flying with Ray

Our friend Ray works for SIL, an American linguistic organization, as a pilot. He and his wife Ann connected us with our volunteer opportunities here in Cameroon in the first place, and we'll be living in their place for 6 months while they're in the US on furlough. Last weekend he offered to take us flying over Yaounde, to transfer a plane from one airport to another. We helped him refuel the plane, and then took a 20-minute ride over the outskirts of Yaounde and the surrounding hills; you can't overfly the city itself.

We saw a little red motorcycle at the hangar that is actually two-wheel drive; one of the pics above shows the additional drive chain on the front wheel. The wheels are fuel reservoirs. SIL is experimenting with this vehicle for use in the field; Ray told us it's narrow enough to ride down a footpath in the jungle, can climb anything, and is buoyant enough to float across rivers.

Hopefully some of the natural beauty of the area comes through in these little 400-pixel-wide pictures. The city soon gave way to farms, paths and thick jungle. We flew low through the hills visible in some of our other pictures, which turn out up close to be gigantic boulders. Lush tropical forest and hills stretched off to the horizon.