On the road again

Going on holiday is always an adventure, well it should be. Nowadays it often means waiting around at airports, queuing to get through security and finding you've left an unsuspecting item in your hand luggage that sets the scanners off, then paying a huge amount for a tiny bottle of water to take on the plane, where the food is indigestible but you eat it anyway out of boredom, and regret it later.

If you want more fun in your travel, come to Cameroon. The Amour Mezam bus company yard at 7am on Maundy Thursday was quiet at first, taxis unloading, people buying tickets and snacks for their journeys. It's hard to remember our arrival here a month ago, shell-shocked from the journey from Yaounde, overwhelmed by the noise and bustle, scared by the confusing melee of people, buses, motorbikes and taxis.

Now the three of us, Gweneira, Linda and I, felt totally capable of coping with this long weekend trip away on our own. Our bus to Limbe, 361 km to the south west, was a 30-seater and we bought good seats near the front. Our luggage was piled up waiting to be loaded on the bus roof, and we waited too (we're getting good at that).

Wandering round the dusty yard, taking photos, watching people, talking to mums with babies and bus drivers relaxing in their office, investigating what was in that funny looking basket ... fascinating. People take all sorts of stuff on the bus, their produce to sell and the goods they have bought - hens, plantains, furniture...

Traders pop into the bus or sell through the window, and there's plenty of choice. We bought Magic Chalk cockroach killer, slightly dodgy CDs of Cameroon bands, grapefruit drink and nuts.

Before setting off we needed to use the bus station toilets, and this was an experience somewhat unlike Heathrow. Two young lads were running the place, and one asked Gwenno whether she needed a pee or to use a cubicle. Pee was 50 and cubicle was 100 francs. We all chose the luxury version. The other lad was on bucket swishing duty, western style loo but no flush, and men just peeing in the open yard in front of the cubicles. When Gwenno left, the lad asked for her email address!

Our bus finally set off at 11:30, and was then really efficient. Enough space for the 30 passengers, fairly fast but safe driving, beautiful varied scenery - mountains, valleys and right down to the flat plains by the sea. The roads were much better after we left the north west region – with tarmac and even white lines!

We got snacks like fresh pineapple from vendors on the way, snoozed a bit in the heat and tried to take photos through the window (not very successfully). There was a "comfort break" stop to use a pretty awful hole in the ground toilet (shared with mosquitoes) but we noticed the Cameroon travellers just peed at the roadside - probably a healthier as well as cheaper option. Neither men nor women have any inhibitions about this here.

Landscape changed, from the northwestern red soil and houses made of the red mud blocks, to lighter sandier soil and houses made of wooden planks, sometimes with decorative carved motifs. These homes were set down, in lusher growth than we see in the north west just now. Hotter and much more humid, more tropical to see and feel.

Further south we found large plantations of eucalyptus trees and of palm oil, with blue plastic bags collecting the oil. These monoculture crops bring income from exports, but are fairly destructive of the environment and particularly the water catchment.

Arriving at Mutengene near Limbe in late afternoon, we swapped to a smaller bus for the last leg to Limbe's motor park, to be met by taxis ready to take us right to our hotel by 6:30 – just 12 hours after leaving home. Ah, the sea, hot showers and air conditioning! Of which, more in the next instalment.

Food, glorious food!

The richness and variety of fresh, seasonal produce here is a pleasure! Almost everyone here has a "farm" - more an allotment size in towns - where they grow food for their family at least. A local told me you can't live in Cameroon if you don't have a farm!

Food is much tastier than in the UK - very little distance travelled, very little input of artificial fertilisers, much more free range and organic, and much fresher. Yes, food does go off quickly, but you buy food easily more often. Market and roadside vendors may only sell one type of fruit or vegetable at a time, but overall you can get a good varied diet if you cook for yourself.

Hey, I'm living in a country where they grow pineapple and coconut! This is so good, the pineapple juice runs down your chin, and I poured 2 full glasses of coconut milk out of one coconut (500 francs). Up in Santa just now I bought ripe avocado pears for 100 francs ( about 14p), loads of these in this area at the moment. Mangoes and pawpaws are just coming ripe. I had 3 mangoes here last week for 200, then I got about 8 big pawpaws (papaya) a bit further south for 100 yesterday, brilliant with fresh lemon (3 for 100 francs).

The market traders have different kinds of groundnuts, in shells, shelled or even ground for you ready to cook. Yams and cassava are not in season here yet, but you can buy them from other regions. Mushrooms have been coming in, strange types I've never seen before; I took a photo of the ones I bought just in case a doctor needed to know what we'd eaten. Great fried in olive oil with onions and garlic, as the lady advised me.

What I'm not buying is meat. Can you guess why? (hint - look at the photo of a typical butcher's.) They seem to sell a lot of tripe, tongue and basically every part of every animal. Fancy some chicken breast fillets? Forget it! Chicken is sold live, so unless you want to kill and pluck it yourself, (which I've done in the distant past but have no wish to do here), you pay someone to prepare it for you. Incidentally, women are not supposed to eat chicken gizzards, for some power reason these are kept for men only. Let them have gizzard if they want!

Takeaway food is not exactly Big Mac. You can get lots of stuff on the street. Some mornings I like to pick up a little sort of breadcrumbed fishy pasty (25 francs each), or maybe a scotch egg which is dough rather than sausage meat. They serve that with a dab of hot pepper sauce for 100. Puffball doughnuts are fried in hot oil over wood stoves, mostly in the afternoon, then people bring the leftovers around in the mornings in big plastic containers.

Barbecues are everywhere in the afternoon, grills over big logs with fish, mainly mackerel, delicious sold with pepper sauce for 700 francs. There is also meat and some massive cooked eels - I haven't been able to face these to try them. There are grills for whole plantain (long green banana type fruit) and corn cobs. Fried plantain is a great alternative to fried potatoes, and plantain crisps are a good snack food to help work meetings along!