Cameroon Photo Blog #18 - From Ngaoundéré to Boumnyebel: Traveling by bus

Hi guys,

I was really positively surprised, when I saw how many people voted my Cameroon Railway Photo Blog.
Actually I wanted to post first my second stay in Cameroon chronologically.
But now you urge me to tell you about my Bus Trip at the end of my first journey in 2013.

In Nagoundéré I made friendship with Robert, an electrician from Boumnyebel in the South, who invited me to stay some days at the end of my stay with him at his home. Boumnyebel lies in the middle of the great forests in the Southern Cameroon.
It's in the middle of the jungle. So I thought why not, would be great fun!

But I chose to alternatively travel by bus instead of the train, I already knew.

All who wanted to take a bus down south gathered at 6:00 am on one of the many bus companies' station, and waited for the bus to be checked and made ready. All the passengers, baggages and hen-cages.

Robert were of course with me and Alim, with whom there was not one night, where we didn't spent the evening together, chilling, chatting, listen to Manu Chao, Fat Fredy's Drop or some other cool music, eating together and of course smoking together. We both smoked a good quantity of Tobacco at that time, but also a lot of original Cameroonian Ganja.
No sensimilia, there where a lot of seeds in it.

So for the bus trip we decided to brew some Marijuana Milk put it in plastic bottles and take them with us.

That was a great idea, even if I couldn't drink much of it, but because the journey turned out to be a very long one.
Here's a picture of our raw material and the brewing technique we used.

We were lucky to have enough provisions with us because it took us not more then 10 minutes, we where just outside of Ngaoundéré and the bus broke up.
The gearing blocked. And we had to wait an hour for another bus to come, where we and of course all our luggage had to switch over.

This is a picture of me and then Robert waiting for continuing on.

The next one is a shot of Robert and me after about three hours travel in a hot, non-airconditioned bus.
You see that Robert and I have already tasted from the brew we took with us. Funnily Robert got more stoned the trip took. He just didn't noticed that he was totally high. Actually we didn't offer him to drink. He simply drank!

After about 300 miles travel we arrived totally exhausted in Bertoua, where we had to change into a bigger Bus heading to Yaoundé, the capital. We arrived just when the sun set, at 6:30 pm and had to wait till nearly 9 pm when the next 70 people bus was packed and ready to leave.

But won't believe it. It also broke down.
Only 10 miles before arriving in Yaoundé it where the brakes that didn't work proper anymore.
Same procedure again!
We had to wait an hour for another bus to come and so fourth and so fourth...

In Yaoundé we had to change busses again, on to Boumnyebel, where we arrived at 9:00 am in the morning after 27 hours travel.
We had a really awkward breakfast with beer and a soup of I don't want to know what animal got into it, and finally arrived our destination 4 miles out of the city and found our quarters in the house of Robert.

Jus to give you an impression of how a break down with a bigger bus can look like, I show you another one at day light, when Alim and I where on our way back from Limbé to Yaoundé at the end of my second trip in Cameroon. For whatever reason the bus broke down again.

The one outside of Yaoundé in 2013 was almost the same, only it was in the middle of the night, pitch black and a little cold outside.

Thanks for reading!
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