Douala To Yaoundé

My last night in Douala before heading to Yaoundé was grand. I spent it in the bar of the Hotel Hila. The organist was there again. He plays organ for a number of singers who tag team each other. But each night, it seems, he does a sort of 20 minute be-bop set. Absolutely wonderful! Just a great way to spend 20 minutes. Maybe even better than 20 minutes with Mlle. X. I'm not sure--it's a close one. ;-) He starts playing around 8:30. Anyone in Douala would be well entertained with an evening at the bar at the Hotel Hila. Sexy hookers doing that slow enticing "check out my goods" walk, hot music, reasonably priced booze--it's a trip! Again, one waitress in particular, a very cute (but not so hot that she would become an insufferable high maintenance princess) girl, seemed to fall victim to the contagion of my happiness at the music of the organist. A couple of times one of the organist's overstimulated friends came up and rubbed a bill into his forehead and let it fall on the keyboard. The organist's girlfriend would go and move the bill and equalize his forehead. Everyone was grooving to that steaming hot be-bop. This night, it started with a 10 minute be-bop interpretation of Hello Dolly. I've never heard Hello Dolly done so well. Fanstastic! Simply simply wonderful!

But, alas, I needed to go to sleep. I got up the next morning and went to the Guaranti Express station a block to the south. My 9am bus was there and I got my stuff loaded, paying a guy CFA 500 (US$1) for his help. I got a seat and at about 9:20, we were off. Something odd happened on the trip--or rather didn't happen. There were no police check points. I don't know if it because it was raining, or because it was the Guaranti Express VIP bus, or because there just aren't check points between Douala and Yaoundé. But it was nice.

I arrived and asked a few taxi drivers for their prices to the Ideal Hotel. Nobody would go below CFA 2000 (US$4) so I took the first guy who had offered that. It was a bit far and I got to see a bit of the city. We eventually arrived and thankfully, they had a room. Their prices, however, had doubled since Lonely Planet went to press. I didn't question it too much since the prices in Lonely Planet really were in the "too good to be true" range. For CFA 15000 (US$30) I got a huge room with a bedroom, TV room, windowed sitting room (what I would call an engawa, but that's me), and a bathroom with even a bidet. There was no AC, but it seems the altitude of Yaoundé makes that pretty much unneeded.

I went across the street to Le Globus where I had a chicken and fries dish and a couple of beers. I had a nice view of Yaoundé. Yaoundé is built on a really hilly region. That means that the streets cannot be rectilinear. But it also means that the city is gorgeous. And the unique architecture makes it even more interesting. Yaoundé is much prettier than Douala. It's much nicer. And even though it's a smaller city, it has more stuff.

I explored a bit around my area and wound up going to a grocery store where I paid an unreal CFA 1950 (US$4) for a can of Pringles, CFA 1050 (US$2) for canned ravioli, and CFA 1000 (US$2) for a liter box of "wine" porting a picture of a bottle of red and a glass. OK, it's not wine. It's "cellar red". I knew a German in Bluefields, Nicaragua who maintained that, as Velveeta claims to be not cheese but rather a "cheese food product", that Miller Beer is not beer but rather a "beer food product". Well, by that criterion, this Vinoval cellar red is not a wine, but a "wine food product". And, the proof is in the ingredients. Yes, like all food products, this wine food product actually has an ingredient list. And here it is: "eau, alcool, extraits de vin rouge de France, arômes". Yes, that's right: water, alcohol, French wine extracts, and flavors. What in the hell are French wine extracts? At least I got the real Pringles. They also had Cracks for CFA 1800 (US$3.60) and if you have read my Ouagadougou posts you know that I had Cracks before and that while they look just like Pringles, they taste like cardboard because they are a Chinese knock-off made out of melamine and scrap newsprint.

Saturday, December 6, 2008 22:00 Cameroon local time