bugsonmyboard

I crossed the border into Cameroon at dark after 11 hours ride from Abuja and collapsed in an oven-like flea infested room.  I didn’t care and passed out almost immediately. But I do think that I have fleas now. The guys at this small border crossing were friendly as could be and made the end of the day a piece of cake.

 

The road near the border with Nigeria was rumored to be very difficult, especially in the wet season.  Fortunately for me, we are right on the edge of the wet season and the roads are still in decent shape.   The roads are currently being graded, most sections are pretty good, and soon enough the trip from the Nigerian border should be smooth as can be.

As I rode into the Bamenda Highlands of Northern Cameroon I felt wonderful cool air rushing past my face for the first time in months.  I wound up a steep valley with an opposite wall of dark sheer cliffs with vines running down them and topped by lush vegetation.  The never-ending bends, sparse traffic, and perfect tarmac made it difficult to resist laying the bike over hard through the bends on the throttle, scraping away precious millimeters of rubber on the tires that had to make it all the way to Cape Town.   The steep jungle valleys and crisp air reminded me of a miniature version of the Andes.

I had a bit too much fun on one of the bumpy sections of road and managed to break my surf rack again. This time the rear arm of tubular aluminum snapped right off.

I rigged up a surfboard belay anchor to get me down the mountain.

I simply wandered down the street in the random little village that I slept in the night before and didn’t have to go far before I found someone to help.  With my metal working savior, James, I carried a relic of a pipe bender out from a garage and he and his crew got to work fashioning me a new arm for my surfboard rack from piece of tubular steel.

The entire operation required some bending, cutting and welding to make a bend that was tight enough without collapsing the tube.  Get a load of his welder:

And viola – a new handmade surfboard rack !

All of this was done right in the front of his house with the whole family milling about.

The chicken just chilled in the house.

They use to most primitive of tools and materials that are on hand to make things work.   Back home in the US you could imagine someone saying that the problem simply couldn’t be solved, but here these guys use ingenuity and persistence to the job done.  I watched James spend hours trying to extract a bolt from my rack that was frozen in place and had the head snapped off.  He must have welded a rod onto it to try to turn it more than a dozen times before he finally managed it.

The shop crew all ride motorbikes too.

But they weren’t really fans of airboxes.

After spending nearly the entire day at his house I bid farewell to James and his family with my surfboard again solidly attached to my bike and rode out to the coast.  Once again, I’d quickly found help when I needed it most – with my poor surfboard swinging in the wind.  Days like this make it feel as though when you’re chasing after something worthwhile the universe truly can conspire to make it happen. Maybe it’s just easy to perceive it that way.  Or maybe there is little difference between the two 😉

Just before dark I found a nice reef break peeling across a tight little bay filled with dark brown volcanic sand.  My view from the water was the volcanic cone of Mount Cameroon that towered just behind my camp, ringed in wispy clouds.

The next morning I surfed until lightening strikes near the horizon chased me out of the water and motored south to find another wave and another camp for the night. As usual, I arrived after a day of riding with my face caked in diesel dust, looking like  a character straight out of a ‘Road Warrior’ movie.

And as usual I receive a friendly greeting, offer of a cold beer and a gorgeous spot on the beach to pitch my camp and rest.  Life could be worse.

At my next surf stop I met the local surfer, Peggy.   By all accounts, he is the only surfer in all Cameroon, surfing here since 1994, when his boss brought him a surfboard from France.  Since then, his surfboard collection has grown substantially, but company in the water has not. Unfortunately – the ocean provided no waves for Peggy and I to trade.

Leaving Cameroon, I found a gorgeous undulating dirt track leading me towards the Gabon border. No trucks running me off the road, no massive tarmac craters, and no diesel dust collecting on my face.  The short rains from the previous nights had put just enough moisture in the ground to make the dirt nice and tacky – perfect for railing around corners with a confident feeling about the friction between the rubber of your tires and the surface below.   It was the most fun I’d had riding in months and I was stoked to have a long dirt track and nothing to do all day but ride.  It’s the start of the rainy season in this part of the world and I wanted to make some progress south before the Congo turns into a proper mud pit, so I kept on the gas.