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Road Journal – June 21 to July 12, 2026
In this chapter:
An American sheriff in Chad, three Franco-Cameroonians whose lives read like a novel, a mechanical repair that spirals out of control, an excellent Breton galette in the heart of Yaoundé, a toothache, and an eye emergency that could have brought the journey to an abrupt end… I’m seriously considering writing the sequel to La Chèvre (The Goat). And I won’t even have to invent anything!
June 23 – Two Africas
At lunchtime, I treated myself to a Breton galette, followed by a chocolate-and-banana crêpe at Le Biniou restaurant in Yaoundé. The owner is a genuine Breton woman who has been living in Cameroon since 1986… a lifetime. The bill came to around fifteen euros.
That evening, I returned to the small working-class neighborhood where I’ve rented a modest two-room apartment. Dinner would be street food. I had the choice between grilled chicken and pork. For a change, I went with the pork, asking them to go easy on the chili. I normally enjoy spicy food, but lately my digestive system has become a little temperamental, so I’m taking it easy. This time, the whole meal cost just €1.50, Coke included!
That’s Africa today. You can travel on a backpacker’s budget or spend almost as much as you would in Europe. The same goes for the roads: you can stick to the asphalt or head off in search of dirt tracks. Twenty-five years ago, the choice barely existed: it was street food and laterite roads almost everywhere. Times have changed.
On the mechanical front, I’ve finally received the new seals. They do indeed seem thinner than the ones fitted in Nigeria. However, I’m beginning to wonder whether I’ve been chasing the wrong diagnosis from the very beginning.
There definitely was a coolant leak. That much is certain. The temperature warning light came on, there was coolant on the skid plate, and the expansion tank kept emptying…
The problem is that, despite several test rides (admittedly limited because I didn’t want to overheat the engine and risk serious damage), I simply can’t reproduce the leak.
I’m now starting to suspect a coolant hose running a little too close to the exhaust. With my aftermarket exhaust, that hose should normally have been replaced by a metal pipe. It never was (the bike was already like that when I bought it), so I solved the problem by wrapping it in heat protection. If the hose shifted slightly when the bike was reassembled in Nigeria, it could have been lightly burned by the exhaust before temporarily sealing itself again through contact with the hot pipe.
In short… tomorrow I’ll take everything apart and see what happens.
📸 Curiosity of the day
In Africa, street vendors sell absolutely everything imaginable. After a while, you think you’ve seen it all.
Well… not quite.
Today I discovered something completely new: roaming passport-photo salesmen. They walk around carrying large display boards showing dozens of sample passport photos, almost like a restaurant menu.
At first I couldn’t figure out what they were selling. Then I realized I was standing right next to City Hall, where people come to renew their official documents.
These touts are there to steer customers toward the many photographers and photo labs in the area.
Competition is clearly fierce.
June 24 – Sick
Well…
Last night’s pork decided to get its revenge.
I spent a truly dreadful night making repeated trips to the bathroom—hardly the most glamorous experience.
Today is a day of rest.
The motorcycle can wait.
June 25 – The Not-So-Imaginary Invalid
I’m slowly coming back to life.
My stomach is still rather sensitive, but at least I can now venture more than ten metres away from the toilet.
While recovering, I’ve had plenty of time to think. And the more I think about it, the more I wonder whether I’ve been talking complete nonsense for the past ten days.
I’m now almost convinced the leak never came from the seals at all, but from that infamous hose.
If that’s really the case, I’ll have wasted about ten days, spent several hundred euros… and almost jeopardized my visa for the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
All because Yours Truly was convinced he’d diagnosed the problem within the first five minutes.
I’m furious.
June 26
The seals have been replaced.
The hose turned out to be perfectly intact.
So that wasn’t the culprit.
The bike has been reassembled.
Tomorrow… the verdict.
I’m trying not to get my hopes up. With this motorcycle, you never know which one of us is going to win. She can be rather temperamental.
June 27 – Is This Finally Departure Day?
The motorcycle finally seems to be back in working order.
And, above all…
Peter, the Nigerian mechanic, was innocent.
After comparing everything, it turned out that the seals I’d received in genuine BMW packaging were simply too thick. Proof that even an original BMW part can sometimes be… the wrong original part. (In fact, after taking a closer look, the markings on the seals seem to indicate that they are indeed the correct references. And yet, they were thicker than the worn ones they replaced… I’m completely baffled.)
That afternoon, however, I had two wonderful encounters.
I spent several hours with two Franco-Cameroonians who, between them, have accumulated well over a century of African experience. One spent forty years travelling across the continent, first as a forester and later installing GSM antenna networks.
Their stories are incredible.
I could listen to them for days on end.
June 29 – Change of Plans
The motorcycle is almost ready.
Well… almost.
One of the threads in the clutch cover seems a little worn. I don’t push my luck. With aluminum, it’s sometimes wiser to stop a quarter-turn before disaster strikes. But I do need to fix it before setting off again.
And yet, if I’ve decided to stay in Yaoundé for a few more days, it isn’t because of that bolt.
It’s because of Olivier and Gaby.
The two Franco-Cameroonian men of mixed heritage.
They’ve lived a thousand lives.
I simply couldn’t forgive myself if I left without recording at least some of their stories.
Kilometres are great.
Encounters are even better.
July 1 – Educational Packaging
Dinner cost less than two euros.
Chicken, kebabs, plantains, corn…
And the corn was wrapped in a geography homework sheet.
So I ended up revising Cameroon’s geography while eating.
Recycling can be surprisingly imaginative.
July 2 – The Sheriff of Chad
Today I interviewed Jacques, Gaby and Olivier (coming soon on YouTube).
Among all the stories they told me, one is an absolute gem—or should I say, worth its weight in peanuts… sorry, groundnuts, to stay true to the local vocabulary. 😉
It was told to me by a Franco-Cameroonian. His father was Breton, his mother Cameroonian. They met at a time when mixed marriages were anything but common (and that’s an understatement… the late 1940s). I’ll let you discover, in the upcoming video, the unforgettable story of his father’s marriage proposal to his future Cameroonian father-in-law in a village at the end of the 1940s.
Today’s story takes place near Moundou, in Chad.
He’s driving peacefully when he notices a huge American four-wheel drive in his rear-view mirror, “POLICE” emblazoned across the side, lights flashing.
He pulls over to let it pass.
Instead, the vehicle overtakes him, cuts in front of him, and forces him to stop.
Out climbs a portly American in full uniform, complete with a sheriff’s badge straight out of a Hollywood movie.
“You were driving too fast.”
And he proceeds to issue him with a speeding ticket.
An American sheriff.
In Chad.
Nearby stood a major American installation. Whether it was a military base or a private company, I honestly can’t remember. What I do remember is that they considered the road running alongside their site to fall under their jurisdiction.
So they had their own sheriff enforcing the speed limit.
July 3 – A Repair That Was Supposed to Take Five Minutes…
I head to the garage for a scheduled “repair.”
Calling it a repair is actually a bit of an exaggeration: all that needs to be done is replacing one bolt with a slightly longer one. I could easily do it myself—if only I knew where to find the blasted bolt…
While the mechanic gets to work, I strike up a conversation with two English-speaking travellers (one English, the other South African) who are crossing Africa in a 1957 Land Rover. Both are airline pilots based in Hong Kong.
A serious mistake on my part.
When I come back, the mechanic proudly announces that the job is finished.
I inspect the “repair.”
The washers he’d fitted as spacers are spinning freely. I point this out and ask him to tighten everything properly.
And then…
Disaster strikes.
At the very first quarter-turn…
Snap.
The bolt breaks clean off.
But… how?!?!?…
Instead of taking the time to find the proper bolt, he’d cut the old one in half and welded another piece onto the end of it…
On a garden gate?
Maybe.
(And even then…)
On an engine cover bolt that has to be torqued to specification?
Not quite.
The weld gave way the moment I tried to loosen it.
The real problem is that the remaining part of the bolt stayed stuck inside the engine casing.
What should have been a five-minute job suddenly turned into another complete strip-down of the motorcycle.
The moral of today’s story?
Sometimes, trying to save ten minutes is the best way to lose half a day.
African ingenuity certainly has its limits.
(And I still can’t understand how he ever thought that was a good idea!!!)
To be fair, the garage owner was genuinely apologetic. A really nice guy. He immediately told me they’d cover the cost of putting everything right.
Still…
What a pain.
July 4 – One More Stripped Thread…
I was finally convinced I was about to leave.
One last check before loading the luggage.
And then…
Another stripped thread.
This time, in the frame itself.
I looked at the motorcycle.
Then at the sky.
Then back at the motorcycle.
Sometimes, the deepest conversations happen in complete silence.
Fortunately, a machinist in Yaoundé made me a perfect steel insert (see video).
In the end, the repair is probably stronger than the original.
But it still cost me another day…
July 5, 2026
This time, it’s decided: I’m leaving!!!
…
Except that, first thing in the morning, I feel a dull ache beginning to set in.
A pain I’ve known all too well ever since childhood.
It’s always been my weak spot.
Still, I’m hoping to avoid the dreaded visit that has terrified me since I was a child.
Back then, my parents used to take me there twice a month.
It was a long journey: 250 kilometres from Bursa to Istanbul.
And there weren’t even any bridges across the Bosphorus yet.
We had to wait for the ferry.
Sometimes for hours, because of the crowds.
Under a blazing sun.
We passed the time playing cards.
It even got us into trouble with the police once: they thought we were playing poker, which was illegal.
The silver lining was that those trips allowed us to visit two places I absolutely loved.
The first was a butcher’s shop that sold a rare delicacy: pork!
Whenever we came home with some, it felt like a feast.
The second was the French bookshop.
I was an insatiable reader, and we never left without at least ten new books.
By the end of my teenage years, I’d counted more than a thousand books in my personal library.
I could read the complete works of Roger Frison-Roche in a weekend or two.
Adventure stories already…
Anyway, that familiar pain can only mean one thing:
A cavity is making its return.
Mouthwash isn’t helping.
It’s definitely a cavity.
Which means I now have to find a dentist.
July 8 – CURSED BY A MARABOUT???!!!!!
Well…
When things refuse to go your way, they really refuse to go your way. 😄
Today’s mission was “putting the man back together”—in other words, a trip to the dentist!
Cavity fixed.
Major scale and polish (my teeth have never exactly been my greatest strength… and that’s an understatement!!!).
And a follow-up appointment on Friday.
So far, so good.
Well…
Almost.
On my way back, the motorcycle decided she also wanted another appointment with the mechanic…
The coolant overflow tank started overflowing again.
The most likely explanation is simply an air pocket finally working its way out of the cooling system after all the recent work, meaning the system probably just needs bleeding.
Nothing dramatic.
But enough to convince me, once again, to postpone my departure and carry out a few more test rides around Yaoundé.
Much better to discover a problem ten kilometres from the hotel than five hundred kilometres deep inside the equatorial rainforest.
I need to be absolutely certain everything is working before setting off again.
The bright side is that this latest little mechanical hiccup allowed me to meet a Cameroonian biker riding a BMW R1200.
A basketball player, about two metres tall, and genuinely a really nice guy.
He helped me find coolant so I could make it back to the hotel, and we’re planning to meet for a drink very soon.
But the day’s troubles weren’t over yet.
That would have been far too easy.
That evening, my right eye suddenly started producing flashes of light and a swarm of floaters.
Most likely a posterior vitreous detachment—which is usually harmless—but it’s essential to make sure there isn’t a retinal tear.
So my new mission is to find an ophthalmologist as quickly as possible.
I’m beginning to wonder whether some marabout has decided I’m absolutely not allowed to leave Yaoundé… 😅
July 9 – No Motorcycling for the Next Few Days
You know what immersive travel is?
For the past few months, I’ve become quite familiar with African mechanics…
Well, here in Yaoundé, I decided to broaden the experience and put the Cameroonian healthcare system to the test!
Yesterday I told you I’d gone to a clinic to have a cavity treated. Everything went perfectly.
But that evening, on my way back, my right eye decided to give me quite a scare: large rings of light, followed, all of a sudden, by a veritable invasion of floaters.
I joked about it in yesterday’s post, but in reality, it’s not something to take lightly.
It turned out to be a posterior vitreous detachment.
The vitreous is the transparent gel that fills the inside of the eye. As we grow older—and even more so if we’re short-sighted—it can shrink and detach from the retina.
In itself, that’s usually not serious. The flashes of light occur when the vitreous pulls on the retina as it detaches, while the famous floaters are tiny remnants left drifting inside the vitreous. Most people have a few of them.
Last night, though, it looked more like an entire swarm of flies.
The real danger is that, as it detaches, the vitreous can sometimes tear the retina. If such a tear isn’t treated quickly, it can progress to a retinal detachment, leading to a gradual loss of vision—or even blindness. That’s exactly what happened to Eric Doridant a few years ago while returning from Turkey by motorcycle.
This is therefore a genuine medical emergency. If the retina has been torn, it must be repaired with a laser before it actually detaches. When treated promptly, it’s generally a straightforward procedure. Left untreated, however, the consequences can be severe.
So this morning I managed to find an ophthalmologist recommended by the French Consulate in Yaoundé. He saw me as an emergency case and carried out a complete eye examination, including a retinal scan.
The good news?
My retina is perfectly intact!
The verdict: a short course of treatment, two or three days of rest, and I’ll be able to get back on the road.
Honestly, I got off lightly. Had my retina been damaged, it could easily have meant several weeks—or even several months—off the motorcycle.
In the meantime, riding is completely out of the question. After having my pupils dilated for the retinal examination, I simply couldn’t tolerate daylight. So I hid away in a dark room until my vision gradually returned to normal.
After that…
Back to the usual programme: trying to understand why this cursed motorcycle still keeps losing coolant!
Since I mentioned immersion, here’s a quick look at my two Cameroonian medical experiences.
Within just a few days, I’ve had the opportunity to visit both a dentist and an emergency ophthalmologist. That doesn’t exactly make for a scientific study, but it’s enough to draw a few conclusions.
First of all: waiting times.
Nothing like France.
For the ophthalmologist, it was an emergency, and I was seen in less than an hour—the hardest part was actually managing to reach him.
As for the dentist, I got an appointment within twenty-four hours.
The dental clinic itself is very modern.
Honestly, I didn’t notice any major difference compared with what you’d find in France. Perhaps a little less equipment—but even that’s debatable.
In terms of reception, organisation and quality of care, I really have nothing to complain about.
The ophthalmologist was outstanding: efficient, highly competent and extremely clear in his explanations.
A solid ten out of ten.
The dentist who treated me was still relatively young. Two or three times during the procedure, a more experienced colleague came over to advise her.
Oddly enough, I found that reassuring.
Overall, Cameroon has some excellent healthcare professionals—and with waiting times far shorter than those in France.
As for the cost, scaling and treating the cavity came to €110.
The emergency ophthalmology consultation, including the complete retinal examination, cost €74, which should normally be reimbursed by my travel assistance insurance.
One final detail: the medication.
Whether it was the amoxicillin or the caffeinated paracetamol (both supplied as powders to be dissolved in water), I rediscovered that slightly bitter, rather unpleasant taste of the medicines from my childhood.
A taste that has virtually disappeared in France.
Pharmaceutical companies have spent decades making medicines easier to swallow.
In Africa, practicality tends to come first—for reasons of cost and purchasing power.
The active ingredients are, I assume, exactly the same.
The effectiveness is the same.
But no one worries too much about flavourings or fancy coatings designed to hide the taste.
The result?
For the first time in decades, I rediscovered the flavour of the medicines I used to take as a child.
A little Proustian madeleine…
Only far less enjoyable.
In conclusion…
There is one thing I really can’t hold against my guardian angel:
She has impeccable timing.
She lets the problems pile up—but she always makes sure they happen in exactly the right place.
The motorcycle acts up?
There’s a mechanic.
A tooth decides to rebel?
There’s a dentist.
An eye suddenly starts producing fireworks?
There’s an ophthalmologist.
In the end, I have the feeling I have a guardian angel—or rather, a guardian angel, because it has to be a woman—who’s just a little bit sadistic.
She absolutely loves suspense, plot twists and adrenaline…
She just refuses to let things end badly.
Tough love.
Anyway, I’m off to watch a movie on my laptop.
La Chèvre (The Goat) suddenly feels like the perfect choice…
And I’ll leave the final word to my oldest and best friend (who isn’t on social media—he’s a complete caveman… but he’ll probably read this anyway… so there!):
“You’re getting old. Years ago, you’d have married the dentist.”
July 12 – Will I Finally Be Leaving?
Tomorrow I have a follow-up appointment with the dentist.
In theory, I should be riding there on the motorcycle…
Except that my motorcycle trousers have now been held hostage by the seamstress for three days. At this point, I’m beginning to wonder whether she’s making me a brand-new pair!
(To be fair, this must be the sixth or seventh time I’ve had them repaired in just a few weeks. They’re definitely reaching the end of their life.)
The motorcycle seems to be running normally.
I’ve put it through several complete heating and cooling cycles without any problems…
But I can’t help worrying about the mysterious marabout’s curse that’s apparently been hanging over my head ever since I left Abidjan.
Anyway…
To be continued…
Repairing the stripped aluminum frame thread :
Heading to the dentist :
Photos :
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