Douala

Introduction

Douala is located along the coastline of Cameroon and is the largest city in the country. As the most important port city in the country, it handles a lot of international trade. Oil and coffee are major export products. From 1885 until 1901 it was the capital of the German colonie Kamerun. Douala is a French speaking area.

Sights and Activities

• Eko Market, the largest one in Cameroon.
• Place du Gouvernement
• La Pagode the palace of the last local ruler at the Place du Gouvernement.
• Doual'art a nice art gallery and cafe next to La Pagode.
• Rond-Point Deido with a rather strange statue representing "La Nouvelle Liberté" by Joseph-Francis Sumégné.

Weather

Douala has a typical tropical climate, with hot and humid weather year round. Temperatures are slightly above 30 °C during the day and a sticky 22 °C at night on average. It is extremely wet, like most coastal areas in Cameroon. Here, rainfall is very high throughout the year, with only December to February bringing some relief of the wet conditions. June to September is extremely wet with 500 to 750 mm of rain in each month!

Getting There

By Plane

International
The Douala International Airport (DLA), located 10 km outside Douala, is the main gateway to the country. It is also the base of the flag carrier, Cameroon Airlines.
Destinations include Paris, Brussels, Cotonou, Tripoli, Abidjan, Libreville, Johannesburg, Lagos, N'Djamena, Malabo, Bamako, Conakry, Dakar, Lomé, Ouagadougou, Addis Ababa, Kinshasa, Nairobi, Casablanca, Brazzaville, Zurich, Luanda and Bangui.

Domestic
Garoua, Maroua, Ngaoundéré and Yaoundé are all served by Cameroon Airlines. National Airways Cameroon does approximately the same.

By Train

Passenger services are operated by Camrail. There are several daily services from the capital Yaoundé, brand new Intercity trains takes 3:45 h to complete the journey. There's also a slower service from Kumba twice a week.

By Car

There are paved roads from Douala to Yaoundé, Kribi, Limbé, Buéa, Bafoussam and Bamenda, which are passable by regular 2wd cars.

By Bus

Buses, minibuses and shared taxis link Douala and Yaoundé, with onwards connections north. There are also good connections to some coastal areas like Limbe and Kribi.

By Boat

There are regular passenger ferries between Douala and both Malabo at Bioko Island as well as Bata at the mainland part of Equatorial Guinea, also called Rio Muni.

Getting Around

By Public Transport

Shared taxis are cheap and frequent, even cheaper are motorbike taxis, but they can't go to parts of Bonanjo or the airport (only to the parking entrance).

By Foot

Sidewalks are full off parking cars and motorbikes.

Eat

The Foyer du Marin, German seamen's mission, a hotel at the western end of the Rue Gallieni has a nice restaurant with a garden and a pool. Western food like fish, pasta, salad, also some German dishes.

Sleep

• Planet Hotel, Akwa, west of the city, ☎ +237 33 43 31 31. Modern and marginally maintained hotel which is convenient for airport. Wireless internet works well, air conditioners do not. Rooms are generally clean and have TV with a few English channels. If you need entertainment, there is a nightclub across the street. 55,000 CFA.
• Peninsula Plaza Hotel, Voie Makepe Est (North side of the city), ☎ +237 347 1741. A modern hotel which is on the northern side of the city. Rooms are quite good, with air conditioning. Internet might not work and hot water from in room boiler may not work. 25,000 CFA.
• Hôtel Akwa Palace, 920 Boulevard de la Liberté.
• Hotel Sawa, 488 Rue de Verdun.
• Pullman Douala Rabingha, 35 Avenue Des Cocotiers

You can use the form below to search for availability (Travellerspoint receives a commission for bookings made through the form)

Keep Connected

Internet

You can find Internet access all over the place, but the speed might be slow.

Phone

See also International Telephone Calls

The country calling code to Cameroon is 237.
To make an international call from Cameroon, the code is 00.

To make local and international calls you need to buy a pre-paid SIM card. Check if your cell phone has a compatible GSM standard (Africa/Europe) - if not, in addition to a SIM card you probably need to buy a new phone. "MTN" and "Orange" are two major telephone companies in Cameroon.

Post

National post service is considered to be unreliable.

External Links