Yaounde

I arrived in Yaounde Airport, Cameroon, on the evening of Saturday 8th March 2008, having flown from Dublin with an over-night in Paris. It turned out to be a great introduction to Cameroon since it was International Women’s Day which is celebrated in style in Cameroon. There were people everywhere, most of the women in colourful Cameroonian dress, and they were clearly in very high spirits. There had been parades and many festivities during the day and the open-air bars and restaurants were jammed. The journey from the airport to our hotel in Cameroon was my first introduction to the erratic style of driving which is endemic in Cameroon and as the bus weaved its way at break-neck speed through the traffic, with the horn blowing almost continuously, the many revellers who were wandering around the road had to fend for themselves.

The next morning my first impressions of Yaounde were of a lively city set in hilly countryside much greener than I expected. Most shops are little more than shacks and there are stalls everywhere selling various local foodstuffs, some cooked and ready to eat, and various other odds and ends. A lot of the stalls and shacks sell credits for mobile phones, provide facilities for making phone calls and occasionally provide services such as photocopying and internet access. The traffic is truly chaotic and dangerous and even when you are on the footpath you are in danger of being run down - it seems to be your own responsibility to watch out and dodge any cars or motorbikes that are using it. The one saving factor is that there are deep open drains at both sides of most streets which restrict where the cars can go, but these and other holes, all with no warning signs or barriers, present their own hazards.

Nearly all the shopping is done in the daily market, where they sell everything. I had lost the earphones for my ipod so I bought a new set there. After bargaining the price down from €4 to €1.50 I brought them back to my hotel only to find that they did not work. We went to the zoo which was really interesting since it covered wildlife that we could see in Cameroon. Even in Yaounde itself there were big birds of prey soaring overhead but I don’t know enough to decide whether they were kites, buzzards or eagles, or all of these. Also down the road from our hotel there were some trees full of bats the size of jackdaws which took off with great clamour at dusk.

Although there are signs of poverty everywhere, the people dress very well and are very friendly. Many of the dwelling areas look to us like shanty towns but I am not sure that they are that bad in reality. There was less begging than I expected but we were continuously warned about pick-pockets. The food is very good although it is usual to find that quite a number of things on the menu are not in stock. They have lots of fish, and chicken and beef are the main meats. They cook vegetables, such as plantains and yams, in several different and appetising ways. The beer is fine but I quickly gave up on the “wine” (in fact I have drunk less alcohol in the past ten days than at any time in the past forty years, but my consumption of water is massive).

The heat in Yaounde was not as bad as I expected. There was fairly high humidity, there were a few violent storms and mosquitos were a problem at night.