Cameroon 2015

!!!A very good travel preparation and the contact to experienced travel companions is recommended in any case, especially for inexperienced travelers!!!

On Thursday, the 12th of November, we arrived at the airport of Douala, Cameroon's largest city, at around 5.30 pm. On our arrival it was already dark, but we were warmly welcomed. Together with our welcome committee we set off through the dense and chaotic after-work traffic of the large harbor city, in order to spend the evening with family and friends together for dinner.

From the warm and dusty metropolis we went the next day to the mountains north of Douala, where we wanted to attend the weekend of the final ceremony of the Macabo festival of the Bamiléké. After a long and bumpy ride we met our french travel companions in the Chefferie Banjoun and then drove off together to Bangoua, where we were expected. After a busy day and a somehow uncoordinated search we found our hotel in Bangangté late in the night and fell all exhausted to bed.

After the Macabo festival was already in full action for a week, we found our way to the village square in Bangoua on the 14th of November. As European visitors to the festival, we were received as guests and were welcomed with curiosity. The colorful Macabo Festival takes place every two years with different thematic focus in the memory of the liberation of the ruler and resistance fighter Notchoutouo after 18 years of captivity. The festival unites tradition and modernity, culture and politics of one of the largest ethnic groups of Cameroon. Bamiléké from all over the world came to the festival to attend the spectacle. Photo gallery Macabo-Festival

The next day we went back to Douala in the afternoon, where we arrived very late, because the road conditions are sometimes rather adventurous.

From Douala, on Monday, driving along the sea, we headed northwards to Limbé, a coastal town at the foot of the Cameroon mountain in the anglophone south-west of Cameroon. The ground, marked by the powerful volcano, is black as the night. In addition to the cultivation of tea and the oil industry, fishing in Limbé also plays an important role. On the beach there are countless small restaurants and bars selling grilled fish and serving directly on the beach, while the fishing boats enter their home port and bring the fresh catch home.

Visitors are tempted by the black sandy beaches by the Atlantic Ocean, which has much warmer temperatures than we thought, and the Botanical Gardens and the Limbe Wildlife Center also offer interesting excursion destinations.

The next day the journey from Douala took the opposite direction to Kribi in the south of Cameroon. This small town, which stretches for miles along the sea, was built at the end of the 1900th century as a settlement of German merchants and is still an important trading port, especially for the export of wood and cocoa. Particularly popular with visitors is Kribi due to the long white sand beaches which line the coast and invite to bathe. After we had eaten in the town center near the beach in a small restaurant, we went on.

We took the last days we to visit acquaintances and friends until we had to say goodbye on the evening of the 23rd of November and got to the plane back to Germany. It was an exciting and colorful journey through a country full of opposites and unlikely diversity, which will, despite some unusual obstacles, remain positive in our memory.