Douala is the suit-wearing frontman of the African Economic and Monetary Community; a business-minded miscellany of office blocks, frenetic harboursides and utilitarian warehouses bursting at the seams with palm oil, aromatic cocoa, fresh coffee grains and oodles of colourful fruit bound for far-flung destinations. It’s also a lively, characterful city where international eateries selling pizza pies rub shoulders with Cameroonian ndole curries and pan-fried fish cuts straight from the Atlantic, and where off-the-clock industrialists sit soaking in the West African sun on deck-chair-spattered beaches. Don’t leave without first casing out the honorific national statue that adorns the La Nouvelle Liberte, the royal rooms of the Kings Bell Palace, or a viewing of the local Doual’ Art. Then why not find a Douala tourist guide to take you through the boondocks of the Edea Wildlife Reserve just to the south, where manatees, alligators and elephants splash the estuary waters, and collared mangabey monkeys dominate the canopies.