Cameroon - Entering (Blue car)
Day 120 (2 February) – Border crossing to Mamfé, Cameroon
Through the internet I understood the red car was leaving Abuja yesterday and Senna was doing better. I decided to cross the border together with Sebastian and Birte (in their old Landcruiser). The short drive to the border involved some useless checking of papers and registering in the books. The border crossing out of Nigeria went smoothly, police, customs, immigration, visiting all the offices and your done. We could cross the bridge!
I was in Cameroon and made it through Nigeria without any major incident or paying a bribe! At the border I could change money to CFA again (but with a bad rate), although here they use Central African Francs instead of the West African Francs; although the rate and the name are the same, the bills are different. We drove on to the first big town, Mamfé, where we camped at the nice hotel Data. The drive went over a dirt road where you do not want to be in the rainy season! It was a dusty road but it would be the start of a beautiful month.
The Data Hotel was alright, it had a nice view but the best was the ¼ chicken with chips for only CFA 3000 (4.50 Euros)!
Day 121 (3 February) – Drive Mamfé to Bamenda
Mamfé was not the place to stay a couple of days and I decided to wait for the others in Bamenda, the start of the famous Ring Road. The road to Bamenda from Mamfé took us over some mountains through the rainforest. The road was oh so beautiful but had some very dangerous passes with steep slopes next to the road. It was a very nice drive and enjoyable drive.
