Three hours later and we hit the dirt road to Mamfe which had apparently had some fairly recent improvements. That was probably true as we made it the 80km to Mamfe in just less than four hours. It made me wonder about the need for a dual sports bike such as mine for this trip if that was as bad as it gets? The following day we saddled up for Buea and maybe that question was answered as the dotted ‘improved road’ of 200km continued from Mamfe towards Douala. 
Made up of 95% mud of varying wetness it was fairly slow going but to be fair to Mick he pressed on at a good pace on his VFR without any drops, although the underside of his bike took a battering riding over the many high speed bumps through the villages we passed en-route. So what of Cameroon then? So far it’s our favourite (or least worse) country as it’s easy going without anyone staring, calling “sssst,’ wanting our contact information or more to the point a letter of invitation for the UK and...food! Fresh fruit is everywhere as is nice bread. Apart from a nice little place I found for a good breakfast, evening meals are still mostly miss rather than hit though. Buea sits in the shadow of the imposing Mount Cameroon, all 4095 meters of it, which is supposedly an active volcano which last had activity in 200x. The ‘Christians’ had indicated an interested in climbing it and with them a day behind us myself and Mick decided to wait for them to join us along with a hardcore Spaniard we’d met called Jose who was travelling our route by...bicycle! So at 7am the following day and full of adventure the five of us along with our guide headed up the mountain...Now at this point as many of you know I’m not a walker despite deciding to take that option when I was probably around fifteen months old. Rambling/trekking/climbing/hiking/walking however you dress it up is rubbish on many levels. Particularly when after nine weeks of malnourishment and sitting on a bike for six hours a day has resulted in my fairly drastic weight loss of (I’m guessing) around 5kg’s. So with a rucksack weighing 20-25kg’s increasing the workload on my now pencil even thinner legs (thanks for noticing Sarah)
it quickly made me wonder a simple ‘why?’ More so the heavy smoking, unsporty Mick, who by the time we’d reached the halfway overnight point (in the pouring rain) had sustained a knee injury. The second day of this wonderful pastime saw Mick heading back down whilst the remaining five of us head to the summit with cameras in pockets. Four hours later and we’d made it! Great...except it wasn’t. 
The view was twenty meters in the thick cloud, it was blowing at probably close to 100mph, it was wet and not far off a degree in temperature. But most importantly my legs had totally gone. Now unable to walk properly I hoped that the fact that as they say “it’s all downhill from here” would make things easier. Wrong again. I can’t quite work this out but the ‘down’ was actually harder as the steepness of what must have been more of a climb meant for plenty of slips on the loose stones and much knee and ankle twisting. With the prospect of me having to spend another night in one of the three huts on the route meaning for a repeat of the two hours sleep I’d had due to me constantly being woken by the many rats (oh yes) scurrying all around me and my rucksack with one even getting in my hired broken zipped sleeping bag with me during the night, the race was on between me and the sun. Convinced I’d seriously damaged one if not both knees, I painfully made it down just before nightfall having met Mick on the way. I don’t and will never know how I made it.
The steepness of the climb wasn’t apparent on the way up due to me only looking at my feet for most of the way and the way down was made worse as I could actually see how far I had to go without the crumbs of hope that each small peak had offered on the way up. Put simply it was the hardest, stupidest, biggest waste of time of my life and something that I will not be doing again. Ever.
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