Nigeria – Cameroon – The Dumbo Trek

Stops were few and far in between. At our first village, we met a Rastafarian who was kicked out of Cameroon. He believed he was Lucky Dube’s brother and a prophet.

Mountains in Cameroon

Mangoes that fell off the trees kept us hydrated since we sweated like crazy and because of the drought, water was very scarce. Just when I thought I could not lose another drop of sweat, it started raining. We walked in the rain for an hour before the sky was covered with flying ants. Two little boys carrying food to their village, who had joined us walking for the past 10 km, stopped to feast on them while we marched on.

One of the little boys that joined us

When we reached the Sabongido village, Thomas had clearly had enough after a 12 hour hike. Our bags were promptly tied on to a motorbike and after protesting that we didn’t have enough Naira to pay the driver, he insisted on paying for us. He has had it with the crazy tourists that insisted on doing the Dumbo trek, used only by smugglers after a perfectly good road was build between Bissaula and Cameroon.

A steep uphill

Take 1 driver, 2 passengers, 2 85L backpacks, 2 small backpacks; put them on 1 motorbike on 1 extremely bad road and you have an adventure. Alan threatened to get off and walk every time falling seemed inevitable and I giggled nervously, thinking that it’s a miracle that we hadn’t fallen yet.

The arrival of two drenched, shivering and filthy tourists in Dumbo caused quite a stir. The immigration officer bought us a cold drink and because we needed his stamp for our passport, we tried to make small talk ignoring the vision of dry clothes after a nice hot shower.  

Finally we were shown to a room and told we could pay the next day, after exchanging money. Grateful that we had a dry place to sleep, we accepted the bucket of cold water.