Last night the Commandant turned out to be a better negotiator than Chris and stuck by his guns. We finally agreed to pay the extortionate rate of tax he was asking, but it did include our night's lodging with use of the camp's electricity for our air conditioning.
This morning we were up at 5am and out the gates, accompanied by Corporal Frank who was our liaison. He called the Airport Manager who soon arrived with several armed soldiers. We had agreed to only fly within the airport boundary. The runway was very long but the light airflow was across it! The 2 of us took off, having parked the Enterprise securely within the airport compound. Frank followed us with 4 soldiers. As soon as we were in the air we were out of the airport and flying over dense equatorial rainforest (jungle) parallel to the road in. Some trees were really tall. We were relieved to see there were a few cleared areas but no tracks into them. Luckily after 20 minutes there was a big dirt road ahead running alongside an oil palm plantation and we descended to land in what looked like a giant beanstalk crop. We used the handling line to pull the balloon clear of the wet vegetation and a very tall gendarme came to help me. Almost immediately Frank arrived with his soldiers and we all packed the envelope away with the help of a farmer. Chris went back to fetch the Enterprise while I dismantled the basket with the farmer. Afterwards we drove back into Kribi town with Frank to withdraw more money from the bank for him to give to his Commandant.
We ended up hot and wet from the exertion, the heat and the vegetation. It was so lovely to come to find our German friends at the Ilomba Hotel right on the beach. The sea is calm and warm and the facilities are perfect. We are on the Bay of Biafra and it's hard to imagine that in the 1970s this was a killing field and children were starving. It's just so idyllic. Tomorrow the 4 of us are going on a boat trip to visit 2 pigmy villages. Cameroon seems to have all of imagined Africa rolled into one.
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