Last Day In Douala

I got up Thursday the 11th, to go to Delice.  I had pain aux raisins and chausson aux pommes. After that, I headed to the internet cafe.  No connection--come back in an hour, they said.

OK, I looked for a cafe, but there aren't many cafes around Bananjo.  I went to Le Paris and they were more or less open.  Officially open, but no customers at that hour, apparently ever.  I had a nice expresso (as the spell in France) and checked out the menu.  Very nice looking menu.

An hour had passed so I headed back to the internet cafe.  The connection was sort of up but only blogspot.com (owned by) was working reliably.  Frustration!

I had a rest back into my hotel and a few hours later returned to the internet cafe.  It was sort of up again, but only for responsive sites.  Then it went down again.  Gee, this internet cafe is usually pretty good.

It was getting late and I felt like a draft beer so I went to a place called Pression II.  I asked if the have bière à pression.  She said they didn't.  I looked at her aghast.  Really? (C'est vrai?).  The name of the place is Pression II and they don't have beer on tap?  I got a bottle of Castel which turned out to be not as cold as I wanted.  I wrote into my journal.  While I was there, all the other customers eventually left leaving just me.  Then a guy came in.  All these empty tables, but he sat at my table across from me.  Odd.  He ordered a meal.  I continued writing.  His meal came and he ate it as if he hadn't eaten anything in days.  A few minutes later a friend of his came in and ordered some food.  I got to the end of my train of thought and told them bon appetite and headed out.  After all, it was going to be my dinner time soon.  I went back to Le Paris.

What a nice choice for my last dinner in Francophone Africa.  My entrée was chèvre on toast baguettes on a bed of lettuce with diced tomato. The chèvre was sprinkled with rosemary.  Just delicious.  My plat was turkey cordon bleu with mashed potatoes.  It was cooked perfectly.  I have to learn how to make cordon bleu.  The chèvre was CFA 4500 (US$9) and the turkey cordon bleu was CFA 7500 (US$15).  So it was pricey, but one of the best meals I had in Africa.  Again, these guys could make it in the US.  And actually they should because there weren't enough customers.  I was the only one.

I took a moto-taxi back and went to sleep.

Sunday, December 14, 2008 9:24 Ghana local time