Day 2: Just Another Doualian Day (Douala)

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Day 2: Just Another Doualian Day (Douala)

Written by Eric Mathurin

Sunday, 04 November 2007

A view of our hotel.

I woke up to what I thought was a knock at the door. By the time I was fully conscious I wasn't sure if I had imagined it. Gill didn't even stir. I found Il outside in the lobby — it was she that had given us our wake-up call. We got together for breakfast in the hotel restaurant and had omelettes, bread and coffee.

We decided to see if we could change to their "double apartment" — the hotel staff showed it to us and it was well-suited to our group since it had two bedrooms and bathrooms connected by a common area. And air conditioners that didn't chug loudly. It would help logistics for us all to be together.

After opening up our bike baggage — Gill's bicycle box is looking mighty rough — we got to work getting them ready for the tour. I figure the act of tightening a single screw drains about 1/2 a litre of sweat from me.

Once our general duties were taken care of we decided to take a walk through town. In daylight, Douala isn't quite as scary. But it still made us wary — it's in very rough shape, unlike any major city we've yet encountered between us in Africa.

Putting the bicycles together.

People were generally friendly and we came across a really nice bakery where we bought some pastries and drinks. As we mosied towards the opposite end of Blvd. de la Liberté we came to a Catholic church that was in the middle of mass. At that point about five children — not looking especially poor to me — latched onto us. Two weighed down my arms while the other three clung to Gill and Il. While we were dangling these kids a young man handing out flyers apporahced and engaged us in conversation. One of the main things he impressed upon us was how unsafe it was for us to be walking about town — telling us we could be mugged at knifepoint or otherwise lured to an untimely death if we strayed in the wrong direction. He then showed us how to unlatch the kids, which I had been dragging slowly down the road trying to get away from. He gave Gill some small coins to give to one of them. Miraculously, that seemed to disengage them with only minimal fuss. (I had considered this tactic but I'm wary of encouraging the behaviour; we don't want every white tourist to get mobbed because we validated their begging tactics.)

David says:
More than any other African city I have been in, it throbs. Music fills the air from every other storefront, car and kiosk. While at 8 AM the streets are still relatively quiet, by 9 AM they are full of cars, motorcycles, mopeds, carts, vans, taxis and bicycles, the side walks of full of people and vendors - well in fact they all sort of overlap; car encroach on the sidewalks and people walk down the streets.

Frolicking in the hotel pool.

By that point the beating down of the sun and all the recent attention — and considerable distance walked — was wearing me down so we went right back to the hotel. (And, truthfully, I was wary again for our safety thanks to our friend.) We then spent most of the afternoon sitting on the second level of our hotel balcony eating our pastries and reading. Meanwhile, the hotel pool turned out to be a favourite meeting place for hip young locals to frolic in the water, dance, listen to music and show off their bodies to each other.

The Dahon Speed TR packed in its case.

In the early evening (it's dark by 6:30pm) we went to the main lobby to wait for our fearless leader, David Mozer of Bicycle Africa, to show up. David arrived soon enough, looking the same as I remember—save for the grey in his hair and beard.

We had our dinner in the hotel restaurant (where again we were the only diners) for the sake of convenience and David went over his standard spiel of local customs, what to expect, his philosophy, etc. In the 20 years that he's run the Cameroon tour he's had only 10 people go on it, including us. One of them went home half-way through the trip. I anticipate some adventure since I'm led to believe there will be some winging-it involved.

We soon retired to our rooms and chatted while David put his Bike Friday together. (It comes apart into a really small case. And has a broken rack and bald tires. Um...)

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