Suggestions for a trip to Senegal & Cameroon?

August 12, 2009 4:41 PM

Have you been to Senegal and/or Cameroon? Do you have any tips for super awesome things to see n' do there?

A friend and I are heading to Senegal and Cameroon for a three week trip, beginning September 27th. We're both female Canadians, in our early 30s, and we met and became when friends when we both lived in Uganda for a couple of years.

(i.e. We are not 'africa newbies', so please no "africa-scary/malaria awareness/don't feed the 'pen pen pen' habit" type warnings, please, unless it is something unique to the region/countries.)

We'll be flying into Dakar on the 27th, and then flying to Douala (Cameroon) on October 10th. Our home base in Cameroon will be with an American friend living in Yaounde. We fly home, from Douala, on the 19th. We have an 'upper budget' budget. (That

We want to have fun! We want to do the awesome tourist stuff, and we want to get off the beaten path to find the hidden gems. We want to do some physical activities, but we don't want to center our trip around major multi-day-hike type things. We want to stay in fun/cool/interesting hostels or guesthouses that are clean, have single rooms, and tend to host backpackers over the age of 25. We want to eat some good local food. We want to go to fun nightlife - the kinds of places that are full of both locals and expats. We want to hear some live music, especially in Senegal.

So, suggestions?

posted by Kololo to travel & transportation (8 comments total)

I've never been, but I've heard Dakar has an amazing music scene.
posted by reenum at 4:48 PM on August 12

Crap. By "(That " . I meant to say:

"That means that we want to stay in private rooms in hostels or guesthouses, not in dorms. It also means that we can splash out on the occasional mid-range hotel (if it's really worth it) and that we'll have enough money (since we're not spending it on hotels) to sometimes eat at good restaurants, or buy concert tickets, or do some of the 'over priced but awesome' tourist stuff."
posted by Kololo at 4:50 PM on August 12

When I was in Senegal last year I went to the Goree Island. They have an old slave trade headquarters there, swimming on the beach, a museum, and a small arts area.

I've heard good things about Lac Rose, a pink lake with a very high salt content. Supposedly it's very pretty, but I wasn't able to go when I was there.

One other thing: the airport in Dakar is very very basic. For example, I ran out of cash on my last day and I couldn't get even some water at the airport because they had no atm nor any way to use plastic. I had no luck with ATMs in Senegal at all. I would take all the money you think you will want with you.

Have fun!
posted by aetg at 6:59 PM on August 12

I've never been but I read a fascinating book, "The Innocent Anthropologist" by Nigel Barley about Cameroon, which might be interesting for you.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 7:09 PM on August 12

Cameroon: I spent a week in Yaounde a few years ago. It was for work but I had some free time, I got the impression that the country is not well set up for tourism and there wasn't a lot to do. I did feel quite threatened on leaving the hotel at times, and though I think the malaria medication was inducing some paranoia, this was at times real. Some colleagues who were working in the region said that when driving through the country there tend to be lots of road blocks and that care was needed in dealing with them.

Cameroon tends to come very low on transparency international's regular corruption index, personally I was taken aside and (quite gently) asked for a bribe by the customs officer on the way in.

Do you have visas sorted out already? Getting a visa from the UK required a letter of invitation from an organisation within Cameroon, countersigned by the local chief of police and required multiple visits to the embassy in London. Obviously the Canadian experience may be different. There is a chapter in Tim Harford's book 'The Undercover Economist' which suggests that the difficulty of getting a visa for Cameroon is indicative of the fact that the Cameroonian government do not want to encourage tourism. He has written other articles relating to Cameroon.
posted by biffa at 1:50 AM on August 13

You could ask any native Douala language speakers you meet in Cameroon to tell you what the rest of the lyrics to Soul Makossa mean.
posted by goml at 10:29 AM on August 13

I spent a semester in Cameroon back in 1995. The Lonely Planet guide to Cameroon has all the tourist stuff in it, but looking at their site, it seems that they don't even publish it anymore. Instead, there's a chapter on Cameroon in their Africa book - you can buy the PDF of just that chapter for $3.00.

As biffa said, tourism isn't well-developed in Cameroon. Most of the tourists I encountered were French, with a sprinkling of Americans and Germans. Most of the foreigners there were diplomats, NGO workers, Peace Corps, School for International Training (my program), French teachers fulfilling their compulsory service, and religious missions. There is some Canadian presence there; I visited a Canadian-run dairy project for small farmers. It is refreshing to visit a place that doesn't have McDonalds and fanny-packed Americans crowding everything; on the other hand, some conveniences are nice to have (there were almost no ATMs when I was there - we had to take all of our money for five months in travelers checks and cash them with a bank manager, which was an all-day process; hopefully that's improved since then).

I lived in Dschang for about 6 weeks, and Yaounde for about 10 weeks, with several weeks of traveling. Some of the places I visited: Kribi (white sand beaches), Limbe (black sand beaches), Douala, Ngaoundere, Garoua, Maroua, Bamenda, Foumban, Rhumsiki, Bouba Njida National Park. Everything was interesting to me, frankly. I especially loved the palace of the Sultan of Bamoun, in Foumban. The Tourism in Cameroon Wikipedia article has a nice overview.

Because of the relative lack of tourists and because Cameroonians are so friendly, you will have no trouble meeting people and finding places to hang out, especially in Yaounde. In smaller towns, the PCVs and/or French teachers know what's going on. Also, every town has some local guys (it was always guys) who have achieved some status by hanging out with the foreigners that come through. Those guys will be there when your bush taxi pulls into town, and they love to have drinks with you and talk to you about Western pop culture. You won't be able to go anywhere without people engaging you first.

The only Cameroon-specific safety thing I remember is that because of the attempted coup in 1984, the government/police/military are incredibly paranoid about people getting near the President's mansion, and taking photos of government buildings, airports, etc. Also, there were problems with "les bandits" on the roads in the north, specifically near Waza National Park - if I remember correctly, that's why we went to Bouba Njida instead.

Enjoy your trip to "Afrique en miniature"! I hope to make it back there someday.
posted by candyland at 11:04 AM on August 13

I went to Senegal in summer 2003.

I really enjoyed St. Louis out of everywhere I went the most, especially the "island". There's a lot of mellow stuff to photograph, and it's easy enough to walk out onto the beach and see the brightly colored fishing boats come back in every day with their crews of dozens.

There's also a great Vietnamese restaurant at the northern tip of the island, from which you can look out over the Senegal River and at night see huge thunderclouds full of lightning dozens of miles away.

French is reeeeeally useful - I didn't meet another English speaker there!
posted by mdonley at 3:48 PM on August 16