Cameroon 2006-2007
by Patt Mayfield | June 2007

Anyone who has ever hunted Africa has surely dreamed of hunting West Africa, home of the elusive Lord Derby Eland and Western Roan Antelope. I have hunted Africa before, but had long thoughts about hunting in a country where most people don’t go, but never thought I would actually be able to go. I had never been to West Africa and only seen pictures and trophy mounts at Safari Club conventions. I had talked with a few people who had actually been hunting in Cameroon, C.A.R., Benin, Burkina Faso, or Chad. I talked with these people and asked their advice of where to go, when to go and which outfitter to use for the hunt. I picked up brochures at the conventions, looked at the pictures, the prices of their hunts, talked with the outfitters, and even a few of their guides. Where should I go and when should I go if I ever had enough money to make the trip? At our local North Texas SCI fundraiser three years ago, I bought a week of a 16-day hunt with Mayo Oldiri to hunt in Cameroon. I now knew where I was going and the outfitter. I met with the Mayo Oldiri representatives in Reno at the SCI Convention and started working on setting dates and payment schedules for my upcoming hunt. I selected the first week of the season, which they said was the coolest time of the year, and one of the best weeks to hunt. I had to wait three years after I bought the hunt, for the time I had selected to be available. Each year I talked with Raquel Requera from Mayo Oldiri about what I needed to do in preparation of the hunt. I looked at the pictures and asked her about the camps, because I expected to take my non-hunting wife, Diane, with me. Raquel assured me all was and would be well for Diane in camp and that she would have plenty to do while I was hunting, and besides, her Dad, Mother and Sister would be in camp at the same time we were for company. All was set.

Diane and I got our passport pictures made, filled out and sent off the paperwork for the Cameroon Visas, sent off the paperwork for my hunting license for Cameroon, got all of the necessary shots for the trip and booked our airline tickets. Things then started to happen. My Dad had a mild heart attack, Diane’s blood work came back with acute low white blood count and then our youngest granddaughter became ill. My Dad even suggested that he would reimburse me the cost of the hunt, if I stayed home! What should I do? The trip was non-refundable and non-changeable, and I had spent a lot of time, money and effort to get to this point. Then Raquel wrote that the flight from Douala to Garoua, where I would be hunting had changed, and now would leave two days later. It was too late to change my ticket from Dallas, so I would now have to spend three nights in Douala before I could fly out to Garoua and start the hunt. Diane decided to stay home in spite of her non-refundable trip. I think our granddaughter getting sick was too much for her to leave. I decided to go as planned. Was this a little selfish?

My flight was scheduled to leave Christmas Morning, which added a little salt to the wound of my leaving in the first place. My family was not very happy about my leaving on Christmas Day either. Diane and I spent the night at the airport hotel on Christmas Eve only to discover Christmas Morning that my flight to Zurich had been cancelled! We just laughed! What next? American Airlines was able to rebook me on a more direct flight later in the afternoon, so the trip was still on. The flight to Zurich was uneventful, but the Swiss Air flight to Cameroon was different. I had not considered the view of the Sahara Desert from 40,000 feet as I flew over it on the way to Malabo, our stop before Douala. The sky was clear and the sand dunes and rock formations of the Sahara Desert were beautiful. The airport in Douala was hot, dark and muggy with no air conditioning. I was met by representatives of Mayo Oldiri and taken to the Meridian Hotel for the night. I was glad to get out of the airplanes and hot airports. Everyone I saw was friendly, and the city of Douala was very tropical.

The two Mayo Oldiri guys picked me up after lunch the next day, and we went to the art market which was not very large, but had an amazing assortment of masks, carvings and material. The market was crazy with people wanting to sell stuff, but the prices and quality were good if you could just sort through the pushy salesmen. The next day I went again to the art market and toured the town with two other hunters, a man and wife who had just arrived from Canada. Douala is a city of 1½ million people with no signal lights, many small motorcycles, big trucks and heavy exhaust fumes. Our last hunter, from Detroit, came in the night before we left to start our hunt, as did Antonio Requera, Raquel’s Dad, from Spain. Douala was a much more interesting city than I had expected and my time there passed quickly.

The next day we flew to Garoua, a city in the Northern part of the country, from which we would be hunting. The check in at the airport was terrible! It was wonderful that we had people to help us or we might still have been there waiting in line! The plane was nice and large, but there were no seat assignments, so the pushing and shoving was intense. The country was about 90% Muslim, so the people dressed differently than people I had seen in other parts of Africa. We were met in Garoua by representatives from Mayo Odiri, and taken to a house where we waited for our hunting license and paper work to clear so we could leave for the hunting camps. We all loaded into different vehicles going to different camps. I left with Antonio and we drove for about five hours through the darkening city and countryside with all the sights and smells of Africa to Mayo Oldiri Camp on the Mayo Oldiri River. Antonio told me along the way that the PH he had intended for me had not shown up for work, but was still in Canada on holiday with his family! Good start? We got to camp just before midnight. I met my PH, Guy, from France. We had a light supper, and then went to bed. I needed to prepare for a 4:00 a.m. wake-up call to go hunting!

I did not bring a gun, so I used the gun they had—a Mauser, 8x64 (I think). It was a caliber I was not familiar with, but proved effective. The area we hunted was about 250,000 acres. We had a driver and trackers and skinners aboard the Land Cruiser with no windshield as we headed east on a cool morning before sunup. We saw Baboon, Kob, Reedbuck, Waterbuck and Hartebeests, but no Eland or Roan. That night the generator went out in camp and there was no hot water, but I was reminded of what Raquel had said “This is Africa!” Getting up and out from under the mosquito net to go to the bathroom was exciting, especially in the middle of a night so dark you could not see your hand in front of your face. Where was the flashlight? Antonio’s wife, daughter, daughter’s boyfriend and niece came to camp during the night, after having driven up from Douala. The next day I shot a nice Western Kob, so I was off to a good start. We saw Warthogs, Monkeys, Bushbucks and Oribi. Tonight was New Year’s Eve and about 10:00 p.m. the natives started beating the drums, dancing around the fire and singing. Antonio had set up chairs around the fire to watch the dancing and beer making. This celebrating went on until midnight, when we went to bed after wishing everyone a Happy New Year. They woke me up at 3:00 a.m. rather than 4:00 a.m. the next morning! It was very quiet in camp with no lights, as I walked up to the dining room and waited for someone to show up with coffee! I shot a nice Harnassed Bushbuck on the way back to camp for lunch. After lunch, Antonio told me that they were changing camps, and that I was going with them and to pack my bags for the trip.

The drive to Camp Babasarah on Mayo Waimba River was interesting. We passed through several villages where we passed out gifts to some of the administrators. We stopped in Rey Bouba on the way to camp and met the king! I had never met a king before and thought the whole experience was great. I wish we had been there in the day time so I could have taken pictures outside the palace. The palace had mud walls about 25-feet-tall with decorations on top. It was about 100-feet-wide by 400 feet long and had no windows, only a double door with a porch supported by posts. We met with the king, who was a friend of Antonio’s, in a large round room with mud walls and a thatch pointed ceiling where he meets with his chiefs. The king was very tall and a very nice man. He is also a minister in the government and seemed very well informed as to the matters of his country. When we got to camp about 10:00 p.m., I met my PH, Joaquin Morales, a Spaniard, who was to be my guide and companion for the next several days. The camp was nice with several pink round houses with pointed thatched roofs and a big bed with a mosquito net to sleep under. We had a nice supper of a cold soup, fish cakes and Eland, and went to bed for an early-morning wake-up call.

We left camp at 4:30 a.m. after coffee and bread, in search of Eland. The camp was about 150,000 acres and bordered a national park. We saw Eland, Roan, Duiker and Reedbuck. We came back to camp for lunch, only to find Antonio and family gone, as they had changed camps again to make sure all the camps were prepared for the hunting season. I was alone for the next several days to hunt. The camp was on the bank of the river and they pumped water out of the river to bath in. They have bottled water in the rooms to drink with the meals. The natives wash clothes in the river and dry them on the sand. There are many fish in the river that you can see and hear jumping out of the water. There are many birds including Maribou Storks fishing in the river. I saw a small crocodile crossing the sand from one part of the river to another one afternoon, and told Joaquin about it. He was not pleased because he said he often swam in the river. At night I could hear Lions roaring and Elephants breaking tree limbs and trumpeting in the forest and splashing in the river. The many bats that circled us at night as we drank beer and waited for supper, did not always do their job as I seemed to get new mosquito bites every night. I had a great time! We walked many miles looking for Eland up and down hills, through tall grass, over rocky hills, through dry river beds and over large areas of worm mounds. That country must be really wet in the summer! We had many days that were very dusty and difficult to see very far or clearly. Joaquin said it was dust blowing off the Sahara Desert. The food was great, and I took many nice animals, including Lord Derby Eland, Western Roan, and Sing Sing Waterbuck. I fished for Tiger Fish in the river one morning, but was not able to land any in spite of some exciting fighting displays. We set many fires to clear the land of the tall grass and start the green grass growing for the animals. The Eland eat only new green leaves, so the fires were important. By burning off the old leaves, it encouraged the new green leaves to grow and bring the Eland out of the park. I spent 10 days in camp and was not ready to leave.

I left camp on January 11 because Joaquin had another hunter coming in from Europe to hunt Elephant. After a lunch of kidney, liver, heart and rice I settle up with Joaquin for my hunt and packed for my ride to the next camp. My driver took me for a two-hour drive to Mayo Nduell, my next and last camp of my trip. I waved to the children and people as we passed through the small villages along the way to camp. The people are friendly and all waved back smiling, glad to have some diversion. The roads were dirt, and there were no fences or power poles anywhere we traveled. The camp, Mayo Nduell, was much more primitive than the other camps I had stayed in. When we got to camp, I unpacked my clothes in my cabin, and then sat outside and had a beer and read a book as I waited for someone to show up. My PH, Jose Carrion, came out to join me in his pajamas about an hour later. It seemed he had a bad case of malaria! Good start? The hunter from Detroit came back from his final hunt about dark, and we had a nice mushroom soufflé for supper. The Detroit hunter settled up his bill with Jose after supper and then left early the next morning for the airport and home. I had a few days left to hunt on my own.

The cabins were round with thatched roofs like the other camps, but the bed was a mud platform bed with mosquito net. The walls to the cabin were about a foot thick, so it must get very hot in that camp. The hunting area was about 125,000 acres. The country side was different with steeper hills. I shot two Western Hartebeest, one with a broken horn for camp meat, and the other a nice trophy to bring back to Texas.

We left camp Sunday, January 14, for the long drive to Garoua. We passed through many villages on our way to the paved road and “civilization.” I checked into a “fine” hotel in Garoua for the night! The room was full of mosquitoes, a toilet that ran all the time, and an air conditioner that made so much noise it was almost impossible to sleep. After living in remote camps with only the sounds of animals at night, it was hard to have all the noise in the room as well as the buzz and bites of mosquitoes. I had supper with Jose, his wife, and our driver. The meat was cooked outside on a grill at a restaurant. After supper I went back to the hotel for the night, and tried to sleep with the mosquitoes that were waiting for me.

Jose picked me up after breakfast and took me to a couple of local markets to spend the last of my money. The plane left at 12:05 p.m. from Garoua. I had trouble clearing security, maybe because I was the only white guy in line? We stopped at Youande, the capital city, where most of the passengers got off. It had been another full flight of pushing, shoving people, so I was glad to see them leave. I was met by the same people at the airport in Douala about 4:00 p.m., and they took me back to the hotel to wait for my 1:00 a.m. flight to Brussels. I checked into a room to clean up and cool off because the flight to Douala had been hot and crowded as was the airport. The guys picked me up at 7:00 p.m. and I cleared customs easily and quickly with all my new treasures that I had bought at the markets. The guys left me at 8:00 p.m. for the five-hour wait for my flight! I went to the lounge, which had a little air conditioning to wait. At about 10:00 p.m., the electricity went off all over the airport for 1½ hours! This must be a regular happening as no one seemed to panic. It was so hot and humid that my passport warped in my shirt pocket! My Brussels SN flight left on time, and the flight to Brussels was nice, but the flight was warm. I got to Brussels about 8:00 a.m. and I went to the lounge and took a shower before the American flight left for Chicago.

The American flight flew over Greenland and Labrador, and the sky was clear so the view was nice. I cleared customs easily in Chicago and was pleased to have a ticket as many flights to Dallas had been cancelled or delayed because of ice in Dallas! My flight to Dallas arrived at 6:00 p.m. Diane was there to meet me and my bags came in on time, so everything was good. It was quite a trip! The trip was different, and better than I expected. The hunt was certainly an experience I would recommend to anyone wanting a different African adventure.