Once the travel bug bites there is no known antidote, and I know that I shall be happily infected until the end of my life. - Michael Palin

9 August 2019, Mevang to Lalara, 68.99km
Motel Entre Nous 12,000CFA (R300)

We were served an unexpectedly delicious meal tonight at an unpretentious little restaurant at the intersection as you enter Lalara from the south. Tender fried chicken and spaghetti with tinned peas in a tasty sauce. Sadly, Charl could not enjoy his meal; he felt nauseous again, and walked “home” leaving me to arrange to bring his dinner as a takeaway.
Today’s road was in perfect condition, winding still through forested hills. We stopped somewhere for fish soup. And picked up an empty mollusc, almost the size of my hand. We had been told that elephants are often seen in the Mevang area, eating bananas in the forest. We tried to keep an eye open for them, but peering into dense forest while cycling the edge of a road ain’t easy; if there were elephants, we did not see them. We did see a small bright green snake, that turned tail and squirmed away in panic from my wheels. And butterflies and birds and monkeys. And heard frogs gurrumphing. At times it is so quiet on the road, that you can hear leaves fall. There is a particular tree, the cecropia, with large circular leaves deeply divided into separate lobes. When the leaf dies, it snaps from the branch with an audible crack. As it floats down, it snap-crackle-pops into its component parts as it hits trees and bush on its way to the forest floor, where it settles with a sigh.
Our Mevang hosts were super-entrepreneurial, in stark contrast to the young woman managing the Motel Entre Nous in Lalara. They rented out permanent and temporary rooms, had a shop and bar with TV, and in the morning, Joseph’s wife did a brisk business selling freshly-made dough balls to neighbourhood kids. When we arrived at the Entre Nous, a man and woman were sitting outside at two separate tables, drinking beer. Neither stood nor greeted us when we arrived. We could not tell whether they were involved with the motel, or fellow guests. And the young woman was so slow to react to our queries, that I querulously described her as moving more slowly than the empty mollusc we picked up earlier in the day.

For today's route see below photos
For overview route, click on ROUTE tab above…