The Mountains of The Cameroon Ring Road

The Road Chose Me Volume 2 OUT NOW!!
The Road Chose Me Volume 2: Three years and 54,000 miles around Africa

The interesting border crossing into Cameroon has spit us out right were we want to be, on “The Ring Road”. This famous road loops around the mountains of North Western Cameroon and is dotted with amazing little villages, history and mountains.

Mountains and villages

As luck would have it, we have arrived smack in the middle of “Harmattan” – the time of year when dust-laden winds blow Southwest from the Sahara and cloud the sky with a thick haze, severely limiting visibility. I can often see outlines of mountains, and get the feeling I am surrounded, though unfortunately I never see much.

Sun and Haze in Harmattan

The mountains of North Western Cameroon

All the roads are dirt and extremely, extremely dusty. It has not rained here for many months, and it shows. Within ten feet of the roads on both sides plants and trees are thickly coated in red dust, as is the Jeep in short order. Occasionally I drive through pits in the road that are obviously nightmare mud at the wrong time of year. Now they are extremely fine talcum-like dust that behaves almost like a liquid when I walk on it. The stuff is uncanny, though never more than a few inches deep so it does not pose any problem for the Jeep. I get the feeling the dust pre-filter and the air filter are working overtime in these conditions.

Just squeezing by a broken-down truck

A gas station, always nice to see!

The midday sun is warm, and the nights are cold at this elevation and there is almost zero humidity, my ideal weather.

Can I make solar at night…?

Moving the last of my cheap Nigerian gas into the main tank

I think I will stick around a while

-Dan