Cameroon

Over the past 3 days we have ridden almost 1500 km's from the north to south west Cameroon, and apart from extremely sore bums from too many hours sat on the bikes the whole ride has been amazing.
Cameroon is beautiful, i cant get enough of it - driving through huge forests and mountains in the north and tropical forests further south it really is stunning. Passing through many small villages along the way and as ever being the days entertainment for the locals. Just stopping for petrol is a huge occasion and numerous people stop working and gather around us at the petrol pump!
The combinations of shock, wonder and huge smiles on peoples faces and waving as we wizz past is brilliant. People of all ages completely stop what they are doing and stand for ages staring open mouthed in our direction.
Imagine how people react when I take my crash helmet off and see I'm a woman...some do not believe it at all, some just point and exclaim "woman", and over the past week I have been adressed as Palli's son, twice, and been offered marriage by a woman police officer.

Not sure if it says more about the lack of woman biking in Africa or my new dirty, smelly traveller look!!!

Our visit to the beautiful Waza National Park north of Maroua was quite eventful, we saw giraffe, antelope, warthog, and many birds including vulture, unfortunatley no elephants or lions but we did spend all day with the tracker looking for them. The park is very overgrown and not really set up for tourist safari's. The roads in the park are few and not in a good condition, so we spent alot of time driving through very thick vegetation. Our tracker explained how the government gives no money to the park or the guides that work there and protect it. The 29 guides work 7 day and night shifts at a time and not only guide/track during the day but also keep guard at night for the frequent poachers. In 10 years over 200 elephants from the the park have dissapeared due to poaching.
After being on safari in Kenya years ago i have seen how wonderful it can be - national parks there not only catering to tourists but catering to the animals that need protecting. It is shocking to witness in Waza the lack of infrustructure in a place that really deserves it and also one where i am sure the country would benefit from in the long term.
But i digress....after Waza we hung out for a couple more days in Maroua, celebrated Pierre's 25th birthday by being totally lazy, ate lots, did some much needed bike maintanance and thankfully some laundry..also desperately needed!!
We then set off after an almost tearful farewell from our wonderful guide Augustin (if anyone is visiting Cameroon he is the man to contact - i will post some more info about him at a later date, but for the time being he can be found at Hotel Le Sare in Maroua) south to NGaoundere then east to Bertoua, and onto the political capital Yaounde where we are now, waiting to collect our visa for Gabon.
We will try and go to the coast over the weekend and visit Kribi, a paradise beach, to top up our suntans, which now look more like fake tans as we seemed to be bleached from the orange dust and sand from the roads over the past few days. Cold showers just dont seem to get rid of it!
After Kribi, back to Yaounde to collect the visas and then off to Gabon, hurray!!!