Downtown

Living in Bamenda is amazing experience, it's hard to choose what to convey to readers elsewhere. The town is spread out wide and far, with a steep escarpment called "Up Station" where the British lived when they ran this part of Cameroon. The view is often hazy, with humidity and dust, but it's nice up there, cooler.

The centre of town is Commercial Avenue, lined with street traders, shops, bars, businesses, the central market and the grandstand. Traffic (especially the yellow taxis) is chaotic, and you have to learn to walk nonchalantly across the road like the locals, rather than scuttling like a scared rabbit!

Street stalls sell all sorts of stuff: you can top up your mobile, eat freshly cooked doughnuts, barbecued fish, roast groundnuts or fried plantains. Taxi drivers just pull over suddenly to buy a roast corncob, then eat it while they drive.  A woman wiped her hands on her apron from frying doughnuts to sell me phone credit!

Apart from this main avenue, there's a real mixture of residential, commercial and industrial businesses on all the streets. Along the dusty road to our hotel was a car repair shop, a furniture maker, and a bar as well as many houses. Our hotel was not exactly as it looks on the front - the barbecue area in the back yard was interesting!