Nice to meet you Mt Fako

Mt. Cameroon

Due to a day of work being rescheduled by our partners we were blessed with an entire Saturday off! In the bout of our good luck we decided to hop on the 6:30 bus to Buea and trek West Africa’s highest peak, Mt. Fako, home to one of the wettest places on the earth*. That said we were incredibly lucky and didn’t get a drop of rain, allowing us to fully enjoy the six hour hike – that continues to be felt today in our legs and um, glutes. It was absolutely beautiful – worth every ridiculous tax penny – though I think if I came back I’d do pay the extra, take the time off and hike to the summit. The best and probably most worst way to describe it would be that it looked like middle earth and sounded the CD aisle in Shoppers.



It is mandatory that you be escorted by a guide, no matter the length in time or space of your trek. It was in this circumstance that we met the man of all trades: Mr. Po**. Mr. Po is one of the many individuals that we’ve met whose dedication and perseverance in his work just makes you need do something, anything, whether that entails getting a gym membership or organizing a following around the party in question, or getting back in touch with old friends. I thought that instead of describing each and everyone one of these persons, suffice to say that while special, Mr. Po’s character is actually quite typical of the individuals I have met the past two months. Mr. Po is a father of two, a son of the (mountain’s) soil, and has been working on the mountain in one context or another for over 30 years. Hiking with him was an event in itself, watching him navigate the barely beaten path, which was so narrow both in length and height, so steadily, unconsciously, barely breaking a sweat in his black dress pants and collared checked shirt. Mr. Po’s relationship with the mountain began when he became a hunter, selling bush meat locally – antelopes and elephants are both found on the mountain, yes that is correct, I’m talking about mountain elephants. He did this for many years until a German environmentalist group came and measuring the extensive level of biodiversity to be found and studied, declared the mountain a perseveration site.

Being a younger gentleman at the time, Mr. Po was targeted by the Germans to be trained as a porter in exchange for giving up hunting, and so he carried the bags of tourists and scientists for ten years before he could get training and become a guide in 1998. Overall he said he’s climbed the mountain over a thousand times, and still dreads having to leave the serenity of the mountain and return to the bustle of town after a long day of work, describing bustle as drinking beer with friends.

The beginning of the trek was by far the most difficult being the warmest and most humid. We got a rare chance to take a picture of el presidente’s house pretending to take a picture of the city – notice anything different about it compared to the rest of the infrastructure here? After walking for a few minutes we strolled through what looked like a small farm, where children were playing football and just beyond a man was grazing cattle. We asked if this was a government farm, and to our surprise, Mr. Po says “no, this is a prison.” The “jail” was only for persons who had committed minor offences. It had no gate or fence, no visible guards or towers – it was no panopticon either…as far as we could tell… The prisoners worked the land and grazed cattle for the government, getting a very very small payment in the form of food, and experience as Ferdinand put it. Unfortunately we were unable to take a picture because it was a prison - only of the cattle grazing.

In a country where so many live in poverty, often people are driven to “crime” just to survive. And it only gets worse once persons are taken through the system - the poor always suffer being dragged through the system; not being able to pay bail or receive food in prison, having no one to stand up for them when they are demanded bribes or are tortured by officials, it is a never ending process of degradation and abuse. So you can imagine how amazing it is to have a rehabilitative centre like this alongside such a justice system. While it should not be understood to be a true evaluation – we only saw it briefly and were not able to converse with any of the “inmates” - it seemed like a great way of addressing the root causes of crime in the community.

As we climbed up the forest became much more dense and the air cooled significantly, and we were actually able to keep up a decent conversation. Mr. Po explained the different plants and animals to us, no we didn’t see any monkeys, and discussed which Church we attended, he asked us about how he might be able to send his girls to school in America, and was surprised that Casey and I both supported Obama over Hilary – “but you are women!” He accepted our bananas and water but refused the bread because he only eats once a day, and laughed at us when we asked him questions about what should be.

Going a third of the way, roughly 2,800 above sea level, we had reached the edge of the savannah zone. It was a beautifully grassy stretch from where, unlike the forest below, you could see past three feet at how this gigantic magnificent rock lay surrounded in a bed of clouds.




We ate more bananas and bread and took a few moments to delve into the serenity that Mr. Po informed us of before doing the awkward trek back down in shoes with no treads – don’t try this at home kids – though we never fell too badly (thank you mountain). Much easier and faster than going up, we made it to the bottom relaxed enough to understand what Mr.Po meant by the bustle of the city in comparison to the mountain - something we didn’t understand on our way in for some reason. We extended our goodbyes and thank yous to Mr. Po and the Mountain as much as we could before having to b-line to make the bus before dark. Fantastic trip.




*okay well a third of it, but still a third of the highest peak.
** I’m not really sure about privacy issues so we changed his name.