We have a great breakfast in the hotel; really appreciate the place. We were told by some people it is not so wonderful – for us it was the second best so far!
We are on the runway by 09.05 flying along the atlantic coast which is just one long beach. Impressive cloud formations are building up and we get clearance from lagos tower to fly directly on 21‘000 feet to douala. Over lagos bad weather is building up and we climb to 27‘000 feet to avoid turbulence by flying around some big could formations.
Approaching douala airport, we are handled by a very rude air traffic controller. You don‘t feel really welcomed. On the ground we have the handler and refueling people showing up pretty quickly. While they are filling up, the fuel guy tells me „pas fumer, pas fumer“. We are actually quite a bit surprised by his comment since his old filling truck leaks everywhere and nobody in the right mind would smoke here. So i take some pictures and immediately a gendarme is showing up telling me to follow him to his office. There i am told „pas filmer, pas filmer“ which we understood as „not fumer, not fumer“. The guy is not very sympathetic and wants my idea. What a dump his office is!! He calls up his commandant who of course is not around. Furthermore he wants my id card. Waiting and waiting and somebody from the airport authority is showing up. The radio in the office blares out a christian station and tells how good the world is; it‘s really like in a movie.
Finally we drive to his chief‘s office – another complete dump. At least his place is air-conditioned which makes it more livable. He starts up his computer, a model from the eighties, and tries to show me who the boss is. Of course i apologize, show him the pictures in the camera. The handler and i are told to step out of the office and the airport authority man follows us shortly. These two officials are worried the most that there is a written record of the issue and they will get in trouble with their superiors. So i ask whether we can take care of the issue by paying some kind of „fine“ and i am told that is what they negotiated. Back in the chief‘s office i have to delete all pictures but one, some money changes discreetly hands, i get my id card back and we are off to the taxi stand at the terminal. It turns out this is the most expensive picture i have ever taken!!
The handler comes with me to the meridien where rainer and tom already checked in. I get a room which is of course not made yet! I simply don‘t care anymore, tell the girl to do it now and join the rest of the crew for a burger at the pool. Also here the service is not really top and the help at reception to log into the hotel‘s internet is not that great! Not really my day today!!
At least the internet is high speed here so i can skype with my wife and daughter; video quality is fantastic and fc basle wins the game against yb and is swiss football champion! Later we meet with some of our business acquaintances at the bar of the hotel. Later this week, cameroon celebrates her 50th year of independence and there is also an international conference her; the meridien is just full. After a beer in the bar, we drive to a local restaurant where tom and i have a poulet dc; meaning a chicken directeur général, a typical cameroon dish. It is delicious and we talk about africa, europe and their problems and business opportunities.
Afterwards we go to a local jazz club and listen to fantastic local musicians. Before our trip, i did not know too much about african music. Just the known artiste from mali, côte d‘ivoire or algeria like khaled, ali farka touré, angélique kidjo, salif keita, etc. But these people in here just make fantastic music and one starts to realize the that roots of blues and reggae really go back to africa.
Later in the evening we are back in the hotel. What started off as a pretty difficult day in cameroon ended actually quite nicely. It is much cooler now and while it is 25 degrees at night, we are discussing whether we should put on a sweater. Looks like we are adjusting to africa!
