Piece Number Two

So, I like this one less, and I am taking out the horribly cliched ending because it makes me kind of sick to my stomach. ca va?

On second thought, I am keeping the cliched ending and taking off the title, which is even worse. Try not to throw up.

New Title: Climbing Mount Cameroon (yay, super original, right?)

Six of us went on the trip, and we seemed to make up a pretty good group. We met on Thursday at 10.30 at the apartment, after minor delays for various reasons, including me waking up to find a dying, bleeding rat next to my toilet. Our group departed from the apartment around 10.45 for the bus station with our minimal luggage. Each of us had packed with the intention of bringing everything all the way up the mountain with us. I had what I was wearing plus a change of clothes, underwear, socks, minimal toiletries and a first aid kit carefully stuffed into the lilac l.l.bean backpack I have been toting around since the middle of eighth grade.
Elite, who works for the program and has been a wonderful friend to each and every student, volunteered to accompany us clumsy Americans to the bus station and make sure we were loaded onto a bus heading in the correct direction. After hailing a beat up taxi without door handles on the inside to the bus station, she helped us buy our tickets and suggested that six of us sardine pack ourselves into the back seat so that we could sweat and be sweat on by each other instead of sharing the sweat of strangers.

Although there are supposedly scheduled times for buses to leave, the way it actually works is that they leave whenever they are full. We narrowly missed a large, comfortable looking bus and instead ended up on a large white toyota van with five people crammed into each four person row (full means full). As we were some of the first arrivals to the van, we had a while to wait before it filled up enough to leave and I elected to walk around the area a bit instead of waiting in the bus where I would be spending the next few hours. I found a bar with a refrigerator and bought some deliciously cold water for the ride. Eric, who was walking around with me, bought some soya; Cameroon’s spiced kebabs, for a bit more than standard price. In Cameroon location food can still be more expensive, but it’s nothing compared to the twenty dollar hamburgers at ski lodges back at home, or even five dollar airport coffee. Eventually we returned to the bus and five of us assumed our sardine like positions on the back bench seat while Andrew sat a little further forward on his own.

Six uncomfortable hours later, we arrived in Buea, the town on the foot of Mt. Cameroon (incidentally, also the town that my host family is from). The changes that had been gradual on our long drive there were stunning when we finally stood up and exited the white van to fetch our bags, which had been tied to the roof with long leather straps and a weather worn grey tarp. We bumbled around for a few minutes taking in the greener view and the shocking chill in the air. Just as the six of us were beginning to move away from the bus to a spot where it looked like other travelers were hailing taxis, the bus driver stopped us and offered to drive us to our hotel for free. His gesture of kindness meant a lot after having spent all day in the hot, packed van. We loaded back in and began the ten minute journey down winding roads up towards the foothills of the mountain to Landmark Hotel where we were greeted by a familiar face; Max.

Max is an incredibly talented artist from Buea whose acquaintance we had made of a previous trip to the area. He was more than kind to us, personally paying for a taxi that took us around all night as well as accompanying all six of us to the ecotourism agency to make arrangements for our climb. Four of us comfortably rode in the taxi while the other two were chauffeured by Max himself.
The ecotourism agency turned out to by a typical shop front. The distance between it and the street was occupied by several small concrete steps leading to a porch like platform with a few plastic chairs and wooden benches. The inside of the agency was minimal but hospitable with enough plastic chairs and benches to accommodate all six of us as well as Max and the director of the agency; a short, rotund, balding man dressed in a blue striped oxford button down, khaki trousers, and braided leather sandals. A much younger man lingered in the back of the shop behind our cluster of chairs and benches. I probably would not have noticed him had it not been for his pure white trousers and bright yellow Ed Hardy t-shirt.

The business of the evening then began with price lists being distributed, discounts awarded, and arguments waged about how much food and water, and how many porters we actually needed. In a gesture of kindness even stronger than before, Max paid for all of our food which Paul, the younger man in the bright clothes was promptly sent out to purchase before all of the stores closed for the evening.
In a final gesture of incredible kindness, Max directed us towards a restaurant where we celebrated Amelia’s 21st birthday with expensive food and some beer. Curiously, the waitress told us she had no Smirnoff ice, and proceeded to serve a bottle of it to a table outside. We concluded that she did not like us. After another brief outing to clerk’s quarters, a small but lively neighborhood that was not far from our hotel, we went back and attempted a good night’s sleep to prepare ourselves for an early morning departure.

At six o’clock we packed our backpacks, and headed out the door, where we met up with the director of the agency, wearing exactly the same clothes he had had on the night before, as well as Paul, who was dressed in muted browns and greens with rubber hiking shoes. We started walking right from our hotel. The six of us trailed Paul and the agency director up a few hills until we arrived at a small white house where four other men with aged hiking back packs were standing on the porch and attempting to overstuff their already full packs with bottles of water and loaves of bread as well as a jar of peanut butter we had brought along. After a breakfast of bread and peanut butter and some group pictures, we finally set off for hut one; the first of four huts that we would encounter on the trip.

The path wasn’t too tough or steep. It reminded me a lot of hiking in the Wienerwald when I was younger with its dense leafy forest and steep muddy paths ridden with gnarled tree roots. It was only when we reached a clearing and could look down onto the dense tree tops, or saw a tree on the side of the path with roots coming up out of the ground so that a sort of square hollow appeared in its trunk that it was clear I was in Africa and not Europe. For the first hour or two I walked in front of the pack with Paul, our previously flashy dressing guide. He was a quiet 18 year old in trade school to become a welder. He did express interest in marrying me, but wasn’t too persistent when I told him I wasn’t on the market. Hut one was elusively far away and our many water breaks only made it seem further. When we did eventually reach it, it seemed to appear out of nowhere and was a lot larger than any of us had expected. The hut actually consisted of two buildings. Decaying wooden stairs led up to a large building with a wrap around porch where our group of six collapsed on sturdy benches for a water and bread break. Adjacent to this was another white building that all of the porters and Paul congregated around and inside of to laugh and talk and smoke. The porters amazed me. Where as I was having a somewhat difficult time with my light backpack and comfortable running shoes, two of them were wearing plastic sandals and all four of them had heavy packs, yet none of them complained and all were moving much more quickly than I was.

Once we reached the tree line the world seemed to open up. The clouds above us obscured the peak of the mountain, but the view of Buea and Douala below was spectacular. Loose rocks and clumps of hardy grass were the only covering for the rest of the mountain and this made walking more difficult, at least for me. Paul and the porters did not seem phased by it at all. The hut after hut one is called the new hut on account of its being built more recently than the other three. It is constructed of silvery tin which sparkles and glares in the sunlight and can be seen all the way from Buea. During our break at the new hut, Paul told us about and pointed to a tree called the magic stick, on account of its always seeming so close but actually being quite far away. This caused us to start singing a song that had been popular a couple of years ago: “I got the magic stick, shortie you know I can hit once, I can hit twice.” The magic stick continued to seem quite near for about an hour until we finally passed it. After several more hours of determined uphill walking, we began to drift into hut two one by one. I encountered a shirtless Paul wielding a rusting machete to chop scrawny trees for firewood just as I was about to crest the hill that would reveal hut two. He informed me that I looked beautiful when I was tired and I told him I probably looked dead, but thank you.
I finally stumbled into hut two and immediately took of my shirt to lay it on the roof so that hopefully it could dry in the remaining sunlight. I then grabbed a sleeping mat and my sweatshirt and headed up the hill a bit where I rolled out the mat and collapsed into a dreamy daze like sleep for a few minutes. After recovering a bit, I began to appreciate the incredible view afforded by the altitude. The cities of Buea and Douala lay at the bottom of the mountain stretching out towards the horizon where a blue river snaked towards the sea. To the left and right the hills of the mountain stretched out into huge expanses of green grass spotted with collections of loose volcanic rock. It was truly beautiful. The color of the rock was the only thing that differentiated this landscape from the Alpine hikes of my childhood.

The six of us napped and read and listened to music for a few hours while our guides and porters prepared a meal for us and themselves. I felt bad and like I should have been helping, but my general experience has been to do what I think is expected of me, and I was most definitely not expected to help with the food, so I day dreamed. I covered various topics ranging from Chipotle burritos to Swan Lake before two pots and an assortment of bowls appeared outside the kitchen hut and we were summoned to a meal of spaghetti and a thin sauce of tinned tomato and chewy, fatty chunks of beef. We all shoveled copious amounts of spaghetti down our throats and went back for seconds before realizing that it had suddenly turned very cold outside and we retreated to the inside of the hut to don whatever warmer garments we had brought with us including sleeping bags. Intoxicated with carbohydrates and made stiff by extra layers of clothes, we stumbled back up the hill, rolled out sleeping mats and plopped down on top of them. We looked like fat, happy caterpillars in our hooded green sleeping bags as we watched the stars grow in nudmber above us and the lights of the city begin to sprout beautiful intricate patterns in the valley below. The temperature continued to fall with the setting sun and eventually the wind that had started to pick up forced us down from the hill to huddle around a fire built from the twiggy trees I had seen Paul cutting down earlier. We listened to the porters have animated conversations in Pidgin, which we could understand just enough of to discern the topics of conversation which ranged from history lessons in school to the best football player in the world. We also sipped whiskey from small plastic pouches and washed it down with kool-aid. The mixture of fire and whiskey helped to warm us up.

After inhaling a fair amount of smoke from the fire and listening to a vast array of stories and discussions, including a joking story from a porter named Simon about his plans to obtain political power and embezzle enough money to support his family for several generations to come, Paul appeared with two more pots and the same assortment of plates and spoons. This time, the larger pot contained rice instead of spaghetti, but the smaller one had the same thin tomato sauce. We ate bowls of rice huddled in our sleeping bags around the dying fire and then retired to our room where we laid six sleeping bags and mats out in a row on a raised wooden platform. After attempting to brush our teeth we each wormed our way into our own sleeping bag and attempted sleep kicking our neighbors if they began to snore or encroach upon our sleeping mat territory. The night passed slowly with patches of sleep and patches of tossing and turning and suddenly realizing that it isn’t cold enough to warrant wearing two sweatshirts and three pairs of pants.

5:30, the wake up time we had decided on as a group came sooner than I had expected. One by one we began to roll out off the wooden platform to brush our teeth. We waited until we heard movement next door where Paul and the porters were sleeping before rolling off of our wooden platform and stumbling out into the daylight where a pot of water was waiting for us to make tea with. After scarfing down some bread and peanut butter with the tea, Paul led five of us upwards towards hut three and the summit. One of our group unfortunately had to stay behind because of allergies.
The walk to hut three was far from easy, and at the beginning Paul warned us several times that if we didn’t pick up the pace, we would be unable to make it to the summit and make it down in the same day. It seemed impossible to go any faster even when we tried. The cold wind bit at us and crumbling rock make us lose our footing, not to mention that the mountain at this point was very steep and walking up it without the crumbling rocks would have been difficult enough. A few hours later, we reached hut three where we put on additional layers to guard ourselves against the wind, and stored our bags before continuing up to the summit.

Forty five minutes later Paul led us to a rock with a beat up metal sign claiming that we were at the peak of the mountain. Next to the beat up sign was a cracker tin which he opened to reveal a cheap school notebook and a pencil and then closed again. I am not sure about the purpose of the notebook, but I was far too focused on resisting the wind, which seemed intent on blowing me over, to bother to ask. After spending what was probably less than ten minutes at the summit, during which we were involved in various activities such as taking photos, filming ourselves doing a Cameroonian dance called the Bikutsi, and not being blown off the mountain, we began our descent back to hut three. Much to my surprise I was somewhat good at the going down part of mountain climbing and this placed me once again at the front of the pack with Paul, who was silent and kept his distance, looking back every once in a while to make sure I was still there.

Twenty minutes and we were already arriving at hut three where we picked up our bags and had a short chat with a South African man and his wife who were also climbing to the summit. They had also spent the previous night at hut two and were headed down the other side of the mountain on a trail that would take them a day longer than the Guinness trail, which we had climbed up and were also planning to climb down. An hour or so after beginning our descent we reached hut two where a lunch of rice and fish waited for us. The rice was orange and flavorless, but it filled up our empty stomachs with enough fuel to get us the rest of the way down. After an hour or so of eating and shoving belongings into various backpacks, we continued or descent towards Beua. My skill at descending faltered somewhat and I spent a lot of time falling on my bum and hands and broke out my first aid kit every time I started bleeding. Somehow, I was still a fair bit faster than many of the others, as was Eric, and we continued on ahead of them taking a short break at the new hut and a break at hut one where we met up with one of the porters named Peter who walked the rest of the way down with us. The tree line started a little bit before hut one and once we entered it, the going got much easier and I fell less.

The trees finally spit us out in front of a prison and a field of cows. We followed Peter down several more rolling hills until we finally reached a main road. Several taxis passed us up before one took pity on us and stopped. The three of us shoved packs into the trunk before loading ourselves in with two other women and heading into town. Peter graciously paid for the taxi ride when we arrived at the agency where the three of us collapsed onto the wooden benches on the concrete porch and chugged bottles of water.

After taking several minutes to recover, I created a new mission for myself: I was going to find a shirt so that I could have a clean one for that night. This began and ended with me speaking to a vendor selling football paraphernalia about a block away from the agency, but in between I visited a few other vendors on different streets to see what was available. Eric and Peter put up with me for a little while before going to buy food and sitting back on the porch. I eventually migrated back there as well with the additional possession of a low quality Eto’o jersey that set me back three thousand francs. An hour of sitting on the benches passed and the liquor pouches left over from the night before came out and were consumed, washed down with some top grenadine generously donated to us by Peter. An older man appeared and began to chat with Eric about having been invited to the Boston marathon in his youth, but having been unable to obtain a US visa, he was unable to go. He proclaimed that he had run the Mount Cameroon marathon a few months ago. I was incredibly impressed. It took me two days to walk up and down the mountain. The marathon runners make it up and down in less than five hours. Half an hour later I wandered across the street and purchased some more whiskey packets to keep life interesting; an hour later the rest of our group finally piled our of a taxi and we showed the agency director that we had in fact made it alive.

When we finally made it back to the hotel to take much anticipated showers, we found that there was no electricity or running water. Hardly a hindrance; the hotel manager gave each room a set of candles and each of us showered using a plastic cup and a bucket of water by candlelight. I might not have sparkled, but I got several layers of dirt off with that shower. I then donned my new Eto’o jersey and we headed to clerk’s quarters for some excellent braised fish and some more drinks. By midnight each of us were back in our beds at the hotel on the verge of falling asleep from exhaustion. The next morning, after paying for our stay, we departed in two small groups for the bus station to fold our sore bodies up into contorted positions for six hours and listen to various salesmen who happened to board the bus. The first sold newsletters of witchcraft which reminded me of celebrity tabloids back at home. One preached to us, which seemed fitting as it was a Sunday, and the last tried to sell Ginseng powder, claiming it was a cure for all sorts of maladies and also offering various life advice. I enjoyed his spiel the most. After six hours of being curled up around my backpack with my legs over the wheel of the bus, it finally pulled into the bus station in Yaounde and, to my surprise, I was still able to stand up. I carefully uncurled myself and made my way back into this city that has become my home. We caught a cab back to the apartment where I focused very hard on not moving my sore legs for several hours.

Overall, the trip was incredible. Max, Peter, and our bus driver from Yaounde to Buea were excellent wake up calls to the human capacity for kindness to strangers and near strangers, something I find myself forgetting in a city where I am constantly warding off whistling men. Their kindnesses have helped me to try and give everyone I come across more of a chance. If I assume the worst then the worst is far more likely to come out in a person. There is nothing like climbing an active volcano to remind you of the grandeur of our planet, and nothing like meeting the people of Buea to remind of the goodness of humanity.

Please excuse the fact that this is horribly written. Kthanks.