Maroua, Waza & the North

The plains south of Lake Chad were home from at least the first millennium BC to the Sao culture, remembered for its walled towns and fired-clay figures; the Kotoko towns along the Logone are often seen as its heirs. From the south of the lake the empire of Kanem-Bornu extended its influence into the region, and the Wandala built the Mandara kingdom at the foot of the mountains, adopting Islam by the 18th century.

The decisive change came with the Fulani jihad of the early 19th century. Modibo Adama, a follower of Usman dan Fodio, led a holy war that founded the emirate of Adamawa, and Fulani rulers set up lamidates at Maroua, Garoua, Ngaoundéré, Rey Bouba and elsewhere. The mountain and plains peoples who resisted conversion retreated into the Mandara hills and were raided for slaves. Germany conquered the north at the turn of the 20th century and ruled through the lamidos, a system France kept after 1916.

Independent Cameroon's first president, Ahmadou Ahidjo, was a Fulani from Garoua, and the north carried great political weight until he stepped down in 1982. From 2014 the insurgency of Boko Haram, which began in north-eastern Nigeria, spread into the Far North, bringing attacks, displacement and a large military presence, and ending the tourism that had made Waza and Rhumsiki known abroad.

Fulfulde, the language of the Fulani, is the common language of markets across the three regions, alongside French. Islam is the majority religion in the towns, and the lamidos remain important figures, holding court in their palaces and appearing on horseback, with drummers and trumpeters, at the Muslim festivals. The Fulani ideal of pulaaku, a code of restraint, dignity and patience, still shapes manners.

Around them live dozens of other peoples. In the Mandara mountains the Mafa, Kapsiki, Mofu, Podoko and others farm terraced slopes and keep their own languages, initiation rites and festivals; many are Christian or follow traditional religion. Kotoko fishermen and Shuwa Arab herders live on the plains towards Lake Chad, Mbororo herders move cattle across the plateau, and the Gbaya and Mbum are among the peoples of Adamawa. Crafts include leatherwork and embroidered robes in Maroua, Kapsiki pottery and blacksmithing, and the brightly decorated calabashes of the plains.

Maroua and Garoua are the largest cities, each with several hundred thousand people, and Ngaoundéré is the main town of the plateau. Most people farm millet, sorghum, maize and groundnuts, and cotton is the main cash crop, ginned in Garoua and the smaller towns. Cattle are the region's wealth: herds from the Adamawa plateau and the Benue valley are sent south to feed Yaoundé and Douala. The Lagdo dam on the Benue forms a large reservoir.

The north is poorer than the south, with lower school enrolment and frequent droughts and floods. In the Far North the insurgency has shut markets, emptied border villages and swelled towns with displaced families, and the Minawao camp shelters refugees from Nigeria. Days start before the heat, markets are busiest in the morning, and life slows in the early afternoon until evening, when people gather around grills and tea sellers.

The staple is boule, often called couscous in local French — a stiff paste of millet, sorghum or maize flour eaten by hand with a sauce of okra, dried fish, or leaves such as sorrel or baobab. Beef is plentiful: kilichi, thin strips of beef coated in a spiced peanut paste and sun-dried, is sold in every market, and soya skewers grill at night on street corners. Fresh and soured milk from Fulani herds is drunk or poured over millet.

Drinks reflect the religious mix. In Muslim households the favourites are foléré, a cold sweet infusion of red hibiscus flowers, and sweet tea, while in the mountain villages women brew sorghum beer for markets and festivals.

The Far North holds the region's best-known sights. Waza National Park, a UNESCO biosphere reserve on the floodplain south of Lake Chad, was for decades Cameroon's premier wildlife park, with elephants, giraffes, antelopes and lions and huge flocks of water birds in the dry season, though poaching and insecurity have reduced its wildlife. West of Maroua, the Mandara mountains rise along the Nigerian border, with terraced fields and hilltop compounds; at Rhumsiki, in the Kapsiki country, eroded volcanic plugs stand above the plain in northern Cameroon's best-known landscape. Maroua has its craft market and a small museum, and Mora lay at the heart of the old Wandala kingdom.

In the North region, Garoua sits on the Benue river, with the Lagdo reservoir upstream. Nearby lie the Bénoué, Bouba Njida and Faro national parks, savanna and woodland reserves with antelopes, including the giant eland, hippos and elephants, and the lamidate of Rey Bouba keeps its traditional palace.

To the south, the Adamawa plateau is a landscape of rolling grassland, crater lakes and waterfalls. Ngaoundéré, at the end of the railway, has the palace of its lamido, and the surrounding hills include Lake Tison, a volcanic crater lake outside the town, and the waterfalls of the Vina.