Thank the Lord the truck started without problems and I had a smooth ride to Franceville for the first leg of the journey to Cameroon. Albert had bought my train ticket in advance but I was nearly caught out by the fact that they'd moved the departure time forward by a couple of hours. However, I climbed abord in good time and found I was sharing a compartment for eight with a family of seven and another man. Fortunately most of the eight spent a large part of the time elsewhere so it was a relatively comfortable ride - shame I wasn't wanting to sleep this time, though the bright light would have made it difficult. As it turned out we were all getting out at Boué and continuing by road so I was assured of at least having others to follow in the search for a bush-taxi for the next leg. Amazingly we arrived in Boué almost on time (around 0.45 Saturday) and climbed down into the cool night, well "jumped down" may be a more accurate description since our section of the train stopped well short of the platform so we simply had to jump the four foot to the ground below (this was after having found a way past the obnoxious drunken student trying his best to block the passageway in the train). Thankfully, one local custom I have adopted is to freely ask any handy stranger to hold or pass down bags etc. so I handed my computer bag down in advance of jumping which meant I only had a lightweight rucksack on my back when I landed.
Next we had to negotiate to rubbish strewn side of the track up towards the platform them sidewind out behind the railings to the parking area. Two white bush-taxis (mini-buses) were parked at the far end so we headed over to them and verified that they were headed to Mitzig. The driver told me to simply jump inside and bag my spot, which I did. Unfortunately he forgot to tell the man giving out tickets that he'd already assigned me a place so the ticket seller almost double-booked my seat. Thankfully we spotted the problem before it really became one. I chose a spot on the third row in preference to the back because there was slightly more leg space. Not sure it was a wise move though because the seat sagged badly so the bar that was at the base of the backrest hit the middle of my lower back. Ah well, there's rarely an ideal spot in a bush-taxi. The said bush-taxi didn't have a roof-rack so the driver started scrunching all the smaller bags under seats and into any available cranny. I hope no-one had anything remotely fragile in them because he really did 'stuff' them. This process also had the effect of reducing the already limited foot space even further. I could still just about find space for my feet, but there was little room for fidgeting. The remaining larger bags and boxes were foisted onto the roof, despite the lack of a rack and tied down under a heavy plastic and about half an hour later we were off – 20 people in a 15 seater minibus. We didn't get far though. Less than half an hour later and the driver had shredded the front passenger-side tyre. By the length of time it took to change the wheel you would have thought it were a rare event! However, the job was eventually done and we set off again, hoping there wouldn't be any more punctures because there wasn't a second spare nor anywhere to get the first changed. It was an uninteresting ride along a bumpy dirt road, as best I could tell in the dark it included long sections between high banks of earth which almost gave the impression of driving up a dry river bank. At lot of the construction in this area is wood, which is always so novel for us Plateaux dwellers, some is still mud brick or wattle and daub which is also unknown to us, but some is also standard cement breeze-block. The bush-taxi was old, which meant the usual combination of pros and cons, the pros including the fact that the driver couldn't drive at a dangerously fast speed even if he'd wanted to, the cons including the fact that you sometimes found yourself wondering if it was actually going to make it up the steeper hills (and the aforementioned sagging seat). About three hours into the ride a cry went up from people on the backseat warning that the back door had come open and bags were likely to be lost. The driver stopped and spent quite a few minutes finding a way to keep the back shut using the elastic (cut up inner tube) ties that were holding the luggage on the roof (but surely this wasn't a new problem?!). We continued but an hour later the same cry went up – good job the people on the back weren't sleeping, but then not many were given the bumpiness of the road, though the conversation level had died away. More efforts ensued to find a secure way of keeping the back closed and we set off again. The dust seemed to be getting worse but it may just have been a cumulative effect. About five hours in and we hit the tarmac road coming from Libreville – and a military check, though in the end we didn't have to get out. Dawn was beginning to breakthrough, though it was so dull and overcast you could hardly tell. Another half hour (6.30 am) brought us safely to Mitzig, which was as far as this bush-taxi was going so we all descended, tired, stiff and coated with a heavy layer of red dust.
Even as the bush-taxi was driving into Mitzig I heard someone calling out for passengers for the Marché Mondial so as soon as I got out I asked someone standing by if there really was a vehicle going directly (as opposed to having to make a further two changes). He called over the driver of a white car who confirmed he really was going and had a place for me. Great! A direct connection and no long wait in Mitzig. Well, as I hinted with the wheel-changing incident, the driver of the bush-taxi from Boué was not a rapid mover and his assistant even slower. They languidly set about pulling all the luggage from its hiding spots in the mini-bus and off the roof but by the time my rucksack finally came down and I hurried over to the waiting white car I discovered the driver had already given my place away and was ready for off. I watched, slightly frustrated as the car drove away leaving me standing on the pavement. Oh well, now I at least had time to cadge some water from the shop owner in front of whose place we had stopped (Muslim handwashing customs can have their uses!) to wash my hands and eat my egg sandwich for breakfast. Several people assured me that there would be other cars going directly to Marché Mondial but others said it wasn't sure and I should accept the one going to Oyem instead. It was hard to tell who was right and who only talking in their won interest, or if anyone really knew anyway. On reflection I opted for the Oyem car on the basis it would be leaving soon (only two more passengers needed) whereas even if another car did go direct it was likely not leave for several hours yet. It was 7.30 by the time we set off – six passengers in a standard family car! None of the four of us on the back seat were overly large but the man next to me quickly fell asleep and his full weight rested over my right shoulder, but thankfully it was only a 1 ½ hour drive, including a number of police checks. It's a good tarmac road and we had an easy ride. Arriving in Oyem around 9 am another car was immediately declared as heading to Marché Mondial so I hopped almost directly from one to the other, though I did beg a few minutes to stretch my crooked back and was careful to get the spot by the passenger side door so as to bend my body in the opposite direction for this stage (having previously sat on the driver's side). The three men I shared the backseat with were all much taller, heavier builds than the previous stage but because they didn't sleep and made an effort not to lean on me more than could be avoided it was a relatively comfortable stage. Police checks were even more frequent and they started wanting to see my passport as well as my residency card, but no-one gave hassle. The only hitch came when the car's engine died. Thankfully it turned out only to be a loose battery connection and we were soon back on our way. We passed through Bitam and headed for the border. Even more road checks! Finally we reached the border check when we had to get out of the car. The Gabonese side posed no questions or problems. A couple of hundred yards later we got out again for the Cameroonian side. It was no great surprise when the gendarme there tried to tell me my visa was not valid – he wanted to claim that the three months had expired, though he had a hard time since it was clearly dated the 11th May and we were only on the 1st August! He made me sit down and wait while he dealt with a couple of others. That gave him thinking time and he must have decided I wasn't going to fall for his false arguments so he just picked my passport up again and filled out the necessary details in his book. I thought I was on my way but another man then took the passport from him and started filling out the details again in another school notebook. He asked more questions and for more explanations though not in a particularly threatening or unfriendly way; he rather seemed amused and trying not to to laugh about something but I couldn't work out what. Anyway, having satisfied his curiosity he gave me back my passport and my fellow passengers and I piled back into the car and headed for the market not too many miles away. It looked like a busy, bustling place and I suspect you can buy all manner of things there. Maybe on another occasion I'll take time to look around but not knowing how things work or how long it would take to get to Yaoundé I decided to keep moving.
God was really smoothing the way on this journey and when I asked a friendly market women selling roasted plantains where I could get a bus to Yaoundé she warned me the ones going direct probably wouldn't leave for hours (I think it was around 11.30 by now) so it was better to go to Ambam first but furthermore the woman standing talking with her was just leaving herself and would serve as guide. This she did wonderfully. We soon found a bush-taxi going to Ambam, it didn't take long to fill up and we headed off. There were a few more road checks on the way but nothing difficult and we were soon in Ambam. We walked up to the bush-taxi/coach station. Things are so much more organised here in Cameroon! My guide, Lucie by name, told me it would be quicker in the long run if we just bought tickets to Ebolowa and changed again there. This seemed rather odd since the bush-taxi/coach was going all the way to Yaoundé but she explained it would have a lay-over of one to two hours in Ebolowa and we could find a different bus in that time. So that's what we did – booked our places and again the wait wasn't too long and we were on our way. Tarmac road all the way! More road checks – I'd long since stopped counting. Unfortunately the girl next to me only had a Gabonese student card. That was not deemed sufficient at one (unofficial) check-point. They hauled her off and we waited nearly an hour as they argued back and forth. Eventually the coach driver was obliged to carry on without her and she was left at the mercy of these gendarmes/soldiers. I can only hope nothing too horrible happened to her but she was a vulnerable young woman. There's nothing very remarkable about the scenery on any of this journey – rainforest, rainforest and more rainforest. The only points of interest are in the changing buildings. Villages generally seemed bigger this side of the border and there was quite a number of them built with baked brick, or partially so, which both looks nicer (in my opinion) and must be stronger.
We arrived in Ebolowa without incident and walked outside the coach station onto the main road. After a while a coach from a different company came along, Lucie hailed it and there just happened to be two spare places! We climbed aboard and the final leg began. Nothing remarkable, not even a road check, though discussion among some passengers (primarily Lucie and a man in front of her) became very animated – something about the merits/demerits, rights, etc. of concubinage/polygamy, but I wasn't really following. We arrived at Tropicana around 5pm but because my bag was tied on the roof the driver wouldn't stop to let me off so I was forced to go to the terminus. Thankfully that's been moved to Mvan so, though the traffic jam up the hill was an annoyance at this late stage, it didn't last too long and it didn't take long to come back down the hill in a cent-cent. I arrived at SIL centre around 5.30 pm tired and very dusty. Now the challenge was to work out where I was supposed to stay and how to get in there!
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