[[I'll call my fling girl "Mlle. X" since she has a job at a high profile restaurant in Douala and want to avoid making her identifiable as much as possible.]]
My watch went off at 6. I was too tired so I turned it off and went back to sleep. Then my Mlle. X's cell phone started to go off. It went off a few times and she finally answered it. Her sister was downstairs. I was a bit surprised that even knowing her sister was downstairs, that she initiated a little romp. Oh well--I guess the sister has to wait. ;-) But it was a good excuse to be quick.
The thing about this fling is that I take what I want from her and she takes what she wants from me. It's selfish me and selfish her. A mutually beneficial arrangement based on nothing you normally want to base a relationship on. It isn't even a "relationship". I won't call it anything more than a "tacit arrangement". We've been at this a few days and already she's brought up the subject of marriage. Like I want to seal our "arrangement" with marriage. Sheesh! Does she think she's that special just because she's hot?
Anyway, we showered and headed out. We took a car to the Bonaberi station. It's tough to take a car there because the traffic jam is continuous due to major road construction. The trip to Bonaberi was CFA 4000 (US$8). But the tickets on a bus to Limbe was only CFA 1300 or CFA 3900 for three. And we were the last ones. So that meant we were on the road almost immediately. It's about a 90 minute ride to Limbe. I had to show my passport through the window at a checkpoint. These Cameroonian checkpoints are more annoying than in any other West African nation.
Finally we arrived. Then, Mlle. X started turning into the simply high maintenance girl I knew her to be into the insufferable high maintenance princess from hell. I suggested the most recommended hotel in the Lonely Planet--the Park Miramar Hotel. But it's in the city and doesn't have a private beach. She wanted a private beach. The taxi driver recommended the Seme Beach hotel. It's way out of the city--a CFA 5000 (US$10) taxi ride. OK, I knew this trip would be pricy, and I had decided to just sort of bite the bullet. We took the long trip out there. It is on the other side of the Cameroonian refinery. There's one stretch that has dozens of tanker trucks lined up to get fuel to take to gas stations. Fascinating. At least I'm getting to see this. We reached the hotel and it was full! I did not expect that--it's a Wednesday in the low season.
Now the guy who recommended this place and charged US$10 to take us there, agreed to charge us only CFA 3000 (US$6) to take us back to the hotel I wanted to stay in. On top of this exorbitant cost, there is police checkpoint between Limbe and this hotel and the police at this particular checkpoint are especially bad at wasting time. I went from being in an OK mood to starting to not be happy at all. I saw this little excursion as a total waste of money. We made it back to the Park Miramar and they had 2 rooms for CFA 15000 (US$30) each--one for Michelle and one for Mlle X and me. We were all hungry and Mlle. X knew just where she wanted to go--for fish at the shore of the city. We piled back into the cab and off we went. The cab driver was, for some reason, staying with us. At least he didn't eat with us. We got three fishes with hot sauce and cassava root strings and some fried plantains. I got a beer that wasn't cold and the girls got Malta non-alcoholic beer beverages. One of the benefits of a high maintenance girl, I suppose, is that she commands the staff around. And she's a waitress herself so I was a bit surprised at her treatment of them. But I got another beer than was quite a bit colder.
The fish was really good. We ate it African style--with our right hands. It was fun. I chatted with Michelle a bit with about the same success as Mlle. X. A photographer came over. He's one of those guys who takes a picture and then prints it out. Each picture costs CFA 1000 (US$2) so it is one of those things that you normally get one and you're done. But what Mlle. X wanted to do was live like a princess. She thinks that because I'm rich relative to her, that I'm OK with just throwing money away. And it seems she is happy to make deals with the driver and the photographer feeding me only bits and pieces of the information. She got 4 pictures--one of which she rejected because she found it too blurry.
Soon, she was off with the driver negotiating something. Her is her plan: we would go back to our hotel, change, and then go back to the Seme Beach hotel where we could gain entry to the beach for CFA 1000 each. He would take us there and back for CFA 3000 (US$6). The then asked if we could stay for another day. I told her that I had to go to the ATM and if I could make a withdrawal successfully, we could stay another day. After all, we weren't going to be there long. The driver came and we headed to the car--with the photographer. She said he was going to come with us and take 3 more pictures (for CFA 3000). My withdrawal worked and she was happy. I changed into the African outfit she bought me (the change from the CFA 20000 I gave her had "fallen from her pocket" in the market--she also got me a towel).
So it was back to the beach--the three of us in the back seat and the photographer in the front seat. Again, we got stopped at that same stupid police checkpoint. It took about 10 minutes to get through--the driver kept getting out to talk to the police officer. Then we got to the Seme Beach hotel. I was prepared to pay for 3 CFA 1000 entrances. Except, it wasn't 1000; it was CFA 1500. And they didn't want to charge us for 3, but for 4--the photographer wouldn't get in free like the driver would. I balked. Nope--no more then CFA 3000. I let Mlle. X do the talking. She is used to getting what she wants and managed again to charm the guard into letting us in for CFA 3000.
It was Mlle. X's 4th time in Limbe and Michelle's first time ever in Limbe. They were living a little fantasy. The beach at Seme Beach is very nice. It's far away from the refinery and there is no smell or anything. The beach is volcanic black sand and the terrain is mountainous with palm trees--very pretty. The photographer started taking pictures. The girls were doing sexy poses in their bathing suits and the photographer was having a good time. I didn't want to go out into the water. I tend to be paranoid about my passport and money belt. Passport is required in Cameroon. The police checkpoints check it constantly. Eventually, Michelle attracted the attention of a guy and the girls and the guy and the photographer were frolicking in the deeper water while I was enjoying the scenery and playing in the shallower water feeling the waves carry away the sand under my feet seeing how long I can stand before there wasn't enough sand to keep my balance. After about an hour, I headed up to the bar to have a beer. The driver came with me. We discussed my favorite topic in Cameroon--police checkpoints. I explained how it works in America--you get through immigration at the airport or the border, then there are no police checkpoints except the occasional drunk driving checkpoint. Other than going through those on a Friday or Saturday night, I've never been through a police checkpoint in the United States. He was amazed. Then he asked me to help him fill out a visa application. What is this? Why is everyone who wants to come to America too fricking lazy to fill out the application themselves? Time was getting late. We went back out to the beach and now Mlle. X had attracted the attention of another guy. Whatever.
The girls were taking a long time to come in and the photographer and the driver were starting to get agitated. Finally, they came in. It was just starting to get dark. We passed an accident scene--a taxi and a truck carrying lumber. We stopped and got out to gawk. The police were there with tape measures making an extraordinarily thorough drawing of the scene. We got back in.
When we arrived, Mlle X told me to pay the driver CFA 3500 (US$7). He then finally left. But the photographer was still there. He plugged in his little photo printer and she selected 5 pictures: 2 with me and three of her and Michelle in sexy poses. I knew exactly what was up. She was asking for pictures of me to try to keep me happy and she was printing off the sexy pictures for a less transient boyfriend. But I wasn't happy. I kept asking how much this was going to cost and she kept shushing me. This was I pretty much decided that the second night in Limbe was not going to happen. I would finish out the day and then give her a little golden parachute in the morning to get home, then I would bugger out.
We went back to the room while the photos printed. I told her I would pay for three--not 5. That she can't just change the terms on me like that. She begged me to just pay it. We went back out. The photographer is in the enviable position of being perfectly bilingual. He found himself taking orders from the French speaking woman and finding that the English speaking man wasn't interested in paying so much. She we all moved to a more discreet location. I told him that she told me that he would take three pictures at Seme Beach and that would be it and that was all I agreed to pay. And I told him that I think he heard her tell me that. He said he did but that she promised him that they would just go to the beach, take some pictures, and then he could return to the beach in town with the grilled fish restaurants where he could make a lot more money. But instead of letting him go back, she frolicked in the water for three hours. I understood his point. She in an insufferable high maintenance princess, after all. She screwed him over just as much as me. There were a lot of people eating there in the hotel terrace and our negotiations were starting to embarrass Mlle. X who didn't understand what the photographer and I were saying. This was coupled witht the fact that one of the customers there knows her from her waitressing job. The 8 pictures were CFA 8000 (US$16). Too expensive. I said I wanted the digital files. We finally agreed on CFA 10000 (US$20) for the photos for her and all the digital ones for me. We plugged his card into my laptop and copied them over. Then Mlle. X said she wanted one more photo. She said she would pay me back if I gave him CFA 1000. Yeah right. Fuck! I gave him CFA 1000 and he went home to print it out. He came back an hour later and gave them the picture. She said it was the wrong picture and that is was another one she wanted. She asked for CFA 200 for him--I presume for the taxi. Well atleast Princess X is asking for smaller amounts. She also wanted to call her mom and asked for CFA 2000 (US$4) for credits on the phone because she was out of credit. She received a call from a guy who I assume is one of her lovers. She tried to hide the fact, but she couldn't.
The hotel restaurant is recommended by Lonely Planet but the photographer recommended a place called Bamboo which was much cheaper. I wasn't hungry yet, but was getting hungry. The Park Miramar is in the middle of a botanical garden so it isn't on the main drag and you con pretty much only get a taxi by calling one. She called our driver who was with us most of the day. He would come in an hour--in the mean time, I had a Castel and the girls had pineapple juice. Then they set to work on my trying to convince me to marry Mlle. X. I explained that we only met like 5 days ago and that wasn't enough time to decide if a partner is right for you (actually it is enough to know if a partner isn't and I knew that pretty early on).
Finally, the taxi man came and for another CFA 1000 (US$2) we headed to Bamboo. It is a place with loud music and a pretty limited menu. Mlle. X wanted spaghetti. But Bamboo didn't have spaghetti. Michelle ordered chicken with plaintain chips. I ordered steak with French fries. Since they didn't have spaghetti, Mlle. decided she would eat back at the hotel. It took a while for out food to come. Mlle. X was getting impatient because the hotel restaurant would close soon. She decided to order--pork with rice. But they were out of rice, so she canceled the order. Our food finally came. I let Mlle. X eat off my plate. Greasy fries, a typical African steak. She ate a bit. Then we paid and left. Limbe is a small town so there isn't much circulation of taxis. We headed down to a bigger intersection. They were a bit afraid but I said it was a small town so it was perfectly safe. I spoke a bit too soon as a drunk guy came up to me and said that if I wasn't planning on having both of the girls tonight that he needed one. This was in English so they didn't understand. I told him that they are free people and I don't own them and if he has something to ask them that he should address them directly. He staggered off. Along the way we stopped in a couple of restaurants but they were all just closing. Then at the big intersection by the King William hotel and a huge tree covered in Christmas lights, we hailed a couple of moto-taxis. They took around to 2 restaurants that they thought might be open but they weren't. Finally someone said the the Park Miramar stays open pretty late. So we went back. The moto-taxis were CFA 500 each. Mlle. X told me to pay and I did and then she came and berated them for charging so much which was totally bizarre.
Anyway, we went in and Mlle. X ordered a nice fish dish in peanut sauce with a salad and rice. It was far nicer than what Michelle or I ate. I ordered a glass of wine for CFA 1000, but it didn't sure didn't taste like a $2 glass of wine. I'm sure it was one of those cheap mylar bag brands. Mlle. X tasted it and ordered one to have with her meal. Her meal finally came and she didn't drink the wine--just gave it to me. So while Michelle and I had mediocre meals, Mlle. X managed to finesse herself a gourmet dish.
Then off to bed. She and Michelle went first. I still had her glass of wine. The two people working there asked me some question. I don't remember what. I went over to their table and explained the insufferability of the high maintenance princess from hell that she was. I told them that she thinks we're staying one more day, but that I was leaving tomorrow and they will have to leave too since I am their funding source.
Mlle. X came to get me. We went to sleep. We were asleep for a while when Michelle called her. They wanted to go back to Seme Beach and go dancing. They didn't need money from me--I guess the men they met at the beach arranged to pay for their evening out. Mlle. X asked for my permission to go. I frankly didn't care anymore and I just wanted her to go so I could type up my blog in peace. I just made her leave the key. She left. I waited a few minutes, then flipped on BBC World on the TV and got out my computer and started typing furiously. Boy there was a lot to remember and type. What an eventful couple of days.
I exhausted myself and put my computer back and went back to sleep. Eventually, Mlle. X returned home and knocked at the door. I let her in and we fell asleep.
Thursday, December 4, 20:14 Cameroon local time
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment