The week before last I was in Cameroon, though only for a couple of days, and only in the capital city. I didn't see a lot, but I did not see any minibuses or motorbikes, which was strange. Apparently motorbikes are banned from the city center, and all the minibuses went bankrupt for some reason so the only form of transport is cars and taxis. This means that at least half or even two thirds of all the vehicles on the road are taxis... very old, very dented taxis. Apparently there are long-distance buses for intra-city transportation. The result is predictable: a lot of cars on roads that are usually only single carriageway (except when some cars decide they want to use the other lane, and thus force any cars that want to go against the rush hour traffic to go on the pavement. At least there were some traffic lights in some places, and a nice dual carriageway highway to the airport.
The airport itself was tiny - I only counted 4 boarding gates, and in the departures area there is one area with a few bottles of wine to buy and one cafe which has a table of some dried fruits serving as a shop of some sort. There was nothing else there - and it was quite strange for a capital city. Apparently there is a bigger airport in another city that is on the Coast.
The other thing I didn't see was any tall buildings. Even in the city center there was only a handful of buildings that were more than 5 or 6 floors, and in the suburbs almost nothing more than 3 floors. The (new-ish) conference centre was quite nice, and one wing of it is currently hosting the Parliament whilst a new one is being built. One evening there was some local entertainment, with traditional dancing and music and the like, but unfortunately i can't say i have seen or experienced much of the country.
The capital city is in French speaking Cameroon so I tried to remember my French, though not very successfully. In my mind Cameroon is West Africa, but I am told that it is usually regarded as Central Africa and that my living in East Africa just makes me think anything West of East Africa must be West Africa! On the return flight home we stopped over in Libreville in Gabon, though I won't claim to have been there, from what I saw from the airplane, it is more like a sprawling village than a city.
