Ted’s Fishroom

Our adventure in Cameroon began when we landed in Douala in the early evening.  Our hotel was a short ride from the airport.  By the time we negotiated the crowds at the airport made to the hotel I was suffering from a bit of culture shock.  Maybe having a pick-pocket make an attempt on my documents’ holder less than 20 minutes after getting off the plane made me a little overly concerned, but seeing a huge pile of burning rubbish along side the main road out of the airport definitely made me wonder, ‘What have I gotten myself into?’

The first order of business the next morning was getting money exchanged, so our first adventure was braving the traffic into downtown Douala.  Driving in Cameroon best left to the professionals… the Cameroonian professionals.  We had two of the best on the trip.   The streets of Douala are always busy.  Whether we were traveling through the city in the early morning, late at night or midday the drivers had to be diligent to avoid collisions with cabs, buses and even log trucks.  The hand-carts burdened with everything from bananas to lumber took their place in the middle of the street as well.  Add to that the road construction, which takes place without the benefit of flag crews or orange barrels, and the streets become one hazardous situation after another.  And yet we only saw one accident involving a passenger vehicle the entire trip.  When everyone drives like a nut, even the nutty drivers are safe.

Douala is a very crowded place.  Most of the people live in neighborhoods of very small dwellings built very close to each other.  Living amenities are a bit of a contradiction.  The homes in the poorer areas of town are not much more than wood or cinder block shacks with metal roofs; but electricity is well connect, there are a lot of televisions and the dwellings have running water.  Here are some images of some of the neighborhoods on the south side of Douala.

Capitalism is alive an well in Cameroon.  All of the major streets in the city are lined with small businesses.  The outskirts have a lot of industry ranging from sawmills to light manufacturing.  There are several beer breweries (the beer in Cameroon is very good) and many warehouse facilities (Douala is the largest port city in Cameroon).  Individuals are taking advantage of the atmosphere of free trade by operating small niche businesses wherever they can find the space.  There are small stands all along the roads, especially out in the areas with large neighborhoods.  People sell everything from cell phone service to food.  Many people walk long distances sell small volumes of goods like snack vendors do at professional sporting events here in the USA.  If you stand still for more than a minute or two there will be vendors approaching you to sell you something.  While stopped at a gas station in Douala we were approached by different people selling things like bread, fruit, sunglasses,facial tissues, matches, shoes, condoms, a personal massage machine and one of those abdomen wraps that are supposed to help you lose weight.  Some of the more interesting businesses are the phone booths, which are wood booths with a person inside who will rent your their cell phone, and the road-side hardware stores located on just about every corner.  Home Depot on a cart!

The first area we went into to find fish was the Ndonga region just south of Douala.  The Ndonga region is a small area of watersheds that sits between the Sanaga River system to the south and the Wouri River system to the north and east.  The Ndonga system is interesting because it is home to the only known population of Pelvicachromis pulcher south of Nigeria, and a color form of Benitochromis nigrodorsalis with red in the dorsal fins rather than black.

The first location we stopped at (collecting location 1 - Ndonga) was in a medium-size stream that crosses the freeway just south of Douala.  This section of water gets a lot of human use from collecting water for drinking to bathing and washing clothes.  There are villages very close by a lot of litter and pollution in the water.  It is not the most picturesque location we visited on our trip.  The water flows under the highway through culverts, so the water upstream is deeper and slower than the water downstream from the highway.  There are few aquatic plants at all; only one small area of Nymphaea sp. lilies.  The shoreline is covered with a dense growth of marginal plants which make access to the stream difficult.

At this location we were able to collect the Pelvicachromis pulcher, which is what we were hoping to find.  We also found other cichlids including Chromidotilapia guentheri guentheri and Hemichromis elongatus.  There were also a few different killifish, characins and barbs.  Some of the more oddball fish were a large Channa obscura snakehead, Phracturus sp. catfish, a Mastacembelus sp. eel and the interesting mormyrid Iseichthys henryi.

This first stop in Ndonga was so successful we decided to push on deeper into the area to see if we could find other species.  The road we were on, however, skirts the region to the north and quickly moves out of the area.  It turns out that the first stream was the largest that the road crossed in the Ndonga area.  We turned off of the main highway and moved inland in search of smaller tributaries.  The secondary road we were on, however, ran along the tops of the hills.  We passed a small village, so we knew that water must be nearby, and stopped at a trail that headed down the hill.  Water is usually in low places, so down we went… on a very steep 1/4 mile hike to a very, very small stream.  But there were fish there!  We caught some juvenile Benitochromis sp. that may or may not have been the Ndonga population of B. nigrodorsalis (red instead of black in the dorsal fin).  They were too young to tell.  We also found killies and a Parauchenoglanis sp. catfish.  Even though we were close to a 1/2 mile from the village, and way down a very steep hill, the water was in use as a laundromat!

Day one in Cameroon was spectacular.  We found a target species on our first stop and got to see a lot of wildlife.  After all the travel the day before, tough sleeping in a new place and working hard in the unfamiliar tropical heat we were all beat.  We headed back to the Jet Hotel for a shower and a beer.  That night we went out on the town in Douala to eat a local street restaurant that was excellent.  Exhaustion equals a good nights sleep, which we all needed.  Tomorrow we move south to Kribi!