Cameroon Day 2

Arrival in Yaounde, Cameroon
(Click on pics for larger image)

For GP Chantal Biya results, go to: http://www.cyclingnews.com/protour_oct07.php?id=road/2007/oct07/chantalbiya07/default

The alarm rings… actually it is Paul Simon and Garfunkle’s “Sound of Silence” that I have as an alarm ring tone on my cell phone. Doesn’t really matter, it’s 6am and I’ve been awake since 5am. Just to make things worse I couldn’t get to sleep last night either. Oh well, c’est la vie. Just as I reach for my phone, there’s a knock on the door. Actually more of a bang, the kind of knock you see the cops use in bad hollywood movies. It’s our Soigneur, making sure everyone is up. His name is Nene. Well, that isn’t his real name, I don’t actually know his real first name. He’s part Portugese, part Senegalese and part French. He used to a Festina Soigneur, and over the past few years he has been the Soigneur/Masseur for anyone who needs him. Believe me, he gets plenty of work! He knows more people in cycling that Jean Marie Leblanc.

After a brief shower we all wondered down to breakfast in zombie mode. Seems that ALL the teams going to Cameroon had chosen to use this Formula 1 hotel. Everyone was here from France to Slovakia. Breakfast was guzzled and before we knew it we were standing in the car park in front of the hotel (still in zombie mode) loading our kit back into the vehicles for the 5 minute drive to the airport. Once at the airport we headed to the “Air Cameroon” section and waited in line with all the other teams. Bit by bit teams were sent to check-in. Then it came to us.
“Team?” The man with the clipboard asked.
“Castelsarrasin” we replied.
A long pause as the guy with clipboard scanned his papers. Nothing. He scanned again. Nothing.
“You are not on the list” he said. We all looked at eachother worried.
We were sent over to a corner of the room while our DS ran around trying to sort out the problem. Eventually, after much waiting, the on site reprisentative of the Cameroon Cycling Federation came over and told us we were not on the flight list, but all he needed was a piece of paper with each of our names on it. Once that was done he came with us to the check-in desk. Although we were not on the flight, all it took was this scrap piece of paper for us to be on our way to Africa. Once checked-in we headed to securty and wondered: “if we are not on the flight list… will we be on the hotel list???” We could see ourselves getting there and not having any hotels, having to all share one room, sleeping on the floor.

Sorry guys, you are not on the flight list. Go over there and wait...

The plane was fine. Air Caermoon is on the British Black list for airlines. Meaning the Brits deam it so unsafe they refuse to allow the company to land in the UK. The French evidently deam it borderline enough to allow Air Cameroon to use it’s airports. The flight was long and boring as I was sitting near the back of the plane away from all my team mates. There were TV screens in the plane but no movie, no music, nothing. We all tried to stand up and walk around as much as possible to loosen our legs, but got yelled at my a somewhat unfriendly cabin crew.

Team CACastelsarrasin, we had our own team plane as we flew over the Sahara desert for HOURS.

Air-traffic controle? more like jungle-traffic controle.

We landed in Yaounde at an airport that seemed to be slap bang in the middle of the jungle. We got there early afternoon and had planned to go for a short spin in the evening. We got off the plane, and all the riders had to give their passports to some guy. The guy took the passports away and we didn’t see our passports for 2 days. Quite a nervous time. We actually wondered if we would ever see them again. You hear so many stories these days. We eventually got them back with Cameroon visas in there.

"Passports please: so we can make copies and sell them on the back market"

After picking up our somewhat battered luggage we went outside where they piled and piled our bags ontop of very small busses, shuved our bikes in the back of a truck, and shuved us inside the busses like sartines in a tin. We were sittong on top of eachother. I was sitting on the floor, pushed against a door.

And that is the bigger and more comfortable bus. Luggage is caried African style.

"Bicycles, handle with care", hmmm....

Pile in boys, we can get another 3 teams in here!

It was about an hour’s drive to the hotel, and at first we drove through jungle and past small lived in huts. I had done some research online before coming to Cameroon and it looked like there was a proper city in Yaounde. But driving through the town had me and my sardine bus partners in a state of near shock. The bus went quiet. Even in the city everyone lived in tin huts, shantytowns and in the mud. These people have NOTHING. The whole city knew we were the riders coming in for the GP Chantal Biya. And we got stared at and even insulted a few times. We were told we were going to get killed in the race, called homos, told to go home etc. As it actually turns out these people were not at all aggressive or nasty, they are just like any sports fans in the approach of a big event. But for us having just gotten off the plane and alrady in shock from the living conditions, we took it badly.

By the time we got the hotel it was almost dark. There goes our ride. And to be honnest most of us were basically scared to leave the hotel that first evening. With our European eyes, we didn’t know how to interpret what we were seeing. We saw as shanty towns and assumed we knew what that meant: deprivation, desease, drugs, crime, crime and crime. As we woul find out with time, that isn’t really what it means, that’s just life over there.

The hotel room left a little to be desired. The bed was fine and the room wasn’t actually that bad. We even had air-conditioning. However the bathroom was a little.. ermm…. Pictures speak for themselves.


You can’t drink the water over there, so even to brush your teeth we had to use bottled water. That was a little difficult at first as you don’t really think about it, we are so used to just turning the tap on and using the water. Even showering was interesting. For one thing the water was yellow. So we had to be carefull not to injest any water while showering. It makes you realise how much water we actually have go in or around our mouths without thinking about it. And then of course the shower itself was a character. As you showered the water went all over the toilet, and even as far as the sink. The whole place was saoking wet. And it seemed that the majority of the water was aimed at the toilet paper… next time, take the paper out of the room before you shower. Live and learn.