The Night Continues

One of the first lessons we learned in Cameroon was never to make assumptions about what we were going to be doing or expect to stick to any sort of plan. At any given moment the "plan" would deviate, mutating into a something totally different. We started chanting the mantra "go with the flow, just go with the flow" first as a survival technique and later for the joy of knowing something crazy was just around the corner.

The lesson began that first night. Remember, it was late, Guy and Anja had just arrived (after 2 days of travel) with a welcoming party, partying in our hotel room. Again, our assumption was that now we would say our goodbyes and get to bed, ready to start our trip in the morning. But oh no. It is not the Cameroonian way. Instead we hear the words "Let's go!" Go? Go where? In the next instant, there are about 9 people crammed into an elevator that fits four and an instant later piling into two cabs barreling through the warm black night.

Now, let me interject with a few thoughts on traffic. In Cameroon (like a few other countries I could name) it follows no laws except perhaps some high speed Darwinian evolutionary theory. Anything goes as long as you're the one that survives. My cab driver curses the vehicle beside us as we pull a u-turn into oncoming traffic and narrowly miss a crash a couple centimetres away. Meanwhile the other cab stalls in the middle of heavy traffic. The group decides to switch cabs, and Scott opens his door to get out just as a motorcycle drives into the aforementioned door. The driver of the bike doesn't seem to think anything much has happened, and drives off with a chuckle and slightly bent handlebars. Scott decides that it is best to just close the door. The driver waits for a small break in traffic and lets the cab free roll backwards (into oncoming traffic) until he can pop it into gear and continue on.

The cabs drop us off on the side of a dark lane, not because we have reached our destination, but because they simply cannot go any farther. We are in one of Duala's rougher neighbourhoods where streets gradually disintegrate into narrow ruts of rock, mud and garbage between crumbling concrete walls. Getting out of the cab I see a few food stalls with lanterns, some roasting corn, the carcass of a car stripped, rusted, abandoned, groups of teenagers leering incredulously at us white foreigners. Where are we? All I know is that where ever it is, it is a place that fits all the criteria for where I am not supposed to be in any city in the world in the middle of the night. "What would my mother say?" I think to myself, and at that exact moment Anja leans over and whispers "I'm so glad my mother does not know where I am right now."