Ekok To Kumba: Yes, It Is As Bad As You Think With Names Like That

As I wind up my trip, I wonder if I'll have any experiences to match the grueling journey from Koundara to Labé in Guinea-Conakry. This day, I got my answer. If you want hardship, West Africa rarely fails to disappoint.

I got up just before the first light and packed everything up so it would be easy to grab and go. Then I headed from the Boston Complex Resort Inn to the transportation area. No cars to Kumba this morning--just to Mamfe which is closer. I was the first guy and since there was time, we just drove down to the Boston and I got my stuff and we loaded it into the trunk. Then we returned and waited.

And waited. The way it seems to work is that once they get 2 people, they leave because they know that there are people along the way who need rides and they want some empty spots for them as well. But there seemed to be little prospect of a second person. At 7am, the driver said that if I pay for 2 seats, we'll go now. I said I'd wait until 8am. If no one showed up by then I'd bite the bullet and buy 2 CFA 7000 (US$14) tickets so we could start. I wanted to get to Douala this day and we can't wait until 10 or 11 or noon. I was a bit worried about the car. There was a tire with a sort of aneurysm or bubble and the steel threads were showing already. I watched as the Africans all ate their meaty breakfast and I got some cookies in a tube. I haven't eaten properly in a long time and as soon as I get to an ATM that works, I plan to have a good proper meal.

Well, 8am came. So I kept my word. I paid CFA 14000 (US$28) to go to Mamfe. We left at 8. As soon as we left Ekok, there was a checkpoint--one of many many. The man looked at my passport. Again, he could not believe that I was the person in the picture. I explained that the picture in 8 years old and I weighed 107 kg back then. He was a bit pudgy himself and asked what I did to lose all that weight. I changed my diet. Sorry, no magic bullet. He finally convinced himself that it was me and we went on our way.

Wow! The roads in Cameroon are by far the most rutted roads I've been on in West Africa. Some of the ruts are like 10 feet deep. It feels like being in the first car of a rollercoaster going over that first drop in some places. It's pretty hilly too. Just amazing. However, as bad as the road is, it was not at all unpleasant. The road has never been paved so all the ruts are smooth. It's a sort of undulating rutted road. No sharp angles. Just smoothness. At some places the road was so bad that they had side roads through the forest. At one point a guy with a toll stopped us and demanded CFA 500 (US$1). The driver apparently pays him CFA 500 every day. I have no idea what the guy's authority is to collect a toll.

We had to drop off a foam mattress and then we picked up some people. But the road never let up. It was just fantastically undulating for the four solid hours it took to traverse the 61 km (36 miles)--an average speed of 9 mph.

But we made it to Mamfe at noon. As soon as we got there, there was a minibus ready to go to Douala via Kumba. Perfect! It is CFA 8000 (US$16) to Douala. They said it would take about 6 or 7 hours putting me there in early evening--possibly even with some daylight. That's 4 or 5 to Kumba and 2 to Duoala from Kumba. And I was the last one in the minibus--the whose arrival meant we could leave. And at 12:20, we started out. Our first stop was to put some air into the driver side rear tire. A man with an air compressor tried to fill it, but the compressor conked out on him so he had to jack up the mini-bus to fill the tire.

The road was much better than the previous road, but still pretty bad. It is unpaved so there are no hard concrete or blacktop edges, but lots of rocks and grooves created by rain. So it's not a fast trip. About forty minutes into the ride, we stopped. The minibus would not go forward. We were broken down.

Some of us got off and went and sat on the porch of this family that gave us oranges and chairs. I sat with a geography teacher who kept flagging down school kids and asking them if they had work books and the names of their geography teachers to find out if he could sell his geography workbooks here.

Some people were unhappy about the breakdown. One old guy said it is the exact same bus that brought him to Mamfe and it broke down then as well. They called for a mechanic who showed up an hour later around 2pm. He replaced a disc in the clutch and an hour later, at 3pm, we all piled back in.

At the bottom of one hill we all had to pile out again and walk up the hill because it's too steep for a loaded bus. I was first to top even with my heavy laptop. One old woman took really long and even went to the bathroom after and the driver yelled at her for delaying us.

Between 4 and 5 pm we had two 20 minute breakdowns. The first was some problem with the engine. It required that they take out the passenger's side seat to get at the engine. They also filled the radiator with water from a local stream. The second one was to tie or bins something near where the driver's side axle meets the tire. These three breakdowns added 2:40 to our trip. So instead of reaching Kumba at approximately 4:20 or 5:20, I expected to get there between 7:00 and 8:00.

The nice thing about the breakdowns is that my butt doesn't get so sore. I was on a hard fold down bench. There were 4 across but it wasn't super tight. Still I had my laptop case in my lap and that also restricted my movement. We let one guy off. Then at 7pm, we stopped at a village--I suppose for a food and bathroom break. Not Kumba. We picked up a passenger. It was now dark. I don't like being on the road after dark. The geography teacher said we weren't even close to Kumba. Oh man. This isn't good. But, twenty minutes later we got back in.
Eight pm rolled around and we found ourselves no just in dark, but in fog. But it only lasted about 10 minutes and soon we were in clear air again.

Nine pm? Still on the road and boy was my butt hurting. Fortunately, we stopped to unload some bags of green oranges and I got to stand for a while.

Ten pm. Man, will this trip never end? Finally at about 10:30, we pulled into Kumba. A ten hour trip for approximately 200 km or 120 miles of road. The geography teacher told me there was a bank with an ATM in Kumba and he tried to get a moto-taxi for 100 CFA (US$0.20) to the Kanton Hotel. The moto-taxi guy said CFA 200. I'm not about to quibble over a damn quarter at 10:30 at night so I took it. Once we were on the road he pretended like he didn't know where it was exactly and then just realized where it was and asked for CFA 100 more. He said it's a little bit far. I rolled my eyes and said OK. Whitey can take another 20 cent hit to his fraud budget. We got there about 90 seconds after we left the station. "This is a far?" "A little bit far." "Really?!?! Your concept of a little bit far is very different from mine" I told him as I handed over the 60 cents in CFA coins.

I approached the hotel and a man ran out to tell me it was full already. But I could stay across the street at the Tavern Hotel. No problem. I walked across the street. (I should have asked the taxi-moto if he would take me to the Tavern Hotel and how much it would cost--200 francs?) They had AC and fan rooms. I just needed a fan. CFA 7000 (US$14). She filled out the form and asked me how many nights. I said it depends. If there is an SGBC bank in Kumba with an ATM I would stay two nights. I asked if there was one. She said yes. I asked if it had an ATM. She said yes. So I told her two nights. I stashed my stuff and came down and got a beer to take up to my room (it IS the Tavern Hotel, after all). Then I typed for a couple of hours until I died from exhaustion.

Thursday, November 27, 16:45 Cameroon local time