I visited Cameroon in june on a 2 month visa thinking I'd watch the World Cup on the beach and then explore a bit. I lasted 2 weeks and it was one of those trips where things just kept going wrong ; my luggage arrived 36 hours after I did, power cuts, police hassle, torrential rain, etc.
My experience was that the French speakers (85%) speak good French but the Anglophones speak pidgin English which was often harder to follow. My first night in Douala I got shown around a few bars by a British oil guy and was underwhelmed by them and the distances between them. You need a taxi to get around partly because it's supposedly not safe to walk around (although expats in Africa always say that) and definitely due to the distance.
Limbe is a 'charming colonial town' according to my guidebook - well, maybe 50 years ago, but now it's a sprawling dump. It frequently poured for hours at a time and there seemed no point going along the coast to Kribi just to be stuck indoors and mosquito fodder. By then I didn't have high hopes for Yaounde and so I wasn't disappointed.
So I tried to get into Equatorial Guinea because it sounds interesting in a dystopian Afro-narco state kinda way and my Spanish is/was ok but the woman at the Embassy said I needed to apply from home. I was expecting that and as I have dual nationality, flashed my Australian passport and told her there isn't one there. Apply at the nearest, she said. Aah, but you see, that would be in Beijing . . . She shrugged. Interview over.
I considered going over to CAR but one night in my hotel room where I was stuck due to the rain I thought to myself ' I could be having a better time in eg Uganda ' and so, 36 hours later I was.
I think if you're an old French guy you can have a great time with P4P out there and perhaps I was just unlucky (don't visit in the rainy season like I did) but it didn't feel right at the time. Uganda & Kenya are much better, and if your French is decent, Madagascar and Rwanda - although very different - are worth a look.
My experience was that the French speakers (85%) speak good French but the Anglophones speak pidgin English which was often harder to follow. My first night in Douala I got shown around a few bars by a British oil guy and was underwhelmed by them and the distances between them. You need a taxi to get around partly because it's supposedly not safe to walk around (although expats in Africa always say that) and definitely due to the distance.
Limbe is a 'charming colonial town' according to my guidebook - well, maybe 50 years ago, but now it's a sprawling dump. It frequently poured for hours at a time and there seemed no point going along the coast to Kribi just to be stuck indoors and mosquito fodder. By then I didn't have high hopes for Yaounde and so I wasn't disappointed.
So I tried to get into Equatorial Guinea because it sounds interesting in a dystopian Afro-narco state kinda way and my Spanish is/was ok but the woman at the Embassy said I needed to apply from home. I was expecting that and as I have dual nationality, flashed my Australian passport and told her there isn't one there. Apply at the nearest, she said. Aah, but you see, that would be in Beijing . . . She shrugged. Interview over.
I considered going over to CAR but one night in my hotel room where I was stuck due to the rain I thought to myself ' I could be having a better time in eg Uganda ' and so, 36 hours later I was.
I think if you're an old French guy you can have a great time with P4P out there and perhaps I was just unlucky (don't visit in the rainy season like I did) but it didn't feel right at the time. Uganda & Kenya are much better, and if your French is decent, Madagascar and Rwanda - although very different - are worth a look.