Well this is the final entry from Cameroon. Last week you saw me head to the capital Yaounde from Bamenda on what was a long and memorable trip to say the least! Anyways, over to the diary!

Day 16 7th of July 2011

Here I sit getting the last two drops of green ink from my pen La Cintra a positively nice little restaurant in central Yaounde. The room (I stayed in) proved perfectly adequate I mean both best night sleep since Limbe at least if not Douala or Kribi at some point. Still the chest is heavy coughs. It could easily be put down to pollution and dust, of which there are a lot of both in Cameroon,

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I didn’t unpack much, so packing wasn’t hard. I slept through solidly until 10:30 AM I was all sorted by 12:00 PM! Time to check out, leaving my bag at reception and I was initially not too impressed with but they are actually friendly. I didn’t mention the cold shower. Somehow I survived. I needed a shower today then all done and in the correct order I got a shared taxi to central Yaounde.

The one thing this place has is buildings! Yes, stuck a couple of decades back in design maybe but they’re interesting enough for a few snaps. It’s spread out over a few hills. The boulevards are wide the Lonely Planet describes it as pleasant – maybe going a little too far nevertheless it’s not the world’s worst capital city.

Anyways I was dropped near all the ministries and soon found my plan destination of the day the National Museum however even though today is not Monday it was closed for refurbishing. Housed in the grand white old presidential palace the guy at the gate wouldn’t even let me take a photo of it! Merde! I did get some photos of the traditional huts outside at least. I walked down the road taking photos and annoying locals. As I got close to the Notre Dame cathedral I felt a guy behind being way too close I stopped and looked at him. Continued on – felt it again I went through the church gate and he crossed the road at the modern but large cathedral. There was a service going on I sat in the back row and tried to observe the service.

I looked at my bag he tried to open yes – he’d had a good look but not taking anything. Video camera at the bottom snap snap in my pocket had the church delivered me from potential robbery. Well, probably not but thanks JC anyway! So Cameroon is slowly but surely coming to a close so is this diary plan is Internet thank get bag and airport will be quite early for my flight probably but that is not a bad thing.

Really liked Cameroon almost on par with Ethiopia but not quite travel was easy with Nila too which helped the she said I kept her entertained best place I’ll Limbe wildlife centre for sure. We loved Kribi too but got till the end of the month in the UK now plus Europe. [I’m talking about where my big trip of 2011 was taking me next here]

I grabbed my bag but getting a taxi took some time. There they had said around 2000 CFA in the end we settled for 3000 CFA an as it took fair 40 minutes to the price I think was fair. Nice airport much better than Douala, which was a bit of a dive. Check in was easy, but then a departure tax apparently not included in the already absorbent ticket price! Well there went my €10 – most of the CFA I had and the chance to be under budget for Cameroon.

Yes I am ******! I can’t remember the last time I had to manually pay the departure tax. Bangkok in 1999 I think the only other time. Not sure it’s clear in the Lonely Planet, either must look that up although I think I’ve already tossed the pages [printed out guide book pages]. I’m not writing on a table because the woman at the bar/restaurant I said I couldn’t use the bar without buying something. I couldn’t afford to buy anything because of the departure tax so – it’s a vicious circle!

How could I fall so foul so quickly on my own? Not eating much, the neck is a big pain in the neck lol! So I am here on the bench is writing the last entry of this diary what a ride from Kazakhstan to Cameroon! So the sun is set, it is around 1900 hours and two hours from the scheduled departure time. I have I had a TV in front of me which is between French and English programmes it seems I have arrived at the final page so I guess it’s time to sign off from Africa!

And thus I took a plan back to Europe and UK to continue my journey. Cameroon was done and dusted, and today it stands out as one of the best experiences of 2011, where I had a lot of experiences! Thanks for tuning in, next week I will featuring entries from somewhere else, so look out for that! Thanks for joining me today! Take care and May the Journey Never End!