My Cameroonian visa had expired three days earlier. Even so, I was optimistic that, with a little luck, this would not get me into too much trouble… Well, I was wrong.
Cameroon’s roads are quite something: when it rains, the off-road sections turn into a swamp. With my luck off-road, of course I got a taste of riding through mud. There are definitely nicer experiences. If you do not want to spend too much time lying on your side in the dirt, you ride at the incredible speed (or rather, slowness) of about five metres a minute. You take turns pushing your feet through the mud beside the bike and try to edge forward carefully. There are usually truck ruts where the mud is not as deep. The downside is that there is little room in the ruts to put your feet down beside the bike. So you have to lift your legs, brace them on the ridges of mud at the sides and somehow try to stay upright. This procedure might even be fun if you were not in the middle of the rainforest with another 50 to 100 km to the nearest settlement.
Most stretches of road in Cameroon were actually fairly passable. But every so often another one would really make me sweat. Eventually, after what felt like an eternity, I reached the town where I had already picked out a hotel. I had just 1.5 km left when the police stopped me at a checkpoint. Cheerful and unsuspecting, I handed the policeman my passport. He looked through it carefully. Far too carefully! I began to worry. Then came the shock:
‘Your visa expired three days ago. You have to go back to Yaoundé,’ the policeman said without a trace of feeling.
I was stunned! ‘You must be mistaken, sir,’ I said, trying to change his mind. ‘My visa is valid for thirty days and I have only been here since 14 November.’ I did not really believe this feeble excuse would help, but, as everyone knows, it never hurts to try.
The policeman did not buy my explanation and went to his superior. I had to park the bike at the roadside so that other vehicles could get past. After a few minutes, the officer in charge called me over:
‘Your visa has expired. You have to go to Yaoundé,’ he repeated flatly, just as his colleague had.
‘I would rather drop dead here or let them shoot me than ride back through that jungle!’ was my immediate thought, though I prudently kept it to myself. Instead I put on an exceptionally sad face, as though I was about to burst into tears. Then I sat down silently on the ground beside the police post and tried to look even sadder. The policeman asked what I intended to do. I replied that I was now close to the border with the Congo and was not prepared to go back to Yaoundé.
So I sat on the ground and tried to arouse some pity. I swore I would not pay a bribe, not a bloody chance. Yet the solution was really so simple: the officers should just let me carry on.
After about twenty to thirty minutes of my sit-in, the officer in charge finally came over, handed me my passport and said flatly, ‘Get lost.’ He did not have to repeat himself. I jumped up, got on the bike and opened the throttle. The following morning, though, the problem had not gone away. I still had 150 km to ride and potentially several police checks to get through. Now I had a strategy, and I was not going to be so careless about handing over my passport with its expired visa. I would simply not let the officers get a word in. I would impress them with my African journey and distract them. I also had an ace up my sleeve: I had previously learned that Cameroon’s President Biya had been in Baden-Baden for a health cure! Brilliant! Surely that information could help.
The strategy worked perfectly! There were three checks altogether. At the first two, my stories about ‘my great journey and mission’ left the officers so dazzled that they did not even ask for my passport. The third check was a little stricter: no passport copies, please (I had presented a laminated copy of the first page), they wanted the passport itself. This was where my story about the president’s health cure in Baden-Baden came into its own: the officer even knew about it himself! We said goodbye like the best of friends.
But I still had the border ahead of me. ‘The officers there surely will not be so easy to bullshit,’ I thought. My plan was this: as soon as the visa came up, I would apply for an ‘exit visa’. I had read online that this was possible, but came at a cost, with the amount depending on the border officers’ mood. I arrived at the border, knocked on the immigration office door and went inside. There was the officer, fast asleep at his desk, snoring! I gently woke him and, still half asleep, he simply stamped my passport for departure without a word! I laughed out loud inside when I saw what he had done. Outwardly I kept my composure, thanked him politely and rode into the Congo in an excellent mood. With that much luck in one go, I ought to become a casino regular.
A new world awaited me in the Congo: an excellent road, right from the border, and cheerful officials. The formalities took a few minutes and I was on the best road I had ridden in Africa so far! Thank you, China! I was delighted. I rode to the next town and found a nice hotel with help from the local police, who had initially wanted to check my papers but then helped negotiate a good room rate. The next morning I was ready for the journey of more than 1,000 km to Brazzaville.
My initial euphoria was considerable. It lasted about a hundred kilometres. The first police check that morning was pleasant enough, and I asked whether I should head straight south or make a detour of about twenty kilometres to Ouesso, the nearest town. I only had about a hundred kilometres of fuel left and urgently needed to fill up. The policeman said I should go to Ouesso. In the other direction it might be cutting things fine.
So I took the side road to Ouesso. After fifteen kilometres came the first petrol station. The attendant was sitting on a plastic chair eating nuts: ‘The station is closed. Go to the next one. Perhaps they have petrol.’ So I kept going, from one empty petrol station to the next: no fuel anywhere, everything drained dry. Eventually I found a large, modern Total station. Unfortunately, it was just as dry as the others. The employee there suggested I ask for ‘Gaddafi petrol’ at the bar directly opposite. My eyes widened, but I followed his advice. I had no choice. There was nowhere for miles around where I could fill up ‘normally’. So I rode over to the bar, which probably did not make most of its money from alcoholic drinks. When I arrived, I did not even have to explain what I needed. ‘How many litres?’ was the usual greeting. I ordered fifteen litres, and the ‘barman-petrol attendant’ disappeared into the backyard. He returned with three five-litre cans and immediately started filling my tank with petrol. At least, I hoped it was petrol. It is a very strange feeling, being in a completely unfamiliar place, surrounded by strangers, having your tank filled with liquid from a container you cannot see through. The nearest large city where your bike might be repaired is a thousand kilometres away. And it could have been anything! This was a bar where the customers presumably drank beer and needed the toilet too. Who knew where they relieved themselves afterwards?
Lost in thought, I made a crucial mistake: I forgot to ask the price before they filled the tank! To my horror, I only realised this as the last drop went in. Now the tank was full and they could demand anything: a hundred dollars, or that I marry the ugliest woman in town. A young man approached with a defiant expression and said in English, ‘That will be 1,500 CFA francs per litre!’ He looked ready to step into the ring if I refused to pay. Apparently they had a lad who spoke enough English, and whose menacingly knitted brows were meant to nip any objection in the bud. I looked around. A sizeable group of spectators had gathered. No doubt they wanted to watch a masterclass in ripping off the stupid tourist. Fifteen litres at 1,500 francs came to 22,500 francs, about thirty-five euros. A hefty price. I looked angrily at the dry Total station opposite. The sign read 650 francs for a litre of premium petrol. What a bloody mess! Resigned, I handed the ‘petrol attendant’ two ten-thousand-franc notes. He nodded approvingly. In the end, he apparently did not care about the remaining 2,500 francs. The stupid tourist had already paid enough.
I got on the motorcycle, angrily ignored a spectator who was determined to have his photo taken with me, and thought, ‘I do not like this country any more.’ Then I started the engine and rode off at full throttle. I did not give them the finger. I was angry with myself, with my own naivety and with the people there. They had seen their chance and taken ruthless advantage of it. But I had learnt an important lesson: ask the price first, negotiate, then buy. The problem of dry petrol stations followed me almost all the way to Brazzaville. I only found the first working one a hundred kilometres before the Congolese capital. Twice more I had to resort to ‘Gaddafi gold’ and buy petrol by the bottle. But I was not going to be taken for a fool again. And the bottled fuel really was good quality.
Unfortunately, this also stopped me fully enjoying the very good Congolese road to Brazzaville. Constantly watching the fuel gauge while passing nothing but dry petrol stations does not make for a pleasant journey. But where does ‘Gaddafi gold’ come from? Everywhere, people told me it was smuggled from Libya. That explanation did not really make sense. Libya is far away, and the Congo is rich in oil. Oil is even the country’s biggest source of income. Later I learned that the country was in crisis. Only a few people benefit from its oil. The population gets little out of it. So petrol is hoarded and sold on at higher prices when supplies run short. Looking back, though, I wonder whether ‘Gaddafi gold’ was simply a code phrase. A tourist walks in and says it out loud. Translation: ‘Look, a desperate idiot. Feel free to charge him five times the price.’
In Brazzaville I had no more trouble finding petrol. The city was well supplied and generally struck me as a modern, pleasant metropolis that was not too crowded. Traffic was less chaotic than in the big cities I had visited before. Drivers obeyed the rules, even stopped at red lights, and rarely honked at you. For example, they might if you took their right of way because, after travelling through African countries, you no longer knew any rule other than to keep going whenever there was a gap.