides kept encouraging us to go for walks, see the stars, etc. We wondered where they had tied the camels...

The next morning, one of the guides approached Shawn and said, "Last night, the camels, they go....I do not know where", in a most dejected way. So there we were, on a camel trek into the Sahara, with no camels! I overheard the Portuguese couple asking him, in Spanish, "Escaparon? (they escaped?)" The guide replied..."Ehh......." In truth, I suppose it's hard for an animal to escape if you don't first tie them to something.

Never fear though, we're in Morocco - he maintained his dejected attitude, and offered to sell us some (fake? real?) fossils while we waited for the 4 x 4 to come rescue us. As they say, ain't no man sadder than a nomad without his camel - but $15 for a rock is still expensive.

Turns out that our camels had gone wandering in search of "greener pastures" - they had been found down by the river, where there are more plants. And so, we learned that Bob Marley and Jimi Hendrix had, quite naturally, left the early-to-bed tourists in search of some grass...

He said, "8 x 8 in, now 4 x 4 out! Haha!"

We have eaten a lot of delicious little street-cart donuts, street meat-wiches, olives (Anna), and had liters and liters of mint tea, I'm sure. Now, we're kicking back and enjoying the last few days together with a newfound confidence to deal with the touts as they harrass us. We only buy things from people that barely talk to us, only enter shops where the person seems apathetic about whether we buy anything, and only stay at hotels if they don't barrage us with advertisements and attempts to draw us in. Take that, Morocco.

Some parting shots:

Hands down, the best tagine we had (at Kasbah Panorama, in Merzouga) - a mixture of chopped beef and vegetables, with eggs cracked on top. It is apparently a traditional Berber dish.

The quintessential Sahara/camel/sunset shot.

Thanks for taking a break from your travels to be a tourist on vacay with me :)