Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Sport
Cameroon exploded onto the world's sporting consciousness at the 1990 World Cup when
the national football team, the Indomitable Lions, became the first African side to reach
the quarter-finals. Football is truly the national obsession. Every other Cameroonian male
seems to own a copy of the team's strip; go into any bar and there'll be a match playing on
the TV. When Cameroon narrowly failed to qualify for the 2006 World Cup, the country's
grief was almost tangible. In contrast, when Cameroon qualified for the 2010 World Cup,
the nation exploded into wild celebration. This qualification marked the sixth time
Cameroon had entered the tournament, setting a record for any African nation.
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Food & Drink
Cameroonian cuisine is more functional than flavourful. The staple dish is some variety of
peppery sauce served with starch - usually rice, pasta or
fufu
(mashed yam, corn, plantain
or couscous). One of the most popular sauces is
ndole,
made with bitter leaves similar to
spinach and flavoured with smoked fish.
Grilled meat and fish are eaten in huge quantities. Beer is incredibly popular and widely
available, even in the Muslim north.
A street snack of fish or
brochettes
(kebabs) will rarely cost more than CFA1500. In sit-
down restaurants and business hotels outside of the major cities, expect to pay around
CFA5000 to CFA7000 for a full meal; that can climb to CFA10,000 or more in Yaoundé
and Douala.
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Environment
Cameroon is geographically diverse. The south is a low-lying coastal plain covered by
swaths of equatorial rainforest extending east towards the Congo Basin. Heading north,
the sparsely populated Adamawa Plateau divides the country in two. To the plateau's
north, the country begins to dry out into a rolling landscape dotted with rocky escarpments
that are fringed to the west by the barren Mandara Mountains. That range represents the
northern extent of a volcanic chain that forms a natural border with Nigeria down to the
Atlantic coast, often punctuated with stunning crater lakes. One active volcano remains in
Mt Cameroon, at 4095m the highest peak in West Africa.
