Note - this is a story from my past. In 2004 I went to Cameroon for 5 months volunteering as a nurse. One of the things I did was climb Mt. Cameroon with a couple of friends and their guides. Mt Cameroon is a few feet taller then Mt Rainier but is right on the equator and coast so there is no snow and it is an active volcano. It erupted 3 years before we climbed it. I came across this story Vicki wrote about her experience. It was really fun for me to read and reminisce - it is probably too long for most of you, but if you got the time and inclination, go for it. I attached a ton pictures from the event to give you a better understanding of how interresting this mountain is. This story is totally accurate. It reminded me of a lot of things I forgot - hence the publication so I don't lose this story and memory.
Last week I, Vicki Smith, climbed to the top of Mt Cameroon, 4095 meters (14000 ft) above sea level, starting from 915 meters. I’m so proud of myself I’m speechless in my own company. You may all praise me.
It was the right time to go. Quinae was flying home, Roger was bored, and I had another staff meeting that I absolutely had to miss. Roger made arrangements to stay with a fellow VSO (Volunteers Serving Abroad – the British equivalent of Peace Corps) who lives in Buea at the base of the mountain, and Quinae checked with the Ecotourism Agency to make sure tours were still available. It was iffy; the rainy season started a month ago and most people forecast a miserable experience. “It won’t rain,” Quinae, said. “I’ve been praying.” We all laughed at her. Praying for three clear days in June is like asking the government for free and fair elections. “It won’t rain!” Quinae repeated. “I’ve got the mustard seed going on.” Roger’s an atheist, but even he went to church the night before we left. Just keep the taxi on the road, that’s all Roger asks of God.
Well, almost all. Roger’s a birdwatcher. While his wife Jean teaches midwifery at Shisong, he treks for weeks at a time, into the deep bush, into villages which have never seen electricity and where no one speaks English. How he communicates, “I’m here to look at your birds,” God only knows. I classify him with Tim Mussen, a hero of mine, who is currently pursuing a PhD in fish. I know that what they do is helpful to conservation and all that, but I prefer to think of their work as a pure, single minded, pointless passion. On particularly frustrating days I tend to think, maybe that’s what following your call means. To choose, or be chosen by, some meaningless and impossible task, then allow it to consume you. Anyway, since he got here a year ago, Roger must have seen almost every bird in Cameroon, which has more avian species than any other country on earth. He was missing three which are endemic to Mt. Cameroon, meaning they cannot be found anywhere else. He may have prayed to see them, but he never said so. He did say that if we didn’t get rained on, he would convert.
The Ecotourism Agency is supported by DED, the German equivalent of the Peace Corps. Their goal is to preserve the mountain habitat by making it profitable, so you can’t climb it without paying for a guide, a porter, and a daily tourism fee. You have to book the morning before, so we had a day to kill before tackling the mountain. We decided to catch a taxi down to Limbe on the coast, only forty minutes away.
Limbe’s an old colonial town, originally called Victoria, and formerly the nation’s chief port. You would never guess to see in now, a sleepy little fishing village, with only an abandoned, broken pier remaining. It’s a nice place. You can sit on the black sand beach and order fried plantains, beer, and lovely fresh fish. You can walk among the fishing boats and haggle over their catch: barracuda, capitaine, eel, octopus, sting ray, all piled on little wooden tables and sold regardless of size, species, or endangered status. There’s a fine little zoo which rescues various monkeys and apes; man, I can watch chimpanzees all day long. Limbe is also known for its botanical gardens. Like the zoo, they charge an entry fee three times higher for non-nationals (read: white man) as for nationals, and twice that again to take pictures, but it’s worth it. You walk around and think, wow, this is what every botanical garden I’ve ever seen is trying to imitate.
There’s something about the coast, any coast, which fixes you in space and dislodges you from time. Confronted with this implacable reference I knew that I was a few degrees north of the equator, that if I sailed straight ahead I would eventually hit the South Pole, that I’m in Africa half a world away from home. But the ocean never changes. Notwithstanding the distant off-shore oil rig, the view is about the same as it was three hundred years ago. Black water fringed with jungle hills, dugout canoes passing back and forth. You can almost see pirates sailing through the weird volcanic outcrops to anchor in the bay. I like Limbe.
The next day we arrived at the agency at eight o’clock sharp, as we had been told that we couldn’t possibly start any later. It’s funny, we know that nothing happens on time, we know there’s no point in being punctual, but we can’t help ourselves. We always think, every single time, well, maybe this time they mean it. While we waited Roger swore happily and inventively. He and Jean are both really funny in that understated British way. It must be frustrating for them here; the humor is so different and no one gets their jokes. “Fifty years we’ve been perfecting our irony,” they say, “and it’s wasted on this country.”
I was too nervous about the next few days to stress over an hour or two. Everyone had told me that it was a hard slog. Cameroonians told me that they didn’t expect me to finish it. Our host Maggie had said cheerfully, “Oh, it was the worst experience of my life. Lost nine of my toenails.” Another VSO couple had tried just a month before; the husband had had to stop after the first day and they walked down the way they came. Roger said that he felt sorry for the wife; all of the interesting sites are on the second two days. He said this four times, in fact, and I realized that turning back was not an option for me.
The day was overcast, but then it’s always overcast in Beua; the volcano sits in a pool of permanent cloud. If you didn’t know better, you could live in the town a month and never suspect that there was a mountain there. “Well, let’s get this over with,” Roger said, shouldering his binocular bag. “Get it crossed off me list.”
“Just think,” I said, “in three days you can say, thank God, I never have to do that again.”
Quinae is a serious backpacker and had no fear; she had declined a porter and was carrying seven liters of water. “You’re only doing this to say you’ve done it?” she asked Roger. He grinned at her. “What’s there to look forward to? Three days walk and not a single pub.”
I clenched a fist. “I figure,” I said grimly, “if I can do this, if I can really find the strength within myself to tough it out, well, then, I have the right to complain about it every step of the way.”
Quinae sighed. “Oh, this’ll be great fun.”
Of course I didn’t really complain. Didn’t have the breath. Unlike the others, I hadn’t done serious walking for months. I live on a hilltop and tend to stay on the hilltop. I had to tell myself, don’t keep thinking about the time. Second hour out of three days, third hour of three days, it starts to get depressing. A particularly low moment was around hour four, when I actually checked the time and realized that it was really hour one and a half.
There are at least three completely separate ecosystems on the mountain, and the transitions between them are not gradual. One step you’re in rainforest, the next you’re in grasslands. The rainforest is magnificent. When I took my eyes off the path and looked around – never a good idea, slippery roots and my natural balletic grace don’t mix – I thought, wow. This is what the botanical garden in Limbe is trying to imitate. There were massive trees and massive ferns and honest to God Tarzan vines looped over everything. (I do not advise trying to swing on a Tarzan vine, by the way, even in jest. It is not dignified.)
The air was full of birdsong. Roger would occasionally stop and listen, or pull out his binoculars and tape recorder. Usually he would just pause, say something like, “Double spurred franklin. One of three franklin species found here. Endemic to Cameroon, quite common in the Bamenda highlands,” and keep walking. He knew far more about the flora and fauna than the guide. We saw a lovely orchid growing from a crooked tree branch, its roots dangling free to soak up the mist. “Family orchidaceae, parasitical variety I think,” Roger said, “Don’t know any more than that. Hey, Sam, what’s this?”
“Ah yes!” said Samuel, coming up behind us. “That is a flower.”
That’s where the trudge really began. It’s not a technical climb, but it was steep enough that I was grabbing hold of tufts of grass to pull myself up. The other two charged on ahead while I crawled painfully along, now counting individual steps. They would stop every now and then to wait, and then they would amuse themselves by lying to me about how much further we had to go.
It was freezing up there. You have to realize we only had fleece jackets and maybe a wind breaker for our warmest clothes. To maintain our heat we had to keep going. So when we stopped for good I quickly dived in my sleeping bag to keep warm.
We would snack extravagantly when we stopped. Quinae had packed some serious food. Roger had scoffed at this American decadence; he never brought anything but sardines and bread on his travels. Quinae had at first demurred to his experience but then she thought, “I’ve been on lots of hikes and have enjoyed all of them. Roger has had many miserable, deprived, near-death experiences. I need to listen to me.” We were really glad she did. Our guides were a bit perplexed at how often and how much we ate. They had brought along koki, a mixture of cassava and hot peppers wrapped in banana leaf, and they didn’t break it out much.
When we finally reached the hut where we were to spend the night, I could not contain my joy. Quinae slapped me on the back and commended my perseverance. Samuel put down the forty pound bag that he had carried on his head this whole way and said, “Very good. We will rest here a few moments and then continue.” I nearly passed out, and even Roger and Quinae gaped for a moment. Sam’s face broke into a wide grin. “Sarcasm!” cried Roger, delighted, and he high-fived the guy like a man whose work here on earth is done.
The cinder block hut is not particularly comfortable; there’s a big wooden shelf to sleep on and that’s about it. Quinae immediately curled up in her sleeping bag, even though it was far too early to bed down. “I’m not sleeping,” she said, eyes closed. “I’m just cuddling myself a little.” “Ah, keep it clean, mate,” Roger said, and then went off to collect something to make a fire. Our guides laughed when they saw our pile of kindling, then they disappeared for a half hour. They returned with more than enough firewood to burn all night. I hadn’t seen a tree for more than three hours, but I asked no questions.
Our guides may not have been botanists, but they were good company. We talked about all kinds of things around the campfire. They told us about the mountain tribes, and about the recent eruptions in 1998 and 2000, when the lava flows reached all the way to Limbe and cooled in the ocean. We found out that we were walking the track of the Race of Hope, whose proceeds go to AIDS research and the winners of which make it to the summit and back in about four hours. They were curious about us, as well. When Quinae explained that she was a private volunteer, using her own money and earning nothing, they said, “Ah, that is why you did not want a porter.” Joseph turned to me. “You are the same?” “No, I get paid to be here.” I do, just not very much.
Joseph nodded wisely. “Yes, that is obvious. It is written all over your face.”
“Um… how written?”
“Too much money will spoil a child; that is why you are so weak.” So sad.
Joseph turned out to be a strong believer of the Baptist variety, Samuel was a skeptic who liked needling him, Quinae’s a Mormon and I’m Catholic, so we had interesting conversations about religion as well. It was humbling, actually. I’m supposed to be a missionary, but the Cameroonians knew the Bible way better than I do.
We slept like the dead, at least, the girls did. Poor Roger was woken up by a mouse jumping on his head, and then he had to listen to the scurry of rat feet, my snoring, and Quinae talking in her sleep for the rest of the night.
The first four hours of the next day are kind of a blur. I started the morning at daybreak in an expansive mood, singing “When I look down from lofty mountain’s splendor” to myself as we went along. As the day went on, and the others disappeared into the mist above me, the song was replaced by that old spiritual: “Precious Lord, take me home. I am weary, I am weak, I am worn.” It got colder and colder. I was wearing a waterproof jacket, and as I had my thumbs tucked into my backpack straps all my sweat gathered in the elbows, to run out in little steaming rivulets whenever I lowered my arms.
People have told me that going downhill is worse than going uphill, because of the strain to the joints and the toes. Don’t believe them. Downhill good. Sure, I slipped and fell a lot, cutting my hands, but the rest of the day was glorious. It had been maybe 15km to the summit, and we covered another 15km in the next four hours. We crossed a huge flat plain, winding through the huge jagged boulders that had been littered there by past eruptions; I swear, I thought I was picking my way through Mordor. We walked past giant craters, still smoking and streaked with yellow sulfur, and crossed the hardened river of the lava flow. The best were the ash fields, an immense expanse of jet black dunes as far as the eye could see. They were awesome. We went across them in single file like Bedouins.
We camped the night at Mann Spring, on the eves of the forest looking up at the grasslands. Quinae and I slept in one of the little thatched hut where the porters usually stay, while Roger got the tent all to himself. It rained that night, but there was tarp beneath the thatch so we were just as snug and dry as he was. Other than at that the whole trip we had magnificent weather. There was about five second of the faintest drizzle the second day, not enough to dampen a tea towel, but enough, Roger proclaimed, beaming, that he didn’t have to convert. Oh well. See if God wastes a miracle on him again.
These are some lava paths that had cooled. You would see a grassy field striped with 20 foot wide lava paths. Again sooo Coool!
The third day we strolled back through the rainforest, taking our time and taking everything in. Roger finally caught a glimpse of the Mt. Cameroon franklin, the last bird left on his list. The rainforest gave way to cultivated lands, and Francis climbed a tree to cut down what he called a jack fruit for us. It looked like a durian, but it didn’t smell bad. It tasted wonderful, kind of a cross between peach and banana. Every now and then we would see some clothes hanging from a stick, scarecrows, but apparently meant to scare away monkeys. And then we saw tin roofs poking up through the banana leaves, then mud brick walls and goats tethered to bamboo fences. I have never been so happy to see civilization.
“Well,” said Roger. “Thank God I never have to do that again.”
One the last 15 min we came across these two ladies bringing back some firewood - the only job men are really charged with in Cameroon, but alas the women are doing that too. This is when I realized how big of wooses we really are.
2 comments:
So cool. I think crossing Mordor would have been a little creepy though; )
What a wonderful experience!
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