Northern Cameroon
I thought a lot about Ethiopia on the trip through part of northern reaches of Cameroon. Cameroon is one of the most complex countries one can expect to find in Africa. There are over 200 tribes and languages in an area almost identical in size to Great Britain. Many of these tribes are located in a relatively small area called Northern Cameroon. Since Cameroon is so oddly shaped and this is main reason for so much diversity, please look at a map ( http://www.lonelyplanet.com/maps/africa/cameroon/ ) to understand how small of an area between Central African Republic, Chad, Nigeria and Niger (by crossing Lake Chad) makes up Northern Cameroon. The complex mix of tribes is similar and as traditional as the peoples of Southern Ethiopia. A lot of the north’s landscape is flat, dry Sahel used for farming and grazing, but the most interesting areas are hilly. The striking similarity between Northern Ethiopia and Northern Cameroon is the terraced hillsides used for farming. And when I think of Ethiopia, I also think of Peru and Bolivia where the terraced hills are even more spectacular. While Northern Cameroon is not nearly as beautiful as the Andes or Ethiopian highlands, the combination of variety in landscapes and peoples certainly makes it one of the most interesting places I have visited.
Our trip with Abdou (recommended guide: Abdoulaye Farikou, Nord Cameroun Express Tours, BP 90 Maroua, Cameroon, +237 9946 8797, abdoulayefarikou@yahoo.fr) focused on the villages with markets as well as the wildlife in the surrounding area. Each day we attended a market in a small village which attracted many people from the village and outlying area. Most of the markets are held once a week and provide a place where producers can sell their goods, buyers can purchase needed goods for the upcoming week and tribal people can get together and drink bili-bili (beer), eat food and discuss the latest news. The interest for us was seeing the local products and seeing the tribal people going about their business. My favorite part of the markets is approaching or departing the village and seeing the brightly dressed women walking to the market with their goods for sale or trade balanced on their heads or walking home with their heads carrying the goods they have picked up at the market. I have been meaning to write a new article on beauty covering the women of Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar and Cameroon, but in case I continue to forget that one let me say that some of the most beautiful images of humans I have in my mind are the VERY tall and thin women of Cameroon swaying in their long, outrageously bright patterned dresses balancing impossible loads on their heads as if they are wearing a baseball cap at most. They turn towards our car as it approaches and the most beautiful, giant smiles stretch across their faces and they wave to us obviously happy that we are there. No other place I have visited do women consistently react in such manner. I always take note when a woman smiles and waves to me as I pass by, but I do so because it is often infrequent especially where there is Muslims or animists (or the orthodox people in Ethiopia). Not the case in Northern Cameroon. Surprisingly to me, Northern Cameroon has some of the most beautiful women in the world. I saw a picture of Tuareg women from Niger (I only saw Tuareg men in Morocco) recently and they looked quite amazing so my jury is still out about the most beautiful women in Africa.
The wildlife of Northern Cameroon includes a fantastic amount of birds as well as parks containing many of the animals for which Africa is most famous. We spent three days at Waza National Park. It is home to big cats, elephants, many species of antelope and giraffe. We spent a lot of time looking for elephants, but the best we got was a multi-kilometer-away glance. They were on the move and not to be caught from behind. But the giraffes (West African/Nigerian – my first chance to see this sub-species) more than made up for the missing elephants. Twice we saw groups of giraffe between fifteen and twenty in number. I think the most giraffes I have ever seen in one place is around eight so Waza’s giraffes were quite a scene. We tracked some lion prints, but also failed to find them. We also found a fresh track from a giant python, but we could not locate it around its pond. One of these days I will finally get a look at a big python in nature. The best antelope at Waza are the roan. They have nicely painted facemasks of white and black against chestnut brown and they also have long horns. Many migratory birds are in the area this time of year as well as the locals. We were very close to one of the most strikingly colorful birds I have seen, the Northern Carmine Bee-Eater, and I was able to get some spectacular pictures of it perched nicely on a bare branch. I would like to get back to Northern Cameroon to see many of the other parks that we missed since Waza was very good.
The spectacular part of the landscapes was always ROCK. Ancient lava flows in the area have been worn so that there are many interesting formations. Some of these are quite similar to the American Southwest. Many places were just rock jumbles, but amazing ones at that. Often there would be crazy spires of different rocks piled impossibly high and looking like they would tumble over at any time. We stayed on Lake ???? and it is surrounded by these rock piles as well as having islands that are more of the same. Seeing villages and homesteads built out of mud and stone right up against these outcrops always looks beautiful. One of the pinnacles on the way to Waza is said to be used by animists for sacrificial ceremonies (goats… I think… hope). The most spectacular landscape is the Rhumsiki area on the border of Nigeria where volcanic plugs stand tall. The hardest rock of the cores of many ancient volcanoes jut into the air since the softer surrounding rock and soil has eroded away. Some of these formations are as good as what exists in Monument Valley, Utah.
We went trekking for elephants at Elephant Camp (we heard elephants, but trying to catch up to what must have been a moving herd proved impossible in the dense bush). There we discovered that what appears to be bone-dry almost desert land really contains a lot of water holes and streams. These water sources are quite beautiful against the dry land and they contain a lot of life including enough fish to sustain a whole way of human life which seems so out of place. Out in the middle of dry earth, the peoples are fishers and their major source of protein is fish. The Cameroonians are able to sustain life in areas that seem impossible for farming and fishing. What I really liked throughout the areas that we visited is that the people seemed to live in harmony producing enough and consuming only what is needed. Their crops are mostly grains although they also have a rich assortment of vegetables and fruits. They use every part of their plants for food, tools and roofing. They also grow a lot of cotton and we stopped at one site where the village’s crop was being bundled to be taken to Douala. They raise goats and cows mostly and they eat a lot of meat from these. As well as the storage that animals provide, they also dry fish and vegetables to be used throughout the year since most of the year is quite dry.
Their homes are of two varieties: 1) substantially-built walled homesteads made up of multiple stick/mud or brick or stone cylinders (or lesser numbers of cubes) or 2) easily-moved nomadic huts. The design of the fixed homesteads is quite ingenious and different from what I have seen in most of Africa, but similar to what is found in the Ethiopian highlands. Nomadic structures are always ingenious because they are substantial enough yet moveable without using Mayflower. I am sure resources are taxed in this area, but it appeared much less so than in so many other places I have seen. Like Ethiopia, it will only take a bad drought to turn everything upside down, but in normal times the people of Northern Cameroon are doing quite well balancing their traditional lives with pressures from the modern world. What I would say about Northern Cameroon is that it should be a high priority visit for anyone interested in real and diverse African culture. I would place it at the top of my list for that purpose and I found its tourism refreshingly sane and fun compared to I saw in Ethiopia. I believe the main reason for that is that Northern Cameroon peoples have never been isolated whereas Ethiopia’s isolation seems to make tourism not nearly as fun.
Tags: Africa, cameroon
vagabondrick
Sorry you missed the elephants – the rest of the Cameroon experience sounded great.