Calabar, Nigeria To Ekok, Cameroon

Morning came and I hadn't packed. Fortunately, I never really unpacked, so recovery wasn't too hard. Besides, they turned on the generator at 6am. So I was out the door at about 6:20. At 6:30 I reached the motor park and headed to the taxis bound for Ikom. The previous taxi had just left. Dammit! I just missed it. Oh well. It was just a 6 seater and it was still early so it would probably fill up pretty fast and it did. A bunch of drivers were gathered around a man in a tie preaching. It was just Jesus this, Jesus that over and over and over. A little after 7am, we were on the road. This is supposed to be a 3 hours trip. I was in the back seat with three women. It was the first time with three women. It was hard because they all had big butts, so there wasn't much room in the seats. I had to sort of scooch forward. It was uncomfortable, but what else is new?

We stopped for gas when we were all fueled up, the driver began to pray. This was the first time in my entire time in Africa that a driver stopped the car to pray. I looked down while he prayed. He kept going on and on. Every time he ended with "In Jesus' name" and the other passengers said Amen, I thought it was over, but then he's start another prayer. He did this over and over and the whole thing took close to five minutes. I don't know if all drivers in Nigeria pray like this or if he is a preacher in training. Finally, we were on the road. But the preaching didn't stop. Oh no, he kept going while he was driving as if he was rehearsing for a part time preacher spot.

The road is not wide and the people on the road pass when they shouldn't. They are almost suicidal. They may pray to the heavens, but they drive suicidally. Jesus doesn't save passengers from bad judgement of the driver and I would rather have a cautious driver than a pious one. I had more close calls from vehicles passing vehicles on this trip than any other trip in West Africa. It was downright scary.

But we made it to Ikom whole. We parked in the motor park and on the way in, I saw the signs on the cars saying they went to the border. So I knew just where to go.

I guy saw me and I told him I was going to Cameroon. He probably guessed that since not many white people show in Ikom with another destination in mind, unless they are going the other way, of course. He tried to take one of my bags but even when I tried to explain to him that I would rather carry 2 heavy bags for balance than one heavy bag requiring my back to work, he didn't listen. He said he would take me to the border for N500 (US$4). OK. But he led me to a private car near the taxis to the border, but there were other taxis to the border. I figured I would be better off with a taxi that already had people lined up than one with nobody lined up, so I asked them. But they said it would be N1000. Nope, I'll stick with the N500 guy. I put my bags into his car. They asked if I needed CFA and I said I did. They took me to a money changer and he was too busy with the previous client so I left. Then they took me to another money changer. We bargained a bit but he didn't offer a good rate. He said his rate would be better if I had larger bills, but €20 bills didn't bring a good rate. I was ripped off (what else is new?) but I accepted CFA 62000 for €100 in 5 €20 bills. Not a good deal--10% off the spot rate of 68800--but I would at least control my destiny for a while. Besides, I expect to lose 3% and this is only 7% more. Oh well. C'est la vie.

The man who agreed to take me into Cameroon said he would wait for 20 minutes and take me alone if nobody came, but when push came to shove, he just shunted me off to another car. I got into this old decrepit car and we headed to Cameroon. It's a few km to Cameroon. But we had to stop for fuel as is often the case.

We soon reached the first Nigerian checkpoint. I got out and gave my passport to the officers. They inspected the passport thoroughly. They asked for my yellow card. The officer said my vaccinations all expired in February and asked why I didn't renew my vaccinations. I explained that I received the shots in February and showed him that the expiration date was in another location. He bought that, but I'm sure he was just looking for a reason to give me a hard time and knew what was what. The only point of asking for your yellow book on your way out is to find an excuse to extract a bribe. He asked more questions about my visas and my trip and I provided all the answers he needed. He asked about Barack Obama and I told him that I voted for him through the mail. It was taking a long time and the other passengers in the car finally came over and watched. Finally, since all my paperwork was completely in order, he had no choice but to enter all my information into a ledger (which took a long time) and send me, and the other occupants, on out way. The main passenger in the car told me I was causing his schedule to slip, but I said it was Nigerian immigration--no other African country takes so long to process people at the border. No, he said, it was me. I figured he was angling for more money at the end of the trip.

Then a few minutes later, we stopped at another fuel station and backed up to a pump. The man in the passenger seat said he needed to pick up some petrol. OK, no problem. Can't take that long. But it did. The gas station attendant kept fishing empty 10 gallon jerricans out of the trunk and filling them and putting them back. There was like a neverending stream of these jerricans. Hmmm... Am I involved in some sort of gasoline smuggling operation? After about a half hour, we left. It still only about 11am.

We reached the second Nigerian checkpoint and again, I had to get out and show my passport. The first time it was 4 men armed with machine guns, but now it was a just a guy. He inspected my passport pages more with a longing than anything else. He stopped for 30 seconds looking at my Japanese entry sticker from a few years ago and rubbed his fingers across it lost in some dream world where he gets to do what I do. He looked at all my stamps and in the end, smiled and gave me my passport and wished me a good trip. I smiled and thanked him and went back to the car.

We drove some more and eventually got to within view of the gated bridge of the river that forms the border. I was almost out of this country. But we stopped short at some sort of post. The passenger guy got into an argument with what I guess was some plainclothed customs officer or something. They argued for about 10 minutes, then the passenger paid the officer N5 (US$4).

We went on a little further--like 20 meters--and came to the third of four Nigerian official stops. This is the one where I would receive my exit stamp. They asked me a bunch of questions about where I was and where I entered while I filled out a paper form with many of these same questions. One question made no sense to me. I was to provide "Evidence as Tourist". What the hell does that mean? Is it even English? I asked and the man said I should write the phone number of my travel agent and gave me the yellow book I got when I got my vaccinations. He pointed at the phone number of the Vancouver Coastal Travel Clinic and told me to enter that phone number. It was crazy, but I figured the best thing to do was to just comply. Finally after several minutes, the man gave my passport to a woman to enter all my information into a ledger. Then they gave me my passport back and I went across the street to the other side.
There, a man asked more of the same questions that I had been answering all along and entered my passport information into a ledger for the third time today. Then when he was done with that ledger, he got out another ledger and entered the information into that second ledger. Holy cow, the Nigerians make border crossings...interesting. That done, all that was left was to cross the bridge over the river. On the way to the car, the gas smuggler informed me that when we reached Ekok, I would buy him a beer. I could use one myself.

Immediately on the other side was Cameroonian immigration. The Cameroonians were a friendlier and chattier group. We talked about my trip, how Cameroon and Canada are the only countries with English and French both being official languages, and, of course, Barack Obama. One of the men then got a ledger. But instead of having columns for the information, he just writes it out longhand as a prose paragraph. He listed all the places I said I planned to visit and basically wrote out, in prose, a description of my passport information. It took quite a while. The gas smuggler was there watching the whole thing.

Finally, one last step--customs. They had already put all my stuff by the customs office. They interrupted a game of cards and asked me what was in each bag and I explained and they had me open each one and show the first few items. They were pretty satisfied and, frankly, anxious to return to their card game. And I was done.

Ekok is a pretty small place. Everything is pretty close. The ticket office for the cars to Mamfe and Kumba is right across the street. I went over. They wanted CFA 15000 (US$30) to take me to Kumba. Whoa! That seems high. How many people lined up for the car? One guy told me just 2 more and then another one corrected him and said I was the first. The first? This can take all day. It was noon and they said the trip to Kumba was about 6 hours. I don't like it at all. So I called an audible. I asked if there was a hotel. Yep. I left and headed down to the Boston Complex Resort Inn whose name sounds much more impressive than the CFA 3000 (US$6) rooms would suggest. There is a bare mattress with a pillow, no running water and the generator would only run from about 8:30 to 11--Ekok doesn't seem to have electricity. I took the room. I gave the guy CFA 5000 and we walked really slowly to another place where he could break the CFA 5000 note into change. What I could have walked in 60 seconds took about 3 minutes. Once at the place with the change, that guy had to go off and get change. Gee, these small towns are bad with liquidity.

Then off to find the gas smuggler. I entered the local bar whose name seems to be Risk Assurance--or is that the name of the previous business? We went to the back where there is a fan, but they had no juice. The gas smuggler offered a liter of gas to run the generator to turn the fan. The man brought me a beer and the smuggler a fruit juice. The beer was room temperature and I tried to stop him but he already opened the bottle. The smuggler and another guy yelled at the bartender and told him it was his error, but I agreed to drink it. It was warm, but still had some refreshing power. I got the whole lowdown on the smuggling operation which was kind of neat.

Then I headed off to my room to rest. The smuggler said he'd meet me at my hotel and have another beer.

I rested in my room until about 6pm. The smuggler didn't come so I figured I'd go out and arrange my transportation. I had, in the interim, asked random people about the cost to get to Kumba and the CFA 15000 is what it costs. So I headed over and asked what time I should arrive in the morning. They said about 7am--I should just come and leave my bags in the Boston Hotel and we'd get them on the way out. Now I was feeling a little easier. I headed back to the hotel to await the generator.

It got dark and no generator. I went out and asked. They said it would started at about 8 or 8:30. Man, that's a lot of time in the dark. I headed down the street and got a mylar bag with 25cl of red table wine. Then headed back to my room and read Veronika Décide de Mourir by my rechargeable lantern. Finally, after an hour, the generator came on and I tried to plug in my laptop. But no luck--the outlet wasn't powered. They said the outlets aren't connected. So I had to move my laptop to the lobby/bar where I typed up my blogs for 3 solid hours in front of an enraptured audience of three who were reading as I was typing.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008 23:50 Cameroon local time