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Culverts

How could I forget to mention the culverts? The rigors of the road are becoming old-hat to me; that, and with less rain it’s becoming more easily navigable, so I may not have any more observations to make on adventures of the Bekondo road. But, there are still the culverts to describe.

It’s a wet place, this rainforest is, so no one will be surprised that the occasional culvert is necessary to direct a stream underneath the road instead of across it. Only no attempt whatsoever has been made to bury the culvert. More accurately, the road goes over the stream rather than the stream under the road.

You’ll be chugging along the severely rutted but otherwise relatively flat road, when suddenly a culvert rears its head. You screech to a crawl (from your lightning speed of some 20 km/h) to scale the 1.5ish metre-high obstacle. Besides not burying the culvert, they haven’t even graded it to the road. The gradient on both sides of the hump is practically vertical. Fortunately, there’s only two these between Bekondo and Kumba.

But wait, it gets better. One of these culverts has an enormous gaping hole, right at the top, smack-dab in the middle of the road. It’s not quite a car-swallowing hole, but it is certainly a tire-eating hole. You do not want to fall into that.

All in a day’s drive in Cameroon. Boy, am I glad I don’t have to drive here.
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