Mt Cameroon
My Goodness ... I think I finally have all the pics on here that I wanted but be warned! This is going to be a long post. I will however try and do as little talking as possible :) but I am not promising anything.
But alas Saturday 16 September I made the treck down/up to Limbe where Mt Cameroon is located.
I am so glad I remembered my passport. This hour and a half drive had us driving through aproximately 8 road blocks where the police were checking passports. Not to throw you in jail if you don't have but to get money out of you if you do not have.
Also another reason I am happy to be with our driver, Faso happens to be mates with a police official who is pretty high up and this police official has given Faso a legal document with his name and stamp on so everytime we were stopped Faso got a salute and they just let us continue on our way without trying to get money out of us.
This was not a dull drive, the sites along the way were interesting and the roads (outside of Douala) were actually in pretty good condition. The vegetation was also very thick!!
Now I had a pretty good laugh at this sight. This is a Car Wash Cameroon style. The cars drive down to the river stream etc and partly park their cars in the river/stream and you have guys wash your car. I took this pic as we were driving by, we slowed down enough to get the pic. On our way back however my work collegue got us to stop and take another pic and boy did these car was guys throw a wobbly, they ended up running after us as we were driving away. They really do not like having photo's taken in this country.
Getting to Limbe you have to drive through a part of town that looks like a big street market. This is just outside Douala and boy the roads are bad and it looks like chaos but I am sure you could get some good bargins here if you wanted.
On the way to Limbe still, we passed a banana plantation, rows and rows of banana trees. The bananas are very nice, they do taste different and have almost a sweet taste to them. Bananas are on sale everywhere, any street corner. It is more prominent that the prostitutes in Cameroon (yes prostitution is crazy here) I will talk about that some other time.
You have to love Cameroon, this my dear friends is the toll road in Cameroon. When we approached I thought it was another road block. The lady in orange is the one you give your money too.
This is just an arb pic as we enter Limbe, you can't see it that great in the pic but you come over a "hill" and you see the ocean view with the thick vegetation, it is awesome!
The following pics are of Mt. Cameroon, it is an amazing site and you have this feeling that it could erupt at any moment. Now the section we are heading to is at the bottom of the lava flow, now just volcanic rock. There is another section on the other side of the mountain that you can apparently go up.
That side of the mountain has an annual running race. There are different levels that you can participate in which is something I hope will be happening while I am still here. I will do the shorter routes however as I am told that they start at 06:00 and the first guy back only gets back down the mountain by 16:00. So that I will not attempt, only the shorter route.
I do think however that I need to try and make a trip back to the mountain and this time go to the other side. The last time the volcano erupted was in March 1999, I think it was March or April
Now the next lot of pics are of Volcanic Rock. This is where the lava finally stopped and cooled and well ... volcanic rock.
It is amazing to watch the little ferns that are growing through the volcanic rock, I am not sure what the deal is but everywhere the volcanic rock is and the ferns are growing, the ferns are a very bright green
Just another pic of the volcanic rock and the bright green ferns.
This pic actually shows it a lot better, you can see the ferns on the right tha tare a dull green and the ferns on the left that are bright green. The pictures don't do it justice.
This is an angle from the volcanic rock looking down on it's path as it was heading towards the ocean.
Just can't get enough pictures of the volcanic rock, this is a close up
and now to satisfy all the requests to have me in some of the pictures, here I am sitting on the volcanic rock ... doubt very much I would have been able to do this back in 1999 when the lava was flowing like water :)
Now in this pic you can see where the lava came to a stop over the road, didn't quite manage to reach the ocean ... or so I thought ... will explain that part later. But once the lava covered the road and cooled down they had to build the road around so that you can get access to the rest of Limbe.
I dig this guy, this is the "Rusta Man" or so he is known as the Rusta Man. When you get down after the little walk about on the volcanic rock, you ask him for a coconut, he will run off and scurry up a tree and get you a coconut or two. He will then clean it off and chop it open for you.
Now he does this pretty darn good and there is no set price you need to give him. It is up to you but it is recommended to give him about 500 CFA's for getting you the coconut and chopping it up for you.
Here we have the finished product thanks to Mr Rusta Man. The coconut ready to drink and eat. The coconut shell however will need to go to Anthea, she has requested it so she can make a bra or bikini top out of it. I have heard that when women are pregnant they have some strange requests and I suppose this is no different.
Well as per popular demand, some more pics of me in my posts, here ready to have some of the coconut compliments from Mr Rusta Man.
Some more for you, where I drink the coconut water, it is pretty sweet, not over sweet but sweeter than I thought it would be.
And I will add, it is a messy drink, but even though it is sweet, it isn't sticky and it did take me a very long time to finish drinking the water. There is a lot of that water in the coconut.
Now I have to try this out, this is "Cameroon Matches" they look like a type of acorn, but circular like a coin. You apparently rub them on any stone so that it gets hot and then you place it on dry grass or something. Haven't tried it yet and not sure if I will get it right but I will give it my best shot. Maybe a task for another post on my blog site :)
Now we come to the part where I said that I thought the lava flow didn't reach the ocean. Now I am told that because of the volcano eruption and so forth, the sand on this beach is black. Now I can't comment if the beach sand was ever a yellow or white beach sand that we are all use to but it was weird looking at this beach sand and it was black.
The beach we are at here, can't think of the name but it is a nice resort and I even got to get a game of beach volleyball in while here.
More pics of the black beach sand
A small restaurant that we stopped at for lunch. It was pretty windy this day but was still a very nice setting for lunch.
There are these little "islands" that are occupied by small villages, the people that live there don't come to the main land much. They fish and barter their fish for other products to take back to the "islands" No, I never go to see any of them, all this is what we hear from the locals and our tour guide Faso.
We ended our trip at teh Wild life centre.
They have a lot of monkey's, gorilla's, baboons and so forth. Then you can see the odd snake and crocodile as well.
And that my friends is it from me for now. Nothing much else to tell you. Hopefully I won't take so long to publish another post. But for now, have fun and maybe I will see some of you next week.
But alas Saturday 16 September I made the treck down/up to Limbe where Mt Cameroon is located.
I am so glad I remembered my passport. This hour and a half drive had us driving through aproximately 8 road blocks where the police were checking passports. Not to throw you in jail if you don't have but to get money out of you if you do not have.
Also another reason I am happy to be with our driver, Faso happens to be mates with a police official who is pretty high up and this police official has given Faso a legal document with his name and stamp on so everytime we were stopped Faso got a salute and they just let us continue on our way without trying to get money out of us.
This was not a dull drive, the sites along the way were interesting and the roads (outside of Douala) were actually in pretty good condition. The vegetation was also very thick!!
Now I had a pretty good laugh at this sight. This is a Car Wash Cameroon style. The cars drive down to the river stream etc and partly park their cars in the river/stream and you have guys wash your car. I took this pic as we were driving by, we slowed down enough to get the pic. On our way back however my work collegue got us to stop and take another pic and boy did these car was guys throw a wobbly, they ended up running after us as we were driving away. They really do not like having photo's taken in this country.
Getting to Limbe you have to drive through a part of town that looks like a big street market. This is just outside Douala and boy the roads are bad and it looks like chaos but I am sure you could get some good bargins here if you wanted.
On the way to Limbe still, we passed a banana plantation, rows and rows of banana trees. The bananas are very nice, they do taste different and have almost a sweet taste to them. Bananas are on sale everywhere, any street corner. It is more prominent that the prostitutes in Cameroon (yes prostitution is crazy here) I will talk about that some other time.
You have to love Cameroon, this my dear friends is the toll road in Cameroon. When we approached I thought it was another road block. The lady in orange is the one you give your money too.
This is just an arb pic as we enter Limbe, you can't see it that great in the pic but you come over a "hill" and you see the ocean view with the thick vegetation, it is awesome!
The following pics are of Mt. Cameroon, it is an amazing site and you have this feeling that it could erupt at any moment. Now the section we are heading to is at the bottom of the lava flow, now just volcanic rock. There is another section on the other side of the mountain that you can apparently go up.
That side of the mountain has an annual running race. There are different levels that you can participate in which is something I hope will be happening while I am still here. I will do the shorter routes however as I am told that they start at 06:00 and the first guy back only gets back down the mountain by 16:00. So that I will not attempt, only the shorter route.
I do think however that I need to try and make a trip back to the mountain and this time go to the other side. The last time the volcano erupted was in March 1999, I think it was March or April
Now the next lot of pics are of Volcanic Rock. This is where the lava finally stopped and cooled and well ... volcanic rock.
It is amazing to watch the little ferns that are growing through the volcanic rock, I am not sure what the deal is but everywhere the volcanic rock is and the ferns are growing, the ferns are a very bright green
Just another pic of the volcanic rock and the bright green ferns.
This pic actually shows it a lot better, you can see the ferns on the right tha tare a dull green and the ferns on the left that are bright green. The pictures don't do it justice.
This is an angle from the volcanic rock looking down on it's path as it was heading towards the ocean.
Just can't get enough pictures of the volcanic rock, this is a close up
and now to satisfy all the requests to have me in some of the pictures, here I am sitting on the volcanic rock ... doubt very much I would have been able to do this back in 1999 when the lava was flowing like water :)
Now in this pic you can see where the lava came to a stop over the road, didn't quite manage to reach the ocean ... or so I thought ... will explain that part later. But once the lava covered the road and cooled down they had to build the road around so that you can get access to the rest of Limbe.
I dig this guy, this is the "Rusta Man" or so he is known as the Rusta Man. When you get down after the little walk about on the volcanic rock, you ask him for a coconut, he will run off and scurry up a tree and get you a coconut or two. He will then clean it off and chop it open for you.
Now he does this pretty darn good and there is no set price you need to give him. It is up to you but it is recommended to give him about 500 CFA's for getting you the coconut and chopping it up for you.
Here we have the finished product thanks to Mr Rusta Man. The coconut ready to drink and eat. The coconut shell however will need to go to Anthea, she has requested it so she can make a bra or bikini top out of it. I have heard that when women are pregnant they have some strange requests and I suppose this is no different.
Well as per popular demand, some more pics of me in my posts, here ready to have some of the coconut compliments from Mr Rusta Man.
Some more for you, where I drink the coconut water, it is pretty sweet, not over sweet but sweeter than I thought it would be.
And I will add, it is a messy drink, but even though it is sweet, it isn't sticky and it did take me a very long time to finish drinking the water. There is a lot of that water in the coconut.
Now I have to try this out, this is "Cameroon Matches" they look like a type of acorn, but circular like a coin. You apparently rub them on any stone so that it gets hot and then you place it on dry grass or something. Haven't tried it yet and not sure if I will get it right but I will give it my best shot. Maybe a task for another post on my blog site :)
Now we come to the part where I said that I thought the lava flow didn't reach the ocean. Now I am told that because of the volcano eruption and so forth, the sand on this beach is black. Now I can't comment if the beach sand was ever a yellow or white beach sand that we are all use to but it was weird looking at this beach sand and it was black.
The beach we are at here, can't think of the name but it is a nice resort and I even got to get a game of beach volleyball in while here.
More pics of the black beach sand
A small restaurant that we stopped at for lunch. It was pretty windy this day but was still a very nice setting for lunch.
There are these little "islands" that are occupied by small villages, the people that live there don't come to the main land much. They fish and barter their fish for other products to take back to the "islands" No, I never go to see any of them, all this is what we hear from the locals and our tour guide Faso.
We ended our trip at teh Wild life centre.
They have a lot of monkey's, gorilla's, baboons and so forth. Then you can see the odd snake and crocodile as well.
And that my friends is it from me for now. Nothing much else to tell you. Hopefully I won't take so long to publish another post. But for now, have fun and maybe I will see some of you next week.
posted by Ashley at 4:25 PM
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