Painful soldier ant
I woke up to an early morning; once again the insects unleashed their fury on us. This time the perpetrators were soldier ants. They were similar to the one that latched on to Bobby’s flip flop during the forest walk except this time there was significant back up. The whole campground was infested with them. It seemed like the most idyllic locale last night but then again, the ants weren’t around.
I walked over to the outhouse and by the time I pulled my pants down, my legs were swarming with the vicious buggers. They scurry up so quickly that you don’t notice them until they plant their forcep like teeth into you. By the time I got back to the tent, one had gotten far enough and sunk its teeth into my butt causing me to yelp and jump higher than I thought possible. I rushed to the tent as I quickly pulled my infested pants off and zipped myself safely inside. The regular biting ants fled quickly enough but the soldier ants held on to the hem of my pants for dear life; planning their revenge on me, I’m sure.
We all tiptoed and yelped our way through the grounds as we tried to pack up as quickly as possible. The campsite was located right near the border with Cameroon so we arrived quickly at the gendarmerie only to discover that we need to turn back to Bitam, nearly 30km away, to clear immigration. We passed through immigration with no problem and even managed to pick up some beignets to much on to tide us over until we got to Yaoundé.
Cameroon seemed quite different from Gabon, the moment we entered there were motorbikes everywhere. This was shocking considering we didn’t see a single one after weeks in Gabon. Even the immigration formalities were different; immigration and the gendarmerie conveniently worked in the same building so one man stamped and the other recorded all of our information. The Gabonese worked quickly enough but it wasn’t obvious at all what the procedure was or who we needed to speak with for that matter. Well, even Gabonese bureaucracy was wonderful compared to the Congolese.
The roads were very populated the entire drive in Cameroon and we even had 3 tolls to pay before entering Yaoundé, which I was happy to pay since it the roads were obviously well maintained and there was a clear system. The traffic in Yaoundé was mad! It seemed like there were more people on the roads driving than there was in all of Gabon!
We found our way to the Presbyterian mission which was a lovely, tranquil haven in the middle of the city madness. The grounds were grassy and inviting but we opted for rooms, luckily, because the famous Cameroonian rains started just after we settled in. We would have been completely drenched and not have even saved much money since the rooms were 6,000 CFA (roughly 12 USD) and it would have been 3,000 for camping. It will be nice to just sit for a little bit, do some grocery outings and get clean. The only pity is that there isn’t hot water here like the other places. Can’t win ‘em all.
