One of the perks of taking a year out in Africa is that you rely completely on public transport to get around. It’s mad but I haven’t driven a car in over 4 and a half months if you exclude the day we went to visit the Crab Doctor and I had to jump start Bashyr’s car. Public transport here consists of an assortment of trains, buses, minibuses, taxis, bush taxis and mototaxis. Ok, for those of you who wish to split hairs, taxis don’t strictly fall under the definition of public transport but if you can have 5 people (excluding the driver) squashed together in a shared yellow Toyota taxi, then that’s public enough for me.
Over the Christmas holidays I took myself off to Ghana but before I had the pleasure of buckling up with Virgin Nigeria I first had to find my way down to Doala. The journey down south involved a 10 hour bus trip with Danay Express (my local bus company which will get a whole blog of its own at some stage!) to N’Gaoundère where I had to catch the train to Yaoundé and then another 4 hour bus trip to Doala.
The train, I’ve read, is called the Trans-Cameroonian Railway but for a country that is twice the size of the UK the journey is only 600km; for those of you imperialists that’s 373 miles. The thing is, the journey took 15 hours…THAT’S 25 MILES AN HOUR! I’d nearly cycle quicker.
Still, what it lacks in speed, it makes up for in character…I was just about to write comfort there for a second but just checked myself on time! It’s a night train which leaves just after 6pm and there’s an option of 3 types of ticket – a 1st class couchette, a 1st class seat or a 2nd class hard, timber, arse-numbing bench. I opted for the a seat in 1st class as after a trip in a sleeper carriage last year in Vietnam with two scans, I wasn’t prepared to be cooped up in a cabin for15 hours; nor was I too happy about squeezing onto a bench with mother’s, babies, soldiers and happy go lucky “voleurs” who would see me, or more importantly my bags, as an early Christmas present.
The journey to be fair, both ways, was comfortable enough and the food tasty too. The train stops frequently for whatever sort of delay – the Cameroonian equivalent of Iarnrod Eireann’s “leaves on the track” I suppose. It also stops at various stations along the way where it is an experience to see everything from bananas, water, mandarins and batons (which are sticks of manioc wrapped in banana leaves) being bought and sold through the windows of the carriages. Seeing so many women and children out (for them) in the cold at 4am making hard sales just shows how much these people depend on the train, which passes once a day in each direction, to make a living…that’s their job!
Apart from all the stops, my fellow traveller’s also ensured that the time was never long. The Cameroonians are great talkers and love nothing more than a good heated discussion at all hours of the night. Topics rarely included the weather, never politics but instead focussed on things like fidelity, love and God. I pretended to sleep.
Sleep though came easier than expected. However, it was hard to close my eyes at times when there was a soldier standing not 10 feet away with his machine gun slung around his neck with only a piece of old rope keeping it in place.
On arriving in Yaoundé, a battalion of soldiers couldn’t have stopped the hordes of porters who climbed aboard as the train pulled into the station. These guys were amazing to watch – they were carrying two suitcases at a time on their heads while carrying another bag in one hand. They made a mockery of the suitcases with wheels and the ergonomically designed rucksacks. Incidentally, I carried my own rucksack…at least as far as the nearest battered, yellow taxi!
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