So we headed out from Mogode, and got on the dusty path south towards Rhumsiki. The road ran along the east side of a valley and on the other side? Nigeria. As we drove along the scenery, which was already quite stunning, became increasingly bizarre and beautiful. (Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of it with me right now, I'll try to post some more from this whole trip on my next post). Towering volcanic plugs stuck out of the ground at seemingly random places, mammoth cliffs rose up and then descended just as quickly. We stopped a couple time to take some photos, and then again right outside of Rhumsiki at the top of a hill where we could see the town, a couple mountains, and a gigantic volcanic plug. Pretty crazy stuff. When I busted out my camera, everyone insisted that I take their photo, so now I have about 15 photos of people from my soccer club on my camera, and I'm a little hazy with some of their names.
We got into Mogode and pulled up to a hotel where we were told we had an hour to go around and check things out. Well, at this hotel there was actually a pool overlooking the big valley and the volcanic plug. Beautiful stuff, but Baudouin (the french guy) and I decided to walk around town instead and explore a little bit. We didn't want to sit at the nice, Western tourist hotel with a pool in the middle of nowhere. Why did this place even have a pool? I'm positive no local from the area could actually afford the price (1500 cfa) to swim there. We walked through some neighborhoods and came out to one outlook and marveled at it for a little bit. Some kid carrying around a bunch of trinkets and shoddy, 80's-style post cards came up to us and quite politely, though insistently, told us we needed a guide, a tell-tale sign that you're in a touristy area. Well, Baudouin looked at the kid and said "Oh my, you don't see me guide? He's standing right here!" At which point I said "What is this? You don't know me? How can you not know me, I live here!" The kid got pretty confused and rather than trying to argue the merits or our statements, kept insisting that we needed a guide. After a couple minutes of playing around with him we started walking away back to the main road. So, naturally, he followed us. We stopped after about 50 feet, told him, "Thank you for the offer but we don't want a guide." He just looked at us and we started walking again, so he did, too. After a few steps we stopped again and Baudouin asked him, "So you understand French, right? We don't want a guide. Please leave us alone." He again insisted that I didn't know where the good things to see in town where but he could show us for a small fee. I then looked at Baudouin and spoke my first words in English in a couple days and said, "Do you think we should just throw a rock at him?" I was joking but man was it a bad time to realize the kid spoke some English, too, because then he started hounding us in broken English about needing a guide. We cut him off and got pretty firm with him and asked him where he was going. He said into town, so we told him "Go then." As he started to speak again, we just kept cutting him off and telling him to basically get lost. He walked about 20 feet, stopped and turned around but we kept motioning for him to continue. Once he was out of site, we started walking again and took a different path to the market.
We got to the market and after walking around for a few minutes I looked at Baudouin and said "It's the same stuff as in Ngong." He responded that he was thinking the exact same thing. We found the bilbil (traditional millet wine/beer) market and then asked one guy who was standing there with his son if he knew a woman who made good bilbil. He led us to one mama's stand and we sat down and playfully asked her if her bilbil was any good. She was somewhat older with facial scarring and tattoos stretching from her forehead to her chin and she was wearing a really bright, intricately designed panye (flashy african fabric) dress. She looked at us blankly after the question so we then asked if we could have some bilbil. Again the blank look. So then I switched to fulfulde, and again she just looked at us and then at the guy who led us there. He then started rattling off in what I can only imagine was Kapsiki and she gave us two wooden bowls of bilbil. (Side note on Kapsiki: ever wonder what Mandarin, Greek, and Housa sound like when mixed together? Kapsiki!) We drank our bowls, thanked the mama, paid, and left. I don't remember the bilbil being particularly good, but we were a little afraid of the recent Cholera epidemic around to go bilbil hopping and try everyone's different brew.
We started walking back towards the hotel and ran across some veterans in a little boutique. I bought a bottle of water (100 cfa more than normal--another touristy sign) and even saw some post cards. How did Rhumsiki become such a tourist destination? Sure, the landscape is really pretty but the town itself is pretty unimpressive and the level of harassment you get from kids demanding pens, 25 cfa, and to be your guide was really annoying. And again back to the pool: why was there a pool in the middle of nowhere?! Bah. I'm glad I went to Rhumsiki, but I don't know that I'll be going back any time soon. Beautiful? yes. A bit of a tourist trap? yes.
Anyway, we got back to the hotel where a few people had gone swimming and a couple others were eating a meal. Somebody had even gone to get his fortune told by the "crab talkers," a group of guys who talk to little sand crabs and apparently can predict your future. Eventually we piled back into the bus, some people grabbed some beers for the road, and we headed out.
About twenty minutes in, one of the veterans pulled out a box of condoms and started tossing them around the bus. Why? Don't ask me. Well, about a minute later, an empty Guiness bottle started being passed around the bus and what was on the top? An unrolled condom. I feel like that kind of sums up the veteran's club of ngong: empty beer bottles and unused condoms.
The ride back was pretty long, but once we got back onto the pavement in Mokolo things were a bit easier. By the time we got to Figuil, though, I was uber-tired and basically a walking zombie. I ate a little bit of meat, a couple beignets, and drank a soda and actually felt a bit better. With the late breakfast and the walking around in Rhumsiki, I'd forgotten to eat lunch, and judging by the general energy level I think many people had. Well, once we were about 45 minutes outside of Garoua, we started singing. We went through so many celebratory and festive songs that everyone's spirits were lifted. We stopped for a few minutes in Garoua to drop somebody off and then continued on to Ngong where we threw open the windows and let anybody who was near the road know that we were back and in very good spirits.
Home, sweet home.
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