Route
We spent 29 days in Cameroon, travelling from the very south to the very north with a detour to the coast. We entered from Gabon at the Bitam/Ambam border and drove straight to Yaounde. From here we took the N3 west to Limbe and Buea and, after climbing Mt Cameroon, we headed south to beautiful Kribi. After a couple of days rest we went back to Douala and took the N5 north to Bamenda before exploring the Grassfields. From the Grassfields we took the N6 and N1 roads north via Foumban, Ngoundere, Garoua and Maroua. Finally, we spent a few days in Rhumsiki before crossing the very quiet Boukoula border into Nigeria. We chose the go north partly to see the beautiful Mandara mountains, partly because we wanted to go into Niger after Nigeria, and partly to avoid the troubled Delta region in southern Nigeria.

Visas
We got our visa on entry at the Bitam/Ambam border, although I understand that this is not possible at all borders. It was easy enough despite being a bit time-consuming. Our 30-day tourist visa cost us 52,000 CFA each (about £60).

In Yaounde we 'legalised' a photocopy of our visa and photo pages of our passports so that we didn't have to show our actual passports at the police checks or carry them on us in the cities. This entails taking the passports and copies to the police station, paying them 1000 CFA per person and them adding about six stamps and three signatures! The police station is at N03.52.119; E11.31.029, near the prefecture, and the office you need is inside and upstairs. There are loads of photocopy stalls along the wall outside.

Border formalities and checkpoints
The Bitam/Ambam border was very quiet, although it has a strange motorway-style road system which looks like it could take a lot of traffic! There was a small police hut on the border. As we didn't have our visas a lady from here came with us to an immigration hut down the road to issue them for us. Customs were next to the immigration hut. Immediately after the border there was a police check-point and then a toll (500 CFA). The checkpoint police were quite insistent on a cadeau but gave up eventually.

We went through loads of checkpoints on the road from Ambam to Yaounde - local police, national police, customs, immigration etc. We were waved through a couple but stopped by 23!! We didn't have insurance at the time but no-one asked to see it, only passports and driving licences. Apart from the first checkpoint near the border, none asked for a cadeau. There were less checkpoints in the centre of the country and those that were there generally waved us through.

Checkpoints in the north wanted to see driving licences and passports (our legalised copies were acccepted) and we also showed our insurance as we had bought three months third-party with a carte rose in Yaounde for 28,000 CFA (about £30). Many of the checkpoints in the north also asked for cadeaux although we never gave one. If you drive at night note that the checkpoints still operate and they wave their torches at you to get you to stop.

There are a few borders across the Mandara mountains into Nigeria. The main one is at Banki in the very north but at the time the fighting in Chad meant that this was swamped with refugees and UN workers and so we went across Boukoula further south. It was extremely rural - quiet, friendly and slow.

General driving conditions
The roads in the populated southern/central area are generally OK but you have to take bad roads to get into Nigeria whichever route you take: the Ekok-Mamfe road is notoriously difficult in the rain and can take days to travel whilst the Foumban-Ngoundere road would also be terrible when wet but was just very, very dusty when we travelled. Yaounde is a big city which takes a while to negotiate but the traffic is not terrible (apart from the taxi drivers!). There are many tolls throughout the country which take 500 CFA each time you pass.

Specific driving conditions
All times are 'time moving' from our GPS and so are driving time only.

• Oyem (Gabon) to Yaounde. 7 hours. This road is perfect tar until 30km south of Yaounde when pot-holes appear. The road signs and markings are a joy after Gabon!
• Yaounde to Limbe. 5.5 hours. The roads are great apart from through Douala itself where there are pot-holes and quite bad traffic jams. For Limbe, you need to take the unsigned sliproad 15km west of Douala (the junction at: N04.07.203; E09.35.150)
• Douala to Kribi. 2.5 hours, excluding negotiating Douala. The road from Edea to Kribi is brand new perfect tar which even has hard shoulders and crash barriers!
• Douala to Bamenda, via the scenic Bangangte road. 6.5 hours. Very good (twisty and hilly) tar road. There is a good Fons Palace to visit in Bandjoun.
• Grassfields roads - see section below.
• Jakiri to Foumban. 3.5 hours. It's a scenic route but the dirt road is terrible in places. Foumban, and the place museum in particular, are well worth the effort however.
• Foumban to Ngoundere. 15.5 hours (the Foumban to Banyo section took 5.5 hours). We did this road over two days and bush-camped undisturbed in the woods between Banyo and Tibati (N06.38.510; E12.04.115). This road was the dustiest we have been on in Africa! You can see the massive holes the trucks make when it is wet - there are some diversions around these but it would be a very challenging road in the rains....Even in the dry we averaged 25km/hr up until Magba and 55km/hr after. The Bankim-Banyo section had intermittent tar over the mountains and then the road deteriorated again after Banyo. There is a short bit of tar around Tibati but not as much as the 2002 Michelin map shows and after Tibati we had to ask for directions constantly as both our Michelin and Map Studio maps were wrong (we went east to Mambal and then turned north; OK dirt roads all the way).
• Ngoundere to Maroua. 10 hours. OK bumpy tar with a few pot-holes as far as Garoua. Garoua is dusty and uninviting but has a fairly good market. There were roadworks north of Garoua and the road deteriorated into axle-breaking pot-holes.
• Maroua to Rhumsiki. 3 hours. There is a very good tar road to Mokolo after which there is a small but OK dirt road over the mountains. Rhumsiki is in a beautiful setting and is only teeming with tourists in December.

Accommodation
We found Cameroon quite expensive to camp and often we would just be in hotel car-parks. Bush-camping is possible in lots of places and sometimes the rooms are only slightly more than the camping price and worth considering.

• Yaounde. Most overlanders stay at the Presbyterian Mission. It's very central and they have a big lawn although there's not really any security and no access to a toilet at night. We paid 4000 CFA for two people and the car. N04°52.783;
  E011°31.346 - when you get close turn off the main road and go to the water tower.
• Buea. The Presbyterian Guest House was friendly and cheap (1500 per person). Find it by going to the top of the hill, past the police roundabout and look out for the Presbyterian Synod Office sign. N04.09.610; E09.14.005.
• Limbe. Lots of overlanders stay at the Park Hotel Miramar (2000 CFA each). It's in town, by the sea and has a (green-looking) pool but you are just in the car-park. We preferred Mile 11/New Seme Beach Hotel, on the road out west towards Idenao. It's a large, ugly building but you can camp at the front of the complex on a grassy area and there's a great beach. There are also a lot of sports activities on offer - tennis, kayaking horse-riding etc - which could mean that it is very busy at the weekend. More low-key camping is supposed to be on offer at Mile 6 but this was shut when we came through. We also looked at rooms in the Victoria Guest House which were very nice for the money (from about 6000).
• Kribi. We camped at Tara Plage which is off the dirt road which runs south out of town towards the Chutes de Lobe. It's in a lovely spot and has a very relaxed feel although food and beer is expensive. They charged us 4000 per tent for camping and there's an OK outside loo and shower. If you fancy a treat there are a lot of lovely auberges in Kribi.
• Bamenda. There is camping at the Presbyterian Mission but it was pretty terrible. The ablutions were filthy and there was an annoying security guard who kept coming round to beg from us. The rooms looked OK. Alternatively, we stopped at Awing Crater Lake for lunch but in hindsight should have camped. It's about 20km south of Bamenda on the Douala road and is beautifully set amongst the hills. Turn-off the main road at N05.50.934; E10.09.658 and it's thirty minutes down the dirt track. There is a security guard who will come and collect fees.
• Foumban. There's not a lot of choice in Foumban. The Beau Regarde hotel by the market is OK and good value but we weren't sure about the security of the parking. We stayed at La Prunier Rouge instead which was friendly but tatty. As you come in on the road from Bafoussam look out for the La Fourchette restaurant sign on your right and then stop and ask - it's down a small road and hard to find.
• Ngoundere. We stayed in the Hotel du Gare (predictably down near the train station!). It was very clean and had secure parking and hot showers for 7,500 per double room. N07.20.165; E13.35.219.
• Lagon Blue (near Garoua). This hotel is on a very pretty site on the lake and they let you camp on the beach for 5000 CFA per vehicle. The outside loo and shower were filthy but they let us use theirs inside when we complained. It could be very busy at the weekends. The hotel is about 15km off the main road along dirt tracks - follow the signs to 'Lagdo' just south of Ngong.
• Maroua. We camped at Relais Ferngo which was fine - plenty of room and use of the toilet and shower attached to the quiet bar. 3000 CFA for 2 people.
• Rhumsiki. We camped at the beautiful Campement Rhumsiki. The camping is just on scrub-land near the gate and you use the pool shower but the views, the pool and Markus (the owner/manager) make up for it! 4000 CFA for 2 people.

Climbing Mount Cameroon
This was really great but quite hard. It's walking rather than climbing but it is quite steep and you can get quite breathless from the altitude. The most popular route takes three days and goes through forest, savannah, lava-flows and ash fields - the huts are very basic and there are not many water supplies so take plenty. The best people to go with are the Mount Cameroon Intercommunal Ecotourism Board as they have great guides and include a community tax in their fee. They have a tarif of fixed prices which includes a guide and porter and you take your own food to cook on fires; we paid 73,000 CFA for two people for three days. If you don't fancy the mountain they offer a lot of different walks and treks, including some on the flat! Their office is at the top of the hill in town - take a left out of the Presbyterian Synod Office and walk for about 15 mins. Note that there is another tour company who may come to the guest-house to offer you trekking and their office is on the same road.

Touring the Grassfields on the Ring Road
We, like most people, started this in Bamenda. We first went west and up the road to Bafut - this is good tar all the way. The Fons Palace in Bafut was quite interesting from the outside but they were asking too much money for us to visit inside with a guide. We then came back down to Bamenda and took the road east through Ndop and Jakiri then north up to Kumbo. There are small patches of tar through Jakiri and Kumbo but otherwise it's poor condition dirt roads. It's slow-going - Bamenda to Jakiri took us nearly three hours - but the scenery is great and the people surprisingly friendly considering it's quite touristy. We wanted to bush-camp but it was quite populated so we ended up going about 10km north of Kumbo and asking locally if it was OK. We camped by a telephone tower and had a trickle of locals coming by to introduce themselves. It was a really great experience and we wished we had time to carry on north around the road into the more rural areas.

Food, water and beer
There is loads of fruit and veg for sale in Cameroon and it is very good. What is available and the price depends on where you are as the climate and terrain change quickly. We got great pineapples on the Douala-Bafang road, good tomatoes and potatoes in Buea and tasty mangoes in the south. Oku honey, from the Grassfields region, is the best I've tasted and you can buy ovaltine-jarfuls from the side of the road for 1000 CFA. Peanuts are everywhere and are grown in the Mandara mountains or imported from Nigeria.

The street-food is very good and mostly consists of kebabs, meat roasts and fish on BBQs. The best way to eat is to sit outside a local bar, order a cold beer and ask the local stall to bring you whatever they have.

By far the best sit-down meal we had (maybe in Africa) was in Kribi marina where you choose the fish from a bucket and take a seat to watch the fishermen whilst your fish is grilled. Our red snapper was fantastically fresh and came with a platter of plantain chips, a couple of good home-made sauces and cold beer! La Fourchette in Foumban and Duke & Harveys in Buea were also very good for filling, local food like ndole (meat in a suace made of greens).

Cameroonians like a drink and there are lots of different african lagers available - flag, castel, beaumont. These cost 500 CFA for a large bottle in local places and much more in hotels. We also saw some draught beer but at very high prices. We had no trouble getting good water at any of the places we camped although the mission in Yaounde theoretically charges for it.

Money and fuel
There are ATMs which take foreign cards, including debit cards, but we experienced some problems. My card was swallowed by a BICEC machine in Buea and the bank insisted on sending it to their head-office in Douala. This meant we had to hang around for nearly a week so that we could go and pick it up!.The most reliable ATM we used was SGBC. You can change Euros in banks and foreign exchange bureaus but it's best to do it in the cities - when I tried in Buea I was told by several places they 'didn't want Euros' that day!

There are fuel stations in all the towns. Diesel cost us 535-545 per litre (63p).