zoo in Yaounde

Well, I'm writing more than I thought I would, b/c there's just been something to say, and - we paid one more day of internet for our hotel, so - here I am again, with quite the story. We were told there's a zoo here in Yaounde, so - off we went today to find it. Anybody ever travelling to Yaounde, I do not recommend visiting the zoo. The animals were like 90% a type of the same baboon, found here, and the other 10% consisted of: a few birds, one dying on the ground, a mandrill, a pig-type animal, and a hyena with his lunch decaying in the background: a cow's head. The stench from the cow's head was such a gagger you had to hold your breath. Some animals were in concrete slabs with no grass, and rusted bars, atrocious maintenance. I did not take any pix b/c they search your bag and charge you $20 if you want to take pix, I let them keep my camera and I keep my $20. I wouldn't have wanted to take pix anyway, VERY depressing. So, we were pretty much done in 15 minutes, so then went to the play area and let the kids swing, when suddenly....we are approached by people who acted like they work there, telling us we owe them 2,000 CFA ($4)for letting the children play on the janky playground. I acted like I didn't understand a word of French, and then they busted out the mean boss, a woman, who proceeds to yell at us in French, that we owe her 2,000 CFA, didn't we see the sign (we later saw a faded sign, with nobody standing by it, stating that it's 1,000 CFA per child to play there), but - she was freaking out on us, coming right next to me, her body language like she wanted to kung fu with me, puffed-out chest, screaming. By this time, she'd drawn a crowd (there weren't many people there, but - they were all watching our situation at this time, she was MAD). We did not give her the $, she was a bully, and we just acted like we didn't understand her, and at one pt, Matt had to get between her and me (I was walking away from her) and Matt said to her in Spanish "Calme-te", which we think is similar in French "calm down", and then she followed us almost to the exit, oh, and she had a bit of a beard, maybe that's why she was so mad. So, we escapted unscathed, and didn't have to pay for the one minute our children swang. I easily would have paid if she just nicely asked us instead of yelling at us and bullying us from the get-go, the whole scene was disturbing, so we left, and found a little restaurant and stopped and something I never do, but - ordered a beer! It hit the spot, and the kids had an orange drink, and a really nice Cameroonian man chatted with us, so - that's the story de jour:))