After a long journey with quite a bit of turbulence, we have finally arrived in Yaoundé, Cameroon. Alexandra had it bad twice: Was that the fish in the plane meal? Or is it the nervousness? A trip through the deep jungle of Cameroon is not without and is not part of our society's standard vacation.
After a restful night in a small apartment in the middle of the big city of Yaoundé, we check our backpacks one last time — Fabian has around half of them filled with mosquito repellent. We store everything in the so-called “Landi”. The Landi is an ancient Land Rover, which we found after days of research and a lot of email traffic between the local landlords and ourselves. He would probably no longer be able to get through a TÜV inspection. For us, however, he is a loyal companion and without him we would not be able to carry out our trip as planned. It belongs to the older generation and has neither air conditioning nor a radio. Musical entertainment is provided by a CD by Céline Dion with her most famous classics. Since this is the only CD, it runs in an infinite loop. After a few ignition attempts, the engine starts, followed by a huge, pitch-black cloud of soot, which obscures our entire view in the rearview mirror. Landi is another central character of our adventurous expedition and will accompany us until we reach the jungle.
After a jerky start, Landi starts rolling and we get into the morning traffic. Dozens of motorbikes wind their way past us. We see market stalls as far as the eye can see. The smog envelops the city with a fine fog. From Landi, we are fascinated by the hustle and bustle of the city. There is something new to discover around every corner, foreign smells get in our noses and the sultry air makes us all sweat. The roads are getting wider and in the rearview mirror we see how Yaoundé is getting smaller and smaller. We leave civilization and follow the path towards the jungle.
After driving for a few hours, past tin huts, shops of all colors and thousands of road users, hunger plagues us. On the side of the road, we see three women selling fresh fruit and vegetables. The women immediately caught our eye. Her traditional clothes with bright colors immediately put us in a great mood. All three radiate a lot of charisma, pride and strength. With their loud and powerful voices, they call us in and use a knife to cut a few pieces out of an avocado. “Hmm... just not comparable with avocados in Switzerland.” Most likely we're paying too much, but joking with them and the fantastic aura of the three women are worth it! The facial expressions of one of the three women suddenly change. When I paid, she tells us that she would need the money to buy basic food and medicines for her family. We suddenly realize once again that many people are unable to meet their basic needs as naturally as we do. We have to move on, but our thoughts are still with the three “avocado ladies” for a while.
We have left civilization behind us and are diving ever deeper into the jungles of Cameroon. The roads are no longer paved, but consist of a mix of deep red clay and gravel. The air is humid and the sky is covered by a thick layer of fog. We no longer have cell phone reception and are completely on our own. Only a rough map of Cameroon shows us the way. Large birds are circling above us and unknown sounds are heard from all sides. We are excited to see what else awaits us. At the same time, we all slowly but surely have a queasy feeling, as we are actually getting closer and closer to the jungle, which we have already heard so many robbery stories about.
