Into Sudan we go

Wednesday 8th August

We left at 7.30am and were back in Gonder by 10am where we met up with the overlanders again at Terara Hotel where we are all camping tonight. We made ourselves bacon and egg rolls as we had not eaten yet and then we set off for a walk to town. We saw the Fasil Ghebbi( Royal Enclosure) which is surrounded by high stone walls and contains six castles. These castles date back to around 1640 when Gonder was the capital city of Ethiopia for about 250 years, while it is now the 4th largest city in Ethiopia. We walked through the town, going to the internet and then having a fresh juice – Ethiopia is famous for these and we had a mix which was layers of mango, pawpaw and avocado juice – attractive to look at in the glass and delicious! We then bought a few groceries before heading back to our camp at the hotel. I worked on the figures for Ethiopia, while Dave pottered around with Garfield – fixing a small leak in our shower water tank and can you believe it??? Sourcing and fixing a leak around our radiator cap!!! It seems we are to be dogged by radiator problems!


Thursday 9th August

We left at 6.30am after a cup of coffee as we knew we had a long day ahead of us. In Ethiopia we had 200kms to do until the Sudanese border and of course it was up and down dale. Unfortunately, it was misty and rainy, so we missed most of the last beautiful scenery of Ethiopia. It took us 4 hours to get to the border and Garfield was once again covered in mud! The Ethiopian official was really slow and our exit took a little while but then we drove across to Sudan. It is always exciting to move on to another country. The Sudanese officials were really friendly and chatted to us non stop – the one really wanted to keep the photo of my children but I said it was the only one we had!
We had read in the travel guide that there was 150kms of bad dirt road to cover before we got to tar. What a pleasant surprise awaited us – beautiful tar roads right from the border! And of course, our outgoing text messaging on our cellphone was working once again – I am SO delighted. Sudan, itself was a total surprise – flat and green as far as the eye could see! Admittedly, it is their rainy season, and it did get drier as we went further N. The villages were neat with groups of 3-6 huts enclosed by reed/grass fences. There were open spaces where we didn’t see people!!! In Ethiopia, we couldn’t travel 100m without seeing paedestrians and huts. Also, all the screaming children had disappeared! Really, Ethiopia is one of the most picturesque countries in Africa, but there were just SO many people and they were so in ‘your face.’ Ethiopia has a population of 70+ million and Sudan(the biggest country in Africa) has 38 million, and we could immediately see the difference. The temperature was hotting up – we were now about 600m altitude and 30 degrees! In Ethiopia we had nearly always been over 2 000m altitude and between 15 and 20 degrees. The two countries are quite different.
We were making 100km an hour and it felt like we were sailing along! We had only hoped to get a little way into Sudan, but the going was so good, that we decided to push through to Khartoum – not one of our best decisions – as the last 150kms, the traffic congestion became unbearable and our average speed went down to about 40km/hour! The sun began to set and half the vehicles had no lights, the road itself had no ‘cats eyes’ and no road markings at all. There were huge trucks that we had to try and overtake and because Dave is on the right he can’t see and I have to try and look for him, so it is very stressful! By 8.30pm we were on the outskirts of Khartoum, the traffic was chaotic, there were no street lights and no street names! Luckily, the Nile River is a good landmark and we actually found the Blue Nile Yatch Club fairly easily, only having to do one U-turn! But, it was 9.30pm – we had been on the road 15 hours and were both exhausted. We really should not have pushed through in one day, but you are always wise in hindsight! As we drove in to the camp ground, we spotted Johan & Betsy, fellow SA travelers that we had met in Bahir Dar and who are also coming on the ferry to Egypt with the overlanders. After a quick supper we were not long out of bed!


Friday 10th August

Well, it is hot! We are only 400m altitude and the temperature is 36 degrees! We had a day of spring cleaning – Garfield was washed, the laundry was done including our tracksuits, jackets and sheets! Then we just relaxed as we couldn’t do anything else – this is Muslim country for real and Friday is the holy day – nothing opens, not even the internet cafes! Anyway, we have really caught up and I have even done the mending.

In the afternoon, the 4 of us caught a taxi to the Hilton Hotel, in the hope of finding an ATM. No such luck! However, it was a pleasant outing. Alcohol is completely illegal here in Sudan, so Dave had a ‘non alcoholic’ Becks – he said it tasted good and it was ice cold. And so it should have been, as it cost R45!!! Hilton prices are definitely out of our league.

Our costs for Ethiopia were:

Visas R 420
Vehicle repairs R12 314
Accommodation R 1 730
Eating out R 1 469
Groceries R 177
Drinks R 249
Internet R 156
Sight seeing R 1 550
Taxi R 116
Tips R 31
Firewood R 19
Purchases R 658
Headphones & Cell charger R 189
Laundry R 42
Umbrella R 40
Bank charges R 80
Petrol R 6 652


Saturday 11th August

Today is apparently a public holiday – our timing is really bad! We are totally confused about the money, as, as yet, we have been unable to find an ATM to draw and the banks are all closed, to do an official money change. The guide book informed us that the Sudanese pound was the old currency, and that the new currency is the Dinar. However, everyone is using pounds! We have now discovered that this is the ‘new’ pound which was only introduced one month ago when the dinar was abolished! We think 1 Sudanese pound is about R3.50 but we are not 100% certain.
Most people do not speak English, but now we have managed to work around that one. When we find someone who speaks English, we get him to write (in Arabic) where we want to go – it looks like complete gibberish to us! But we glibly show this to the taxi driver and hey presto, we get to where we want to go!
This morning we went to a hotel, the Meridian, that has internet, and we managed to catch up with correspondence. Our Libyan visas are on track and a Libyan guide is meeting us at the Egypt/Libya border on the 10th Sept – I had set this in motion from SA in February but we just had to finalize the exact date. Johan and Betsy are going to join in with us, so we will travel together through Sudan, Egypt and Libya, and then they continue round and down the west coast of Africa, while we go over to Italy.
Afterwards, we went to see the confluence of the Nile. From the south, the White Nile comes, wide and lazy from Lake Victoria in Jinga Uganda. And from the east, the Blue Nile comes, a torrent flow of muddy water from Lake Tana in Ethiopia. The two streams meet and the 2 distinct colour waters merge to form the mighty Nile that flows through Egypt.
We are now back at the campsite and I think I am going to colour my hair! I have had enough of being grey! Tomorrow everything will hopefully be open, as Sunday is a full trading day, and we can get the rest of our shopping, archaeological permits and ferry tickets bought, as we hope to travel N into the desert on Monday.


Sunday 12th August

The 4 of us set off at 9am with Abdulla, our taxi man, for the bank. There are no ATM’s that can take international visa cards but the bank manager can phone for authorization, charge you R175 admin and then you can draw cash! We did that and we now know for certain that 1 Sudanese pound is equivalent to R3.69. Today is a fully operational business day and in fact it is the first day of the new school year here in Sudan, so all the children are back at school! The traffic in Khartoum is absolutely crazy with virtually no traffic lights, just 3 or 4 traffic police at each intersection! We certainly would have battled to drive around as there are no English signs or street names and a lot of streets are one way or else completely blocked with traffic- Abdulla then shoots down a side street. With 5 of us in an ancient Toyota corolla, we were really hot, and it took the entire day to drive around to a supermarket after the bank and then looking for the office to buy the archeological permits. After 3 attempts at finding this office, we gave up. If they are needed to see the pyramids it will just be tough luck as nobody seems to know where to get them in Khartoum. Eventually, we got back to camp at 6pm – totally exhausted!
At about 8pm, Harry, another traveler we have met on the road, pulled in. He is an Irishman who has been living in JHB for quite a few years and is now traveling with his son up to Ireland to join his wife and daughters. We introduced him to Jeff in Bahir Dar and he is also joining the overlanders on the ferry, so we are now quite a group.


Monday 13th August

Harry, Dave and I went back to the Meridian to check on email and then at about 11am, Johan and us left to travel N. Abdulla led us out of Khartoum, helping us to negotiate the hectic traffic! Once on the outskirts, we stopped to fill up petrol and bade Abdulla farewell.
We were now traveling through real desert – the temperature was 42 degrees and we were sweltering! About 30kms N of a town Shendi, on the righ hand side of the road, we stopped to see the pyramids of the Royal Cemetery of Meroe. These pyramids date from 800BC until the fall of Kushite rule in 400AD and were the burial sites of kings and queens. These pyramids are smaller but steeper in pitch than the Egyptian pyramids at Giza. Unfortunately, most of them have been decapitated, largely by a treasure hunter, Guiseppe Ferlini in 1834, and all for no good, as apart from some jewelry in one of the pyramids, he found nothing!
We continued N and then found a ‘bush camp’ in the desert, just off the road next to a green irrigated patch. Within minutes the owner had come to introduce himself and to tell us that we were very welcome. He hacked off a whole branch of dates and gave them to us. What delicious dates they were and we now have a whole packet of them as ‘padkos’
N 17 55.951 E 034 00.000


Tuesday 14th August

We woke up at 6.30am and it was still 28 degrees! But it felt cool in comparison to 42degrees. We had cereal and fruit for breakfast and then set off. This is real hard and hot – don’t get any romantic ideas about driving through a desert – it is not really fun! But it is an accomplishment and when we get to Egypt we will feel great. We drove till midday and then decided to stop as the road N was going to veer away from the Nile, and we were concerned that we would be unable to find any shade to camp under. We have found a spot under a huge thorn tree about 100m from the Nile and we have stopped here. We haven’t set up camp yet as it is TOO hot. So we are just sitting under the tree and spraying ourselves with cold water every now and then!
We sat the day out, drinking about 4 litres each, not doing one wee, even before we went to bed! Once again, the owner of the land came and welcomed us and later on he brought us a bowl of washed dates- he actually said that he had cleaned and prepared his home for us to sleep there! We politely declined, showing them our roof top tents. They are SO hospitable and polite, it is unbelievable?
The sunset over the Nile was beautiful and we were relieved to see the sun go down – it was 7pm and still 43 degrees! Slowly the temperature began to drop and by 10pm it was 36 degrees. With dark, all the bugs came out! There were beetles, bugs, spiders and flying insects that stung you really sore! One saving grace, was that there were no mosquitos. We went to bed at 10.30pm still really hot and unfortunately, the wind had dropped, but we chanced opening our tent windows to get what little breath of wind there was!
N 19 07.218 E 33 35.116


Wednesday 15th August

We woke up at 6.30am to a cool breeze and the temperature gauge said 29 degrees – it felt like heaven! Within a few minutes, we saw our hosts coming across the sand with a tray of tea. They are wonderful people and so humble and not in your face like the Ethiopians. They (3 men and 2 boys) sat with us while we had tea, and then Dave got out the printer to print them the photographs we had taken of them. They were absolutely astounded and showered us with thanks and blessings, and then they bade us farewell and left us to have breakfast.
We set off to tackle the Nubian Desert! At Abu Hamed the Nile River veered S in a big loop away from our road and we continued N towards Wadi Halfa. Soon the tar disappeared and we were literally in the middle of the Nubian Desert. Our only beacons were the disused telephone poles next to the train track and we followed these religiously. The train track was laid in 1897 and was the key to Kitchener’s Anglo-Egyptian Conquest of Sudan. The track was laid across 360kms of unsurveyed and waterless desert, from Wadi Halfa towards Khartoum and into enemy territory. Survey teams went ahead, followed by teams of workers that laid the plates, then the sleepers, then the rails and finally the team that leveled the line. Apparently the line advanced by between 2 and 5 kms a day – under the blazing desert sun! Stations were built every 30kms or so and we passed these along the way. It was the train line that won the war in 1898 as it brought in men and munitions in an unstoppable advance. On our journey, it was the train line that led us to Wadi Halfa!

At times there were 100’s of various tracks through the sand and at others a single well-worn track, while at times there was no track at all! We have no air conditioner and so we had the windows wide open – but with an outside temperature of around 43 degrees, the wind was hot. Occasionally, we went through huge dust storms and one time, I am not sure how Dave managed to keep his eyes open? We were continually thirsty, and I had to regulate our drinking – 250mls each every 30 minutes – and we still didn’t wee the entire day! It was a grueling 9 hours! But we made it! Dave really hit a ‘low’ in the evening – I think the day had just been too much for him – his skin was irritated and his eyes were totally blood shot – he had had enough! I have been there a few times, so he certainly was entitled to one ‘black evening!’
We found a bush camp behind a koppie on the outskirts of Wadi Halfa – set up camp, had a cold dinner, a shower and then tried to sleep in the stifling heat.


Thursday 16th August

We woke up at 6.30am and decided to try and look for a better place to camp as we have a weeks wait here in Wadi Halfa! Wadi Halfa is a dry, dusty, sorry looking town with not one tree in it!!! The best hotel we could find was the Nile Hotel – a mud brick structure with sand floors and rope beds. The beds are all out in a courtyard as the rooms are too hot and miserable. There are various bodies lying around in this communal area, waiting for the ferry. And to top this, there is no running water so only bucket showers for all and sundry to use and smelly long drop toilets! Apparently, the original Wadi Halfa, used to be shady and tree lined with old houses built in the traditional Nubian style but all this was sent to a watery grave in 1963 when the High Dam was built in Aswan in Egypt and Lake Nubia(in Sudan) and Lake Nasser(in Egypt) were formed.
We drove around the Lake Nubia shoreline a little way and bingo, we came across the water works with a couple of trees in their grounds. We drove in and chatted to the locals, who informed us to wait for the boss. He duly arrived and we have been given permission to camp here, under a tree. Best of all, there is a hosepipe and a continual water supply so we are in our element. Every hour or so, we stand under the cold hosepipe and wet ourselves, clothes and all! Can you all imagine Dave (who hates cold water) enjoying this?? Well he does – it is actually the only way we can get through the day, and today is the first day that we actually feel hungry – I think because we have been a bit cooler with our regular ‘showers’. We can also plug into their electricity so our fridge can work at full capacity without flattening our batteries.
There is no internet here in Wadi Halfa, so I am afraid we will only be able to update all this Sudanese news once we reach Egypt.
It is going to be a long, hot, dry, thirsty week ahead of us.


Friday 17th August

What a night! Dave and I feel as if we are on the brink of Hell’s gates. The heat is ongoing and we sleep completely naked with the tent windows wide open, but we are bathed in sweat – the mattress is soaked by morning, as are our pillows. Dave got up twice in the night – when his tongue felt twice the size it should be – and got us cold water to drink. We will make it through these days, but it is a real endurance.
We got a sms from Harry to say that him and the overlanders are on their way here, today.


Saturday 18th August

Happy Birthday Rayanne!! How I miss my family on days like this. We phoned her this morning, but there was a terrible time delay on the phone and it was not easy to chat normally. The weather in Cape Town is apparently lovely today and her and her friends are going for a picnic up the mountain. We hope you have a wonderful day, my Babsie Boo.
We are still sweltering and today there is a sand storm all around us. Visibility is quite obscured and we cannot see the lake as we could on other days. Last night we hosed our entire car and tent down before we went to bed, and we took our spray bottle up to bed with us so that we could keep spraying each other! It helped marginally but we still battle to sleep at just below 40 degrees.


Sunday 19th August

Well this morning it is 27 degrees and we had the most wonderful nights sleep! We feel so refreshed as we didn’t toss and turn all night in a bed of sweat. The dust storm has cleared and there is a marginally cool breeze coming off the lake. It is now 9.30am and the temperature has crept up to 32 degrees. But we can cope with that. I even feel that I have enough energy to do a bit of tapestry. We have packed bags to take with us on the ferry, as we may load our vehicles onto the barge tomorrow morning. Jeff and the overlanders are expected today.
The overlanders arrived at 11.30am and we had a joyous reunion. There are only 8 of them left but still it made life a lot more interesting. We all sat around in the shade and chatted in between hosepipe showers! They have now gathered 4 vehicles (us, Johan, Harry and an Austrian couple) to join their truck on the barge. The other 2 vehicles were in town at the hotel.


Monday 20th August

We were up bright and early to pack up our campsite and finish packing our bags for the week ahead. We left at 8.30am and went into town to meet Mazar, the agent helping Jeff. Then we booked into the Nile Hotel – we have no choice and we have had a few days to get our heads around this idea, so it doesn’t seem so bad now. The drivers then set off to the lake to load the vehicles onto the barge – it is quite a thing saying farewell to Garfield for a few days!
We moved into our rooms – sand floors, mud walls with a plaited reed roof (I don’t think it ever rains here) and plastic strung beds! Within minutes we had moved our beds out into the courtyard, where we get shade and a bit of a breeze. Then we just sat the heat of the day out. The men returned 2 ½ hours later, having loaded the vehicles and joined us. Luke, has taught us to wrap our water bottles in a wet towel and it is amazing how cool this keeps your water! At about 4pm we ventured out into the sunny streets as Haan said he had found a pastry shop with ice cold yogurt! We all converged on the shop and enjoyed an afternoon snack with some cold drinks. Life is certainly more interesting with the company of the overlanders and we enjoy all the banter and jokes that go on – also Dave has extra people to play cards with and cause trouble with!
At 7pm when the sun set, we all had a cold bucket shower and then took a stroll up the road to the restaurant where we had roasted goat meat with omlettes and fresh bread. Then it was back to our string beds and the thick syrupy air to try and get some sleep.


Tuesday 21st August

We woke up and took a walk across the street to the tea lady who sits in the shade opposite the hotel. Here we all sat around enjoying her doughnuts and a selection of teas and coffee – the Sudanese really enjoy their tea and add all sorts of herbs, for example mint, cloves and even hibiscus. Dave and I were just delighted to be able to get coffee with milk. Jeff is Maltese and his mother tongue is similar to Arabic so he can make himself understood which is a great help. After that we crept back under cover away from the vicious sun rays. At about midday the ferry arrived from Aswan – the lake is about 3kms from Wadi Halfa, but the ferry’s arrival is heralded by the cloud of dust as every tuk-tuk, taxi and donkey cart races down to meet it! More people arrived at the hotel and we got some first hand news about the ferry that we are hopefully going to be on tomorrow – if the train from Khartoum which is expected this afternoon, does not arrive on time, the ferry waits for it!
Mazar is busy doing all the paper work for our group, that is customs etc and on top of that he is assisting Dave and I and Johan and Betsy, to get registered – we were supposed to register in Sudan. We knew about this and we had gone to an office at the border where we thought we had registered as they took our finger prints and a photograph from us. However, this was apparently just a security check and not the required registration! Anyway, it should all be sorted out this morning; we will just have to pay a penalty on top of the $45 registration fee!!
At 7pm the train arrived – hooray! More beds were hauled out from who knows where? And the hotel now really looks like a second world war field hospital – wall to wall beds with bodies lying everywhere! The town itself is alive and doing tons of business. Bottled water is already sold out! Every Tuesday is Christmas trading here in Wadi Halfa.


Wednesday 22nd August

It was a very noisy night with lots of snoring, snorting etc and it seemed to be a lot hotter with not a breath of wind. Anyway, it’s our last and tonight we will be on the ferry.
Mazar was back and forth to the hotel with various forms that we had to fill in. He has been an absolute gem, and anyone needing to cross this border would be wise to contact Mazar Mahir at mashansharti@yahoo.com Finally at 1.30pm we all bordered a minibus taxi and traveled the 3kms to the departure hall – here it was another long wait and then just before 5pm we boarded the ferry and were shown to our air conditioned cabins!!! What a pleasure. We set sail at 5pm and at about 7pm we actually crossed over into Egyptian waters.
At 9pm we passed Abu Simbel on the left hand side – this is a monument consisting of 4 gigantic statues of Ramses II (1304 – 1237 BC) which he had hewn from the mountainside to confront all travelers from Africa coming into Egypt. This amazing monument would have been drowned with the building of Lake Nasser in the 1960’s, but UNESCO stabilized the brittle sandstone with injections of synthetic resin and then cut the monument into 1041 blocks weighing up to 30 tons each! It took 4 years from start to finish but Abu Simbel was reassembled 210m behind and 61m above its original setting and out of the waters way, at a cost of $40 million. We passed within about 200m of it and had quite a good view of it as it is floodlit at night. Then we went to bed in our air conditioned cabins – Bliss!


Thursday 23rd August

Ethiopia 3rd week

• Thursday 2nd August
  
  We stayed at the Lal Hotel and they allowed us to camp in the grounds and just use a room to shower in – clean, hot showers – what a pleasure! We woke up early and set off at 7am with our guide, Tamru, to visit Yemrehanna Kristos, a built up church in a cavern 42 kms from Lalibela. On the way, we had our next car disaster but luckily we were going about 10kms per hour as this was the most potentially dangerous mechanical fault yet– the left front steering arm came completely loose and dropped out!! Had we been going faster we could have had a terrible accident, as it was, we just stopped and Dave fixed it – luckily, he is so capable!
  We reached the parking area and walked up a steep path to the cavern to see this church which is built with alternating layers of wood and granite, and is thought to date to about 1087. Under the rock floor of the cavern is a subterranean freshwater lake which is supposed to be curative holy water and in medieval times it was an important pilgrimage site for Christians. Behind the church, in the cavern, lie the bones of about 10 000 Christian pilgrims, who traveled from as far as Syria and Egypt to die here – it certainly made the dark cavern very eerie! The church itself was beautiful and inside the priest showed us the ancient Holy book written in 2 languages and illustrated - all on goat skin parchment! We then made our way back to Lalibela – I slept most of the way as I have a terrible head cold! This is my 3rd ailment in as many weeks and I certainly hope my last! After lunch, Tamru was taking us on a tour of the rock-hewn churches in Lalibela.
  
  We started our tour at 2pm and these churches were really amazing to see. In fact, if you stop and think that they are carved out by hand, from solid rock below ground level and to such intricate designs – you have to think that there was some supernatural intervention! They should certainly be listed as one of the wonders of the world. As it is, they are relatively unknown and what adds to their wonder even more, is that they are still actively used as a place of worship by 1000’s of locals. The churches are HUGE and full of symbolic meaning. There are 2 clusters of churches, one with 7 and one with 5 churches and then a 13th church, Bet Giyorgis, stands alone. Most of the churches were excavated from below ground out of pure rock and are surrounded by trenches. If they are completely excavated on all 4 sides ie free standing, they are called ‘monolithic’ others are excavated from vertical rock faces and the back is still attached to the rock face.
  
  Lalibela was the younger brother of the incumbent king but as a child he was covered by a swarm of bees and his mother took this as a sign that he would be king. His brother tried to poison him but only succeeded in casting Lalibela into a deep sleep for 3 days during which time Lalibela had a vision of the rock-hewn churches which the angel instructed him to replicate. The older brother abdicated in favour of Lalibela and Lalibela set about carving the churches – legend has it that at least one of the churches was carved in a single day with the help of angels!
  The photographs we took can not do justice to the wonder of these churches but we will remember them in our minds for ever!
  Tamru told us that he needs B300 a month to live – he is a bachelor and his rent is B30 and then he can survive on the remainder! B300 = R240
  
  
  Friday 3rd August
  
  We had a good breakfast with lovely fresh eggs that we had bought from a monastery. Then we set off W towards Lake Tana and Bahir Dar. We were going to go up to Axum in the N but we have had to cut back a bit as Garfield has cost us over R11 000 in repairs! We covered about 200kms all at 3 000m altitude and the scenery was once again spectacular. It is the rainy season and so everything is lush and so green. Luckily, the rain comes mainly at night and late afternoon, so it does not trouble us too much. We drove into the Ghion Hotel in Bahir Dar in the afternoon, and there was the yellow overlander truck – we were back with friends! We had planned to meet up with them in Gonder to travel through Sudan together but now we had met up earlier. In addition, we met Johan Botha, a fellow South African, who also met up with the overlanders and is also going to share the ferry with them from Sudan into Egypt. After chatting to Johan for about 10 minutes, he suddenly clapped Dave on the shoulder and exclaimed that he recognized Dave from army days in Tsumab! Can you believe the coincidence? We spent an enjoyable evening socializing and it looks like Johan(who is in a sponsored Toyota Landcruiser traveling around the whole of Africa) is going to join us through Egypt and Libya. We will then go Tunisia – Sicily, while they carry on over the top and down the W coast of Africa.
  
  
  Saturday 4th August
  
  I am still feeling full of flu and Dave is starting so we decided to have a day of rest. We shared an omlette at the hotel for breakfast, chatting to others we had met last night and checking out the birds on Lake Tana. Afterwards we walked to the bank to draw money and then looked at the local market, before coming back to the hotel to wash Garfield, do maintenance and catch up with the webpage. We then went and sat at the hotel’s pavilion on the waters edge in the evening for drinks and then Jeff, Luke and Terry from the overlander joined us. We had dinner together and then the boys took us to a local nightclub – packed in like sardines with a dance floor one metre square but with a musician and a local singer/dancer plus the odd patron dancing – it was very festive although we were sitting on beer crates! It was good to see how the local Ethiopians have fun together.
  
  
  Sunday 5th August
  
  We woke up and took a walk along a path around Lake Tana. Lake Tana is the largest lake in Ethiopia and is the source of the Blue Nile – remember we saw the source of the White Nile at Jinga in Uganda? It is only 14m deep but has about 36 islands, many inhabited and with monasteries on them.
  It was a clear day so we came back and did laundry and then had breakfast before driving 30kms SE to see the Blue Nile Falls where the 400m wide river plunges over a 45m drop in 3 separate streams. We were a little dubious as we had read that, due to the hydro-electric plant that has been built at the falls, the falls hardly existed anymore! But we were pleasantly surprised and it was quite a sight to see. It took us 2 ½ hours as we did a circular hike around and to the bottom of the falls, which entailed us wading through thigh high water at one stage! So we have certainly done a bit of exercise today. Then we relaxed and had dinner with the overlanders at their truck. There are only 3 of them here at the moment as the others have gone on an excursion to Lalibela. They cooked for us and it was a real treat!
  
  Monday 6th August
  
  We left and traveled up N towards Gonder, doing a detour to see some hot spring but it was a bit of a disappointment. We continued up to Gonder and then because it was so miserable and we could not find a decent hotel, we decided to push on to Debark and into the Simien Mountains. It was a very wise decision as we reached Debark just in time to pay our park fees and pick up the mandatory armed scout, and still get to Simien Lodge. Here, we really have scored, as the room rate is $100 per person per night- however, we asked to camp and they allowed us to for $20. Then they gave us the use of a room to shower and we had wonderfully steaming hot showers before coming down to the pub where we are sitting in front of a roaring fire sharing a bottle of red wine before going in to dinner! Dinner is $10 each for a 3 course meal so that is not bad at all. A crummy hotel in Gonder wanted to charge us more than $20 to camp and have the use of a common cold shower!! So we are VERY happy with our change of plans. There is only one other couple here and the staff are treating us like royalty! The ‘cherry on top’ was when they presented us with hot water bottles to take to bed with us. We had a very cosy night with our duvets, crocheted blankets and hotties – despite the temperature going down to 6 degrees!
  
  
  Tuesday 7th August
  
  We woke up at 6am, had a cup of coffee and then set off to do the scenic drive through the Simien Mountains, one of Africa’s largest ranges with a dozen peaks that top 4 000m in height. The scenery was wonderful and we were lucky enough to spot the Ethiopian wolf(only in the distance) and the Walia Ibex – both endangered and endemic to this region. We also saw loads of Gelada which are endemic but not endangered. The gelada is a strikingly handsome baboon with a flowing golden mane and long whiskers. The male has a heart shaped red chest patch and a matching red ‘winkie’, while the female has red teats and red on her buttocks. The geladas are unique in that they are the only surviving ‘grazing’ monkey and they feed predominantly on grass. We really enjoyed observing them for a while and they were not timid so we got within a few metres of them. The males bare their teeth by pulling their top lip right back, and of course the babies are playful and romp around play fighting. Garfield did very well as the highest view point we reached was 4 300m! The mountains themselves are rugged and spectacular with sheer cliffs on which the gelada sleep at night to avoid predators. Of course, photographs can never portray the extreme beauty that we were exposed to all day!
  Our initial plan had been to camp out at one of the hikers camps, but we had been so well treated last night, that we decided to return to the Lodge. We got back at lunch time and just spent a peaceful afternoon in front of the fire in the pub reading, playing cards and generally relaxing, as Dave has now got my head cold with a vengeance – we are both coughing and spluttering!

Ethiopia 2nd week

Wednesday 25th July

Well, the mechanic has been back and forth to the hotel grounds – Garfield is getting a new radiator core and his power steering leak is being sorted out. Garfield should be re-assembled and running by tomorrow afternoon. Dave and I got a lift with the mechanic to the Sudanese Embassy on one of his trips, but we were told to come back tomorrow at 2 o’clock, so we have still not managed to get our visa applications in. Once we got back here, Dave, luckily, remembered that in Ethiopia, the locals use their own time scale, and that ‘2 o’clock’ is actually 8am, so, tomorrow first thing, we will catch a minibus taxi back and try a second time to get these applications in. In Ethiopia the day starts at 6am so 1 o’clock is 7am because it is 1 hour after the day begins and 2 o’clock is 8am and so on.
In addition to the daily time differences, Ethiopia is also seven years and 8 months ‘behind’ the rest of the Christian world! In 1582, the Christian world as a whole dropped the established Julian calendar and adopted the revised Gregorian calendar – Ethiopia did not. Their calendar consists of 12 months of 30 days and then a 13th month of just 5 days duration. Ethiopian New Year falls on our 11 September and this year they are celebrating the millennium! Fortunately, most institutions used by tourists, like banks and airline offices use the Western calendar – but you do have to be careful.
We took a long walk this afternoon around the area to the Sheraton Hotel, as it is the only place in Addis that has an ATM at which foreigners can draw cash! All the other ATM’s are just for local card holders. Addis is a writhing mass of people, beggars, shops, alleys and shanty towns – but despite this, we never feel threatened and in fact everyone is very friendly. We have now just had dinner and are about to watch a movie on our computer.


Thursday 26th July

We left here promptly at 7.15am to walk up the road to the minibus taxi rank – just like home! We squashed into a taxi for the trip to Mexico Square where the Sudanese Embassy is. The trip is about 3 – 4 kms and it is B1.20 each which is about 90c each! We walked the last couple of hundred metres to the Embassy and started our wait. Outside there is a sign clearly stating that visa applications are Mon, Wed, Fri 8.30am – 12.30pm – however yesterday we had literally been pushed out the grounds and told to come back today, a Thursday! Anyway, it was 7.45am and we were waiting outside the locked gate. By 9.30am, we were still outside the locked gate but we had acquired a group of fellow ‘waiters’! A few could speak broken English and we had established that yesterday the Sudanese Embassy had had a meeting, but that the office hours and in fact visa procedures and requirements generally are very flexible! Some of these poor people have been back and forth up to 5 and 6 times. We were not feeling very optimistic but eventually the gate was unlocked and we were ushered into a covered waiting area. We were 1st in line at this stage and an official saw us and gave us the visa application form, told us to fill it in, make 2 photostats of our passports and our Egyptian visas and then to wait. I duly filled in the forms while Dave went up the road to make the photostats. By now, the queuing system had completely disintegrated and there was just a mass of people. We all waited and waited……finally, our forms were taken…..given back to us with ‘approved’ written on them….. and then we waited …..then an official opened a window and started interviewing the people and turning most of them away, mainly for not having an address or sponsor in Sudan. We were applying for a transit visa, so hoped we would not have a problem, whereas these people were wanting longer visitations. There was no queue but finally we were at the window …barely talking or looking at us, the official signed our application and grunted ‘cashier’! We located the cashier around the corner of the building, paid our $122 and were then told ‘tomorrow morning’. We are presuming that our visas will be ready for collection in the morning? But time will tell – we will only go there at 9am tomorrow!
We got back to our hotel at lunch time and had something to eat and drink, before going out to buy a new satellite phone charger(ours was broken) and some headphones for our computer, so that we can ‘skype’ our children if the opportunity arises. The mechanic is here working on Garfield and we hope he finishes today or early tomorrow.
We have made friends with an overlander truck that has traveled down the west coast of Africa and are now going up the east coast! They are also here in Addis waiting for Sudanese visas. We are going out with them tonight to a Korean restaurant in Bole Road- we are all going in a minibus taxi so it should be fun.


Friday 27th July

Jeff, the tour leader for the overlander, and us went down together to the Sudanese Embassy first thing. Of course we waited until nearly 9.30am and then a representative came out the gate – they were not opening today!! But, he did have a pile of passports to hand out; ours was there with the visas in!! We could not believe our luck? But poor Jeff and the overlanders are stuck in Addis until Monday.
We made our way back to the hotel, via the internet and caught up with our correspondence. Then it was back to the hotel and to meet Tirfe, our mechanic. He has been an absolute gem taking all the parts away to be repaired and then reassembling everything right here in the hotel grounds for us - and his work is really neat. The weather in Addis has been a shock to us as it is quite cold and rains most days, apparently, the year round average temperature is about 16 to 18 degrees and July and August are the rainy months. So, to add to their troubles, it was raining. Anyway, things always take longer than expected and Garfield was only completed by about 6pm! It was too late to move on, and on our suggestion, the overlanders and us, decided to get a minibus again and go to the Crown Hotel for a buffet dinner and to see their famous traditional dancing show. What a wonderful evening we had with good food and a colourful, exuberant dancing display – it was our wedding anniversary treat – 23 years tomorrow!


Saturday 28th July

We are now about 10 days ahead of the rest of the group as they have contacted us and said they will only arrive in Addis on Monday 5th August! After our hefty motor vehicle repairs, we have had to make the decision to move on as it is too expensive to just while away 10 days in Addis or to retrace our steps south. It is a pity that we are separating like this without a ‘farewell party’, but we would have been separating in a few weeks anyway.
We got going at 9.30am, after all our ‘goodbyes’ – it is amazing how many people you make friends with when you are in a place for a few days! We had a long day of traveling to Harar, about 520kms, but it was all good tar road with no potholes, so we were delighted. Within a couple of hours we had seen 2 dead hyenas on the roadside – apparently hyenas are around the outskirts of most villages and they just get knocked down by cars. The second half was slow going, as it was 200kms of continual mountain passes, through the Ahmar Mountains, very scenic but it took 3 ½ hours to do! It was a good test for Garfield’s radiator and we were delighted to find that we did not loose a drop of water! We arrived in Harar at 6pm, found a hotel and a most helpful receptionist, Girma, who, although he could hardly speak English, offered to accompany us to get a taxi and find ‘the Hyena Man’- hyenas and local Ethiopians have a long history of co-existing together and the city wall around Harar even has ‘hyena gates’ built into it- but this practice of feeding wild hyenas daily by hand apparently started in the 1950’s and the current hyena man, Yusuf, is the fifth in line. We arrived just before 7pm, as it was getting dark, and were invited into Yusuf’s home where he was reclined back chewing on ‘chat’ – chat is a stimulating leaf(much like a citrus leaf in appearance) that is traditionally popular with Muslims(who are forbidden from drinking alcohol) and is now chewed throughout Ethiopia! A few minutes later, as darkness descended, we went outside, and sure enough, there were 2 hyenas skulking in the shadows. Yusuf started whistling and calling them, and within minutes there were about 10 hyena all around – he threw them meat at first but soon they were creeping forward to take the offcuts right out of his hand!! It was really amazing to see, as they were obviously wild and very skittish, yet they are powerful predators capable of attacking us! We were both totally awed as we have never seen hyenas at that close proximity. The last part of the display was when he invited us to join him and feed the hyenas! I crept forward – the hyenas backed off, but then as I held out a piece of meat on a short stick, one came tentatively forward, and took it. Dave also had a turn, and then we bade Yusuf and the hyenas farewell and our helpful taxi man, Bosfo, took us to a restaurant for dinner and picked us up an hour later to deposit us back at our hotel, a couple of kms out of the old walled city.
Harar is the ‘Peugeot capital’ of Ethiopia – we have never seen so many ancient Peugeots in our life! In fact every car on the road is a Peugeot and the taxis are all painted royal blue.
Harar N 09 18.688 E 042 06.703


Sunday 29th July

Bosfo picked us up at 8am and took us down to the old walled city of Harar- the city wall was built in 1560 by Sultan Nur and it is 3,5kms in circumference with 5 traditional gates. He dropped us off and we met Adis, a local guide we had arranged last night. There are 99 mosques within the old city which has a resident population of about 22 000 people. We started off at al-Jami Mosque which was supposedly founded in 1216, and then made our way through the atmospheric cobbled alleys flanked with traditional whitewashed stone houses with flat mud roofs. We visited Rimbaud’s House which is a museum – Arthur Rimbaud was a trader in the Harar area in the 1880’s. We also went to see the slaughter house where they slaughter camel, and we went to a coffee packaging factory and then the market. All in all, it was a great morning with the added bonus of Dave buying me some antique Harari jewelry for my birthday!
We left town at 11am and headed back along the mountainous road to Awash (about half way back to Addis) from where we are going to head N in the morning.
On booking into the hotel – there is very little camping in Ethiopia so we are forced to book into basic hotels – Dave stripped the right rear wheel to check the brakes and I’m afraid that ‘the shit never ends’ – the diff seal on the right rear wheel was leaking – so we had to get a mechanic and Dave had to walk the streets trying to locate a new seal. Anyway, by 9pm all was sorted out and we had dinner and then went to bed.


Monday 30th July

We left early at 7am and traveled N towards Mille – the road was wonderful and we sailed along through desert like surroundings but the ground was covered in a carpet of yellow flowers-breathtakingly beautiful! There were not nearly as many animals on the road as there had been yesterday, and driving was a lot less stressful for Dave. Just before Mille we turned and headed W towards Desse – the road was now a gravel road but a very good one. We passed lots of local settlements and saw the local people – the men had bushy hairstyles and the women were bare breasted! After a while the terrain changed and we started climbing up into the Burka Mountains – the engineering of this pass must have been challenging with huge stone tunnel like bridges built over the deep ravines – as Dave says it was 10 times as big as Sani Pass. At one point we went through a tunnel and we both held our breath – remember Kotze kids how Dad likes to do this? Of course he messed me around and stopped half way through the tunnel!
Once we crested the mountains we stayed at around 2 000m altitude and traveled to Kombolcha from where we made an excursion to see the Geta Lion which is a stone carving suspended on the edge of a hill – N 11 00.186 E 039 46.777. When the lion was sculptured and by whom is unknown but they think it dates to Axumite times which is 100-400AD!! So, it was quite something to see! The only bad thing about the excursion was that I got stung about 4 times on my left leg by an angry hornet.
We then made our way back to Kombolcha and on to Desse and further on to a smaller town called Hayk – the Bradt travel guides are invaluable in our travels and we had read that there was a little known lake just 2kms out of this town and we wanted to try and camp on the edge of this lake. We reached the lake around 6pm, found a restaurant on the edge and asked the owner for permission to camp. He was happy for us to camp and we were delighted. We are camped right on the waters edge and after a drink at the restaurant; we sat on the edge and watched the full moon rise over the water! Once again, Dave and I are totally alone (except for a watchman) and it is a very special feeling – like in the Bale Mountains.
N 11 19.509 E 039 41.312






Tuesday 31st July

We woke up early and had coffee while looking at birds around the lake. I then did laundry while Dave checked on Garfield – nothing looks wrong – hooray! Our flyswatters are essential equipment on this trip, and while we made breakfast we used them non stop – much to the amusement of all the locals.
At 9am Jemal arrived, as we had arranged last night, and he walked with us around Lake Hayk to a peninsular on which stands Hayk Istafanos, one of the most historically important monasteries in Ethiopia. Apparently a church was founded on this spot in 862AD by a monk from Jerusalem who converted a cult of ‘python worshippers’ to Christianity by making the python disappear with his cross. Then in the 13th century a monk from Debre Damo near Adigrat(in the N of Ethiopia) established the monastery. The monastery is set in lovely wooded grounds teeming with birds, so I sat and watched birds while Dave went in with Jemal – women are forbidden entrance! Afterwards, I went into the adjacent nunnery where I saw the nuns spinning and weaving. We then walked back to our ‘campsite’ and generally relaxed the whole day with all the locals; a lot of them chewing on ‘chat’! My leg was really hot and swollen from the hornet stings but I just sat with it up.
Just before 4pm I had a swim in the lake which was very pleasant. It turned out that they were having a function at the restaurant with about 45 locals for dinner and loudspeakers with music! Anyway, we just chatted with everyone and then at about 9pm we went to bed and the music ended at 10pm so that wasn’t too bad.


Wednesday 1st August

We left really early at 6.30am as we had a full day ahead of us on gravel roads. It had rained hard all night and everywhere was very wet and muddy – we actually battled to get out from where we had camped! About an hour later we went through a massive mud puddle and water went right over Garfield’s bonnet; splutter, splutter and he stalled! Dave battled for nearly an hour to dry different parts and was eventually forced to open the distributor cap where he found the moisture causing the trouble. So, we were on the road again. We covered 280kms today over the most mountainous region yet, although we have come to realize that Ethiopia is very mountainous. During the course of the day we climbed about 2kms in altitude – at midday we were at the highest point, 3 546m and it was 10 degrees outside!
Ethiopia is a beautiful country and very green, but the adults and especially the children, all along the way, are beggars of the worst kind. Everywhere we go they shout ‘You,you give me pen’ or ‘You,you give me money’. The children are actually very naughty and throw stones at the car, or the other day, one little boy threw a handful of mud over Dave through his open window as we drove past! If we stop to make coffee en route, we are swamped by locals within minutes, and they have absolutely no concept of personal space, literally pushing in right next to us. It is so unpleasant that Dave refuses to stop most of the time. It is very sad, as when we meet Ethiopians one on one, they are lovely people. In fact the way to keep the masses at bay is to have befriended a local, and then they chase the others off.
As well as table tennis tables, the roadside is littered with soccer tables which are eagerly played at by all the teenage boys. The younger boys have a ‘craze’ of whips, and everywhere we go we hear the cracking of whips!
We arrived at Lalibela N 12 01.595 E 039 02.427 at about 3.30pm and found a lovely hotel that allowed us to camp in their grounds. We have the use of a nearby room to shower and we are very happy. Lalibela is perched on the edge of a stark cathedral like mountain at 2600m and the whole setting reminds us of the Drakensberg – it is definitely the most beautiful place we have visited yet in Africa.

Into Ethiopia we go

Sunday 15th July

We got going at 7am as we knew we had a long day ahead of us. Dave and I were in the lead and the day was a full 10 hour trip to Marsabit. We passed through various terrains, from volcanic wastelands to desert sand with camels, saltpans and finally more desert strewn with volcanic rock. The day was fairly uneventful except for us having to do further running repairs on our radiator. There was a pleasant campsite on the edge of Marsabit just outside the gate to the National Park where we spent a quiet evening after dusting our vehicles. The dust is unbelievable and I think this is just the beginning – we have Sudan ahead of us after Ethiopia.
Our thoughts have been with David Johnson all day – Daryl phoned us last night to let us know he had been in a serious car accident – we pray that he has a speedy recovery.

Monday 16th July

Blue Monday or rather a day out of hell is what we have had! We set off at 7am once again, as it was a long haul to get to the border and into Ethiopia. The road was appalling with corrugations like I have never seen before, and Neville set a break neck speed as he was afraid of bandits! Absolutely everything rattled like hell and the noise was ear shattering. Eventually at the first stop we asked him to slow down as things were going to get damaged – already Brian’s fresh water tank and our shower tank are leaking. Our radiator continues to spout leaks on a regular basis and the solder is running out so we are not sure what we are going to do.
After 2 or 3 stops to solder our radiator, our next mishap was our CB radio which stopped working – stop to find that the aerial plug had come out of its socket! A few more kms down the road and we stop to discover that the cover of our roof top tent had almost blown away – unfortunately we are at the back today so there was nobody behind to see this and we had lost our shower cubicle which is stored under the cover! Luckily, we had not lost the cover itself. The shower cubicle is dispensable as we generally shower after it is dark and don’t bother to use it anyway! A bit further down the track, and we hear a knock in the engine – stop and it is the right front shock rubber – we have replaced this before but I suppose these roads are just too rough. Really, Dave and I had a terrible day. Will has also discovered a leak in his one diesel tank so we are not the only ones with damage but we just seemed to have ongoing troubles today. Anyway, we are now through the border and are in Ethiopia. We have booked into a hotel room tonight and we are all going to a restaurant for dinner tonight, after our bath in a bucket of water!! Trust me, when I say ‘hotel’ don’t get excited - these hotels are really just second rate hostel rooms, but at least the bedding is clean – if it isn’t we just hire the room for the ablutions, and then sleep in our roof top tent anyway.
We walked to the hotel down the road to their restaurant and ordered local Ethiopian food. Dave had meat and vegetables, which was a spicy goat meat stew with the odd chilli in it. I had roasted goat meat which came in an earthen ware dish with red hot coals below the meat, very effective. The meals were all served with injera which is a large pancake made from tef which is a nutty tasting grain unique to Ethiopia. The tef dough is fermented for up to 3 days before it is cooked so the ‘pancake’ has a bubbly, spongy texture. You tear a bit of injera off and dip it in your food or sauce and eat it. My roasted meat came with a dish of sauce called kai wat which was red and very hot flavoured with beriberi(peppers), onions and garlic. All in all everyone enjoyed their meals and we look forward to trying some more Ethiopian dishes in another town.

Our costs in Kenya for 36 days were

Border fees R1 001
Camping R2 565
Groceries R1 703
Drinks R1 641
Eating out R 433
Petrol R7 700
Purchases R 993
Firewood R 53
Sightseeing R1 900
Internet R 46
Parking R 14
Vehicle repairs R 178
Bank charges R 27
Guards R 119
Tips R 48
Ferry R 115
Pilli Pipa Cruise R1 295
Medicine R 34
Boat petrol R 149
Cell charger R 96



Tuesday 17th July

We are spending the day here in Moyale to fix all things broken! Brian and us started with getting our water tanks repaired at the welding shop. Then we went and bought more solder, bush rubbers and brake pads to keep as spares. Dave also bought a new shock absorber which he has fitted on the right front hand side. They only had one in stock or else he would have replaced both front shock absorbers. It is not actually the shock that is broken, but rather the thread on the top of the shock mounting that is stripped, and Dave can no longer get a bolt to hold the rubbers and the shock in place.
Ingrid and I walked down the road to the internet café but it was off line! We caught a taxi back up the hill which was fun. Then at 2.30pm Biruk, the local guide that the group has employed, took us to his home for a coffee ceremony. It is really humbling when you see how simply many people in this world live. They rent a very small home, but Shamire, his wife, graciously invited us in – the ladies to sit on a mattress on the floor and the men to sit in the few lounge chairs! Shamire, then proceeded to roast green coffee beans on some open coals right there in this very small lounge – 3x4metres! She roasted the beans till they were perfectly shiny brown in colour – as Dave says, he would have burnt them for sure! Then she lit incense sticks and threw some incense granules on top of the coals, she put a kettle on the coals and then set about grinding the beans in a mortar and pestle. Once that was done, she put the ground coffee into a clay percolator pot with some of the water out of the kettle, and put the percolator on the coals. The entire time there was a very loud Gospel Dvd playing on the TV, against which, we all made conversation! Shamire also kept offering us handfuls of popcorn to snack on. Finally, she set out miniature cups & saucers, into which she added sugar and the first round of coffee. We said grace and then all enjoyed our first cup of black coffee, it was sweet and aromatic – quite delicious. She percolated a further 2 pots of coffee so we all had 3 cups in total – each cup getting a little weaker. Apparently, it is customary to always have the 3 cups of coffee. The coffee ceremony took 2 hours but it was a pleasant experience.
We then went back to camp and out to dinner again, as a meal only costs about R15, and Biruk and his wife were going to join us.
Biruk informed us today, that the government of Ethiopia, has blocked ‘sms’ capability on Ethiopian cell phones – this is a political tactic, as apparently the opposition were using text messages to drum up support and organize themselves. We had not realized yet as we are in Moyale, which is just over the border, and we are in fact still picking up Kenyan signal.


Wednesday 18th July

After buying bread and beer, we finally left Moyale, with Biruk in the Karg’s vehicle. The other 3 are going on a 5 day excursion down to the Lower Omo Valley but Dave and I have decided to work our way directly to Addis, as our radiator is not behaving itself and we need to get it pressure tested again and or buy a new one. A little way up the road we stopped at a village called Dublock to see a ‘singing well’ – water is retrieved from a deep well by a row of up to 50 men who sing and chant as they pass buckets from one to the other. Unfortunately, it is not the dry season now, so the water was quite near the top of the well, and the line of men was fairly short, but we still got the idea. We all traveled together as far as Yabello and then the others waved us goodbye.
We filled up with petrol in the local fashion – bucket and funnel – and we think we were ripped off by about 6 litres, but when there is no bowser there is no option. We then headed for Konso. We arrived in Konso at about 3 o’clock and booked into a seedy hotel – the best on offer! I am really sick of these hotels as they have no water or electricity! This one had electricity from 6.30pm till 10pm and a trickle of water from 6pm till 6.30pm which was hardly enough to shower under. On top of this, the car park was unsuitable for us to camp in, so we had to sleep in their grotty bed! At times, this trip is quite taxing.
We did have time to quickly do some laundry, which entailed Dave hauling some water up from a well in an old paint tin!


Thursday 19th July

At 8am Gurasho, a local guide met us to take us to a traditional Konso village. First, we drove 17 kms out of town to Gesergiyo where there is a dry gorge with sculptured sand pinnacles which resemble a row of skyscrapers and the gorge has been nicknamed New York. Local legend is that the chief had his ceremonial drums stolen and enlisted the help of God, who swept away the earth from where the thieves had buried the drums, creating the sand formation when he un earthed the drums. To this day, light-fingered Konso youths are taken to Gesergiyo as a reminder that God doesn’t like thieves, and will uncover their doings!
Then we drove into the hills to the village of Mecheke. It is a traditional village, set on top of a hill and enclosed by a 2m high stone wall. Within this wall, there are lower stick-and-stone walls enclosing each individual family compound. There are leafy moringa trees which they use the leaves of to make a stew with, and then add dumplings made from sorghum flour. The entire village is a labyrinth of narrow, shady alleys. A few families make up a sub-community and they build a large ‘mora’ or community house. This is a sturdy, tall, thatched hut. The downstairs is used as a meeting place while the upstairs platform is used for all men and boys over 12 years to sleep in. This custom meant that the men were easily mobilized during the night, to fight off enemies or fire, and it helped with family planning, as even married men spent a large time in the community house, rather than with their wives!
Konso people also follow the ‘Kata’ generation set, where every 18 years a new generation is initiated. The older generation step down and make beer for the party, while the younger generation (8 – 25 years old) erect a ‘generation pole’ in the villages ceremonial square and take over the leadership of the village. You can calculate the age of a village by counting the number of generation poles and multiplying by 18.
Victory Stones are also erected in this square – tall ones for a victory and short ones for a defeat!
The other identifying feature of the Konso are their carved wooden grave markers called waga, erected for heroes in the community. Unfortunately, these have, to a large extent, been damaged or stolen by foreign collectors!! So now they can only be viewed in the regional tourist office.
We left Konso at lunch time after visiting Gurasho’s home and the local market, and headed N towards Arba Minch N 06 00.316 E 037 33.095 which is set on a hill overlooking 2 scenic lakes. The southerly Lake Chamo is only 10 metres deep and is blue in colour, while Lake Abaya on the north, is 13 metres deep and reddish brown in colour due to ferrous hydroxide in the water. The strip of mountainous land seperating the 2 lakes is called the ‘Bridge of God’. We are camped in the grassy grounds of the Bekele Mola Hotel overlooking these 2 lakes and there is water in the taps all the time- Heaven!! Dave and I washed Garfield and did a whole lot of laundry – it seems to be never ending.

Friday 20th July

We left Arba Minch and headed N but took a detour up to Chencha, a highland town set at 2 900m, from where we got a spectacular view over the 2 lakes and we also saw the distinctive, tall beehive-shaped dwellings of the local Dorze people. They are renowned cotton weavers and we bought 2 scarves at a road side stall. I was starting to feel nauseous and it worsened as the day progressed. It was a long drive over pot holed roads to Shashemene and then down to Wondo Genet – a hot springs resort – where we spent the night. I was really ‘woman down’ and went straight to bed, leaving Dave to sort himself out. Carmen-Jo let us know the exciting news that she has bought herself a Polo Playa and we are thrilled for her – thank you Derek for all the help. It seems we can receive text messages on our cell phone here in Ethiopia, but we are unable to text out. This is very frustrating and I feel much more cut off from my family and friends. Our satellite phone’s charger is broken and so we are very limited in its use – we are hoping to buy a new sat phone charger in Addis.


Saturday 21st July

I am still feeling very tender so we are taking it very slowly. We went down early and had a swim in the pool at the hot spring and then we packed up, or rather Dave did most of it as I am feeling so weak. Yesterday, we met a Scottish couple on the road, who are driving from Scotland to Cape Town – the exact opposite of us! They told us about a lovely campsite in Awassa run by a German lady, Jana. So although this is 25 kms back down S, we decided to come down here, just to relax for the day.
In Ethiopia, there are not so many bicycles as elsewhere in Africa. The ladies seem to have replaced the bicycle, and everywhere we go we see woman laden like pack horses, bent double under the load. We have been told that they carry 50-60kg on their backs! Nearer the bigger towns, we see donkey carts and horse dawn carts – it is like going back 100 years in time! The national sport seems to be table tennis, and all along the roads, just on the side in the open, are table tennis tables with enthusiastic players.
The campsite in Awassa is run by a German lady and her Ethiopian husband, it is very clean and secure, and we just relaxed all day so that I could recuperate
N 07 04.627 E 038 29.050
Happy 21st to Darren Driemeyer – we have no cell signal so are unable to sms you Darren, but our thoughts are with you – hope you have a wonderful day!


Sunday 22nd July

Well, it was a clean pleasant campsite, but it was terribly noisy – first there was a very noisy, wailing church service, then dogs barking, then the night watchman doing his laundry with running water right next to our tent and then of course the 4am mosques! Anyway, at least I am better this morning – it is wonderful to feel strong again. We left at about 9am and headed N back to Shashemene and then turned E towards the Bale mountains. The 175kms took us 5 hours to do, but it was really scenic. There were wonderful fields of blue and yellow wild flowers splashed with patches of red-hot pokers, all set against a backdrop of craggy peaks.
We have come here to see the Ethiopian wolf and some endemic birds so hopefully tomorrow when we drive around to the Sanetti Plateau at 4 000m altitude, we will be lucky. Tonight we are camped at the campsite near Dinsho on a hill with a panoramic view over the Bale Mountains and it is just Dave and I – so we feel as if we are in the middle of nowhere! The chill is already staring to set in, at 4.30pm it is 12 degrees, so we are looking forward to a camp fire and then snuggling together in our roof top tent – we have hauled out the extra crocheted blankets that my Mom made for us! I also wanted to mention to my girlfriends at home, that I am absolutely delighted with the bird book that I bought with the money you girls gave me – we use it all the time as it covers ALL the birds of Africa.
Our campsite tonight N 07 05.760 E 039 47.548 Altitude 3 235m
We are having a goat meat curry cooked in ‘Baby’ over the coals of our camp fire!


Monday 23rd July

It was a chilly night, going down to 6 degrees, but we were snug and warm. We packed up by 7.30am and our guide arrived who was going to accompany us for the next 2 days into the Sanetti Plateau and back. We set off but not 200m down the track, we had our 1st problem! The left front shock rubber needed replacing. That done, we set off again, a couple of kilometers and water was spraying out our radiator! Dave had a look and said it was bad, on top of that, he said the brakes did not feel right, so we had to make the decision that it was now time to really head straight for Addis – in retrospect, we had made the wrong decision coming to Bale, but we had not realized what bad roads it entailed. Anyway, one is always clever in hindsight. So, as disappointing as it was, we had to drop our guide off, paying him compensation, and start wending our long and tortuous trip back to the main road! The trip was scenic once again, and the wild flowers beautiful, but we had not achieved our goal of getting to the plateau and seeing the Ethiopian wolf. I, especially felt very down in the dumps, and the bad roads, longing for my children and home really got to me- I was ultra depressed and just wanted to give up and come home!
We reached the main road after 3 o’clock and headed further N to Lake Ziway passing Lakes Shala & Abiata on our LHS and Lake Langano on our RHS. These are all Rift Valley lakes that run through Ethiopia.


Tuesday 24th July

We got going early and went down to a causeway on Lake Ziway where we looked at birds for a while which was very enjoyable and then we headed W towards Butajira and then on up N towards Addis Ababa. We stopped at a small village, Tiya, to see some stelae – mysterious engraved gravestones up to 2m high that mark the mass graves of people between 18 and 30 years old that were buried in the foetal position about 700 years ago. It was very cold as we walked around and this added to the eerie feeling of the sight.
We then traveled a further 40kms before stopping to see Adadi Maryam, our first rock-hewn church and the southernmost one in Ethiopia. It was 19x16m and entirely carved out of solid rock, below ground level! It had 24 windows and 10 doors and remains in active use today. The church is dated somewhere between the 12th and 14th centuries and was really interesting to see.
Then it was straight to Addis where we found the Itegue Taitu Hotel N 09 01.812 E 038 44.234. This was the first hotel established in Addis named after the Empress Taitu(wife of Menelik II) and completed in 1907. It is amazing with high ceilings, creaky wooden floors and steeped in ancient character. We have a large room with a lounge area and there is a very big secure parking area for Garfield (within our sight) and there is a 24 hour internet café within the hotel! So I am a happy chicken. The staff are very helpful and within an hour or two, a mechanic came here and removed Garfield’s radiator to take it for testing – this is a great bonus as Addis is impossible to drive around. So for Birr138 per night, which is about R120, we are happy and will be here for a few days.

Kenya Episode 4

Wednesday 4th July

We left Ocean Sports at 9am and headed N. About 15 minutes into the journey our red warning light on ‘T-Belt’ came on and our hearts sank. We ground to a halt and Dave jumped out to look in Garfield’s bonnet – to find nothing. We then realized, with Will’s help, that we had just clocked over 400 000 and it was just a standard warning – nothing wrong. So we gave Garfield a pat and proceeded on our way! We drove past salt pan after salt pan – this area is the salt capital of Kenya for sure.
We were actually entering an area that was considered not entirely safe due to ‘shifters’ from Somalia, so at one of the several police stops, they insisted that we take 2 armed guards with us. I duly took up my seat in the middle isle on a lugbox and the guard took my seat – we did feel a lot safer with an armed guard in the car. We reached the ferry point to Lamu at about 3pm and very reluctantly left our vehicles in an un fenced area but supposedly under a guard’s care. A 20 minute ferry ride had us on Lamu Island and about 50 years back in time! The island only has one vehicle and a couple of scooters and 3 wheelers – otherwise it is just narrow alleyways and donkey transport! We were mobbed by tour operators wanting to sell us various packages and accommodation and finally over a beer it was all sorted out. There are only 2 places in the Lamu Old Town that sell beer, as it is Muslim country, but of course the guys had found one of them within minutes of us landing! We walked down the beach road, avoiding the donkey droppings, turned up an alleyway and arrived at Bahari Hotel – adequate accommodation but certainly nothing fancy. After settling in we took a walk around the old town which is an un commercialised version of Zanzibar.

Thursday 5th July

After breakfast we set off on a guided walking tour of Lamu Town. Our first stop was at a furniture factory where we saw the carpenter hand carving an arched door and frame – the work is really beautiful and if you could get the stuff back home to SA I would love to build with it. We then moved on to a covered area where they were building a dhow. The dhow we looked at was going to take 1 year to complete with about 4 dhow builders working on it, and was costing 3 million shillings which is about R300 000 which the new owner was paying in installments. Apparently, a dhow builder takes 7 years to learn the trade and they use all hand tools – no power driven tools! Mangrove wood is used for the bent bow ridges, thorn tree wood for the straight skeleton and mahogany for the planks to fill in between.
Lamu Town consists of the Arabic section – buildings of coral stone and limestone - and the Swahili section – buildings of mud and coconut leaf roofs. There are 33 mosques in Lamu, about half in each section as both groups of people are Muslim. There were 3 Arabic tribes in the old days and the approximately 40 families in each tribe lived in houses all connected by upstairs passageways so that the women could visit each other without going down onto the streets. The Arabic houses also have outside porticos to entertain men guests without them having to go inside where the women are.
After our tour, we wandered around through the market, the alleyways etc just looking at the general population and how the donkeys are used – we were pleased to see a ‘Donkey Sanctuary’ for sick or injured donkeys. Ingrid found a tailor who whipped up a dress for her, so I also paid him a visit!


Friday 6th July

Well, it was my birthday – a very quiet one as there were no kids jumping into our bed! I opened my present from my Mom – she gave me a silver pendant of Africa which was very appropriate, and I had some sandals that Dave had bought for me the day before. Then at 9am we set off for our dhow day trip to Manda Island. I received lots of sms’s from family and friends and my brother, Trevor phoned me, so it was still a special day. We stopped to fish for a bit on the way and then Captain Bobo took us to the beach where we could snorkel, swim and relax while he and his assistant cooked us a delicious traditional Swahili lunch. It was altogether a magical day and the most peaceful birthday I have ever had! But, once is certainly enough, next year I hope to be surrounded by my family and friends.
We got back to Lamu town at 4pm and the Hardmans and us hopped on a speed boat back to the mainland and our waiting ‘homes’ – we had missed Garfield! Despite, our stressing, everything was in order and we set off to seek permission to camp in the Kenyan Wildlife Headquarters grounds, which they kindly allowed us to do as their guests. Ingrid and I had a few glasses of wine to finish off my birthday.


Saturday 7th July

We packed up and during the process Dave came across a bird on the ground which we think had flown into something and was stunned. We identified it as a Black-crowned Tchagra and put it somewhere quiet to hopefully recover. We then waited for the Kargs and Days to join us before setting off at 9.30am back towards Garsen and then N to Garissa. It was a long, hot day of traveling but it was good to be heading north. We reached Garissa near to 5pm and camped in the grounds of a guest house. Dave had to do further repairs to Garfield’s radiator as it is leaking once again! Luckily, Will has a nifty little soldering iron that works off the car battery and Dave is getting pretty good at soldering the holes that the radiator keeps springing. Our repair at Zedco Radiators in Mombasa has obviously not been successful.
Unfortunately, it was Saturday night and this guest house turned out to be the local hang out, so it was a pretty noisy night. And then, at 4am the mosques start calling! It is really weird to come across so much Muslim influence in Africa – because we are in tents we are really subjected to the loudness of the calling. Somehow in Turkey, for example, where there were 1000’s of mosques; we didn’t feel as invaded as here, where we are woken up at 4am and again at 5am! Maureen has threatened to construct some loud speakers for the top of her tent to blast out some loud Christian music in retaliation!




Sunday 8th July

We left at 8.30am and headed W towards Thika to do a big shop to stock up for the North and Ethiopia. The road was really good and we made good progress despite sharing the tar with cattle, donkeys and camels! I got on with my tapestry and am managing to keep up with Garfield in his travels – that is I am busy doing Kenya and Ethiopia on the canvas.
By 3 o’clock we had finished our shopping and we decided to set off up towards Mount Kenya – on a dual carriage highway with no potholes!! Further up the road we heard a klang klang in the engine – emergency stop – but it was just the air conditioner fan belt that had broken. Our air con packed up a long time ago so Dave just removed the belt and all was well. We arrived at a campsite 30kms from the summit just as the sun was setting, but caught a glimpse of the mighty mount just before it got dark.
Tomorrow we are going to cross the equator for the 5th and final time so we decided to have an Equator Party – there we were, huddled around a fire drinking gluwein!! Unbelievable, as we are on the Equator but because we are at 2000m, we realized once again that altitude is more important than latitude when it comes to temperature.
Ingrid and I are both battling with a terribly itchy raised rash that we think is from sand fly bites that we think we got in the mangroves on Manda Island. We have experienced the horrors of mopane flies, tsetse flies, putsi flies and now sand flies – we hope we have now met all the flies in Africa!


Monday 9th July

We had a very leisurely start and took a stroll over to the Naro Moru River Lodge in whose grounds we had camped. Dave bought himself some very colourful shorts from their shop and then we walked back through the golf course to the camp ground. Around 11 o’clock we were all ready to roll and about 20kms along the road, just before the town of Nanyuki, we crossed the Equator. If my husband even attempts to take me south again I have threatened to take the first flight home!
We had all been wondering how to check out the coriolis effect on the Equator but we need not have worried, as there under the Equator sign, was a local man armed with water, a jug and a dish with a hole in it! For the sum of R20 he proceeded to give us a demonstration of the coriolis effect and we were all totally impressed – just 20 steps into the Northern Hemisphere and the water runs out of the plug in a clockwise direction, and 20 steps into the Southern Hemisphere and it runs out anti-clockwise! On the Equator the water runs straight down the plug hole with no swirling at all. He used a couple of matchsticks on top of the water to illustrate the effect and the demonstration was really impressive.
We then headed further north up towards Sambaru Nature Reserve and went in there for 24 hours – that is all we can afford at the Kenyan rates! Anyway, we had a very pleasant time game viewing, seeing some animals that are endemic to this park only, that is gerenuks, reticulated giraffe and Grevy’s zebra.



Tuesday 10th July

We all met up at 4pm at the West gate out of Sambaru and headed for Wamba where we were able to camp in the grounds of the Catholic Mission. Along the way, we have been seeing the most amazing Sambaru people- the women are so colourfully dressed and have 100’s of beads around their necks. The young men are also very ornate with beads crossed over their chests, red ochre in their hair and elaborate head gear. The men are more like the Masaai with colourful skirts and shawls and always carry a spear and a little wooden stool that doubles up as a stool and a pillow!
We decided to have an early start in the morning to make our way to Lake Turkana.


Wednesday 11th July

Six o’clock on the dot the church bells were chimed! As we were camped directly next to the huge brass bell, we were all instantly awake and we had an earlier than expected departure! We headed for Maralal to fill up with petrol and make last minute purchases and then we were on the road to Turkana. The scenery was magnificent with us climbing up onto a plateau at 2 500m and then dropping down into the Rift Valley. At first it was very green but then the dust began and soon everything was covered in dust. However, the sheer vastness and remoteness was breath taking. We traveled until 5pm and then set up camp on the edge of a huge dry river bed. Or course, within minutes we had company, and Lorraine(with the help of her Swahili dictionary) negotiated for us to pay 2 locals to be our guards for the night – as they were armed, it was better to have them in our camp than out!
Garfield’s radiator continues to plague us and Dave had to solder up yet another hole today on route. It seems that the core of the radiator is inferior and just keeps popping. On top of this, the extra temperature gauge that Dave had installed to measure the water temperature on the top of the engine head, as an early warning system, has packed up! So we just have to keep a very vigilant eye on the original gauge.


Thursday 12th July

We set off on the last leg to Lake Turkana, formerly known as Lake Rudolf. The roads were now thick with sand and the terrain was dry and brown but it still had a stark beauty. As we approached the Lake the area was littered with volcanic rocks of all shapes and sizes. Many of them glistened in the sun as they had been ‘sand blasted’ in the wind and were shiny and smooth. Finally we came over a crest and there was the turgoise water of Lake Turkana cutting through the parched volcanic outcrops. The Lake is 56kms wide and 250kms long, one of the largest desert lakes and one of the largest alkaline lakes in the world. There are volcanic islands in the lake and they host some 22 000 crocodiles so we will have to swim with extra caution! We were elated to have reached the lake and we had a team photo with the lake behind us. Nick, who we had met at Ocean Sports Hotel in Watamu, had told us to travel about 15-20kms S down the lakeside until we found some ‘fingers’ of land and that that was a good place to camp and fish, so off we set at times having to forge our own road over the volcanic rocks. Finally, we reached a place we thought to be suitable – on the waters edge but with a rocky outcrop behind us to try and protect us from the howling wind! We had been warned about the wind, but nobody could have prepared us for this constant gale force wind – you have to experience it to believe it – obviously because there is a huge cool mass of water in the middle of a desert, there is a constant wind. As soon as we set up, we were joined by a local fisherman, Peter, whom we employed to be our camp guard. The men set about assembling the rubber duck and a bit later in the afternoon Will & Brian went fishing for Nile Perch. An hour later, shouting with glee, they arrived back with a 20kg Nile Perch! This was a real achievement as they didn’t have a gaff and it was a challenge to land the fish on the rubber duck without capsizing or puncturing the pontoon of the boat. Of course there were the normal fisherman’s stories of the other 2 that they lost, but honestly we couldn’t have coped with any more fish. After it was filleted, all 9 of us ate dinner and we each have 4 fillets in our freezers! It was the most succulent, tender, tasty fish I have ever tasted, and the harsh, arid conditions all seemed worth while.
The sunset was phenomenal with orange & pink rays going up over the South Island in the Lake and once it got really dark we studied the night skies as things are starting to look different now that we are in the northern hemisphere. The temperature when we went to bed was still 29 degrees and the wind was still howling, so much so, that we could not put up our roof top tents and we all had to sleep in our vehicles. This was a first for us and I had to sleep curled around the fridge, while Dave had to sleep half under a cupboard!
Our Lake Turkana campsite N 02 31.158 E 036 41.747


Friday 13th July

Well, we survived the night and woke up to 24 degrees and howling wind! Today is a day of general repairs and maintenance. Neville is doing an oil change, Will fixing tyre punctures and putting on his 4th set of bushes, Brian is changing oil and fuel filters and Dave is repairing his radiator(another leak has appeared) and fixing the cupboard under our fresh water tank as the weight of the water and the rough roads has broken it. There is always something to keep us busy. The girls are ‘skoffeling’- our term for cleaning all the dust and generally getting all the lugboxes tidied and in order – of course for the next few days we can’t find anything!
The water temperature is 26 degrees and we keep popping in to cool down. The water itself is so alkaline that it feels quite slippery. Brian caught a Nile Perch and so did Neville but not as big as Will’s one. Dave and Will went out this evening and Dave apparently hooked the biggest one yet, reeled it right in, but just a few metres from the boat, it raised its head and shook the lure out! So although Dave had fun, he didn’t actually catch one – maybe next time?
The sunset was once again beautiful and the fried fish absolutely delicious but I am afraid the howling wind is driving us crazy and we have decided to move on in the morning.



Saturday 14th July

We left at 9am as we had to pack up the rubber duck. The wind was still howling – these are real harsh conditions and it is unbelievable that people live here, but we have seen women around and men herding goats and of course fishing. It took us just over the hour to wend our way the 13kms back up the lake and then we headed a further 20kms up the lakeside to Loyangalani N 02 45.373 E 036 43.271
We are going to spend the night here and then leave at 6am for Marsabit which is east of us but apparently will take the whole day. Then on Monday we go north to Moyale and into Ethiopia.

Kenya Episode 3

Wednesday 27th June

We left at 8am in heavy grey skies but luckily we were planning a day of traveling. Before leaving Shimoni we went to the fish market to buy a fresh snapper for dinner. Then, we went to Fikirini Caves, 3 giant caves just about 5kms from Shimoni as the crow flies although we had to go 6kms and then 8kms to get to them. Local people mobbed us – about 30 of them – but finally we settled on 3 guides to show us the caves. They were quite extensive and one had a fresh water spring in it. Apparently, in years gone by, the local villagers would hide in the caves in times of war. After our guided tour where once again, we saw 1000’s of fruit bats, we had toast and coffee for breakfast and then headed back on the road up north towards Mombasa. A short way up the road, we turned down to the coast again to see Funzi Island. A very enthusiastic local on a bicycle roared ahead of us down the road determined to be our guide. Every now and then he would disappear only to re appear again having taken a short cut! We reached the shore and he was there eagerly offering to take us to Funzi by dhow although we had told him in the beginning that we were only going to look at it from the mainland. To appease him, we said we wanted to buy mangrove crabs so that was his next mission – he jumped on his bicycle and lead us back to the village where he beaconed for Ingrid & I to follow him. We marched off through the huts until we came across one which he proclaimed to be the fisherman’s – sure enough, out came the fisherman with a sack of huge mangrove crabs alive and kicking! We duly bought 3 monsters for R25 and headed back to our waiting husbands with our crabs in a paper sugar bag to be stored at my feet! Our guide abandoned his bicycle and requested a lift back to his office (the roadside hut where we had turned off), so he jumped on to the running board on Dave’s side and off we went.

We got back to Diani town and bought bread and beers and visited the internet café to update our web. Then we made our way to Tiwi Beach and Twiga Campsite – what a beautiful beach with waves breaking out on the backline and grassed camp sites right on the beach – paradise. We set up camp with our awnings just touching, Will filleted the snapper for our dinner and Dave & I boiled the crabs – what a mission to get the crab meat out! It’s far easier to order seafood chowder in a restaurant! Anyway, it’s all part of the adventure. We were just sitting down to have a drink when a young American, Benjamin, came up to us, explaining that he and his 2 friends had food but no pots and no cooking apparatus! So could they please join us for dinner? A fun evening with Ben, Julie and Terra followed with lots of chatting and laughter and we only went to bed close to 11pm.


Thursday 28th June

A long walk along the beach from one end to the other and then a gourmet breakfast started off the most idyllic day. Then it was time to do a big laundry session – sheets, duvet covers, towels and dish cloths – we even took out our mattress and aired it! It is spring tides at the moment so when we had walked earlier, the tide was far out and we had walked right out to the coral reef, now it was high tide and there was deep water right on our door step, so I had a lovely, long swim bobbing in the waves – I really missed you, Rayanne! In fact I have been a little homesick again today – my thoughts are with my Mom, who is flying overseas tonight – you will go right over us, Mom, so blow us a kiss ok? I miss talking to my kids SO much, like yesterday with Carmen-Jo, sms messages are just not the same. Family and friends certainly make life meaningful and we are missing you all a ton!
Dave is very busy now making our sea food chowder – boiling the snapper bones to get the fish stock, chopping ginger & garlic, onions & tomatoe, then he will add the crab meat, prawns and mussels – dinner will be good tonight! Another fellow camper, Yehuda Elmalia, has joined us, he is a Dutchman but born a Moroccan Jew! Once more we chat and exchange ideas. He has given us his contact details in Netherlands so Dave & I might see him in November.
We had planned to move to a beach north of Mombasa tomorrow but we have just had a sms from the Kargs to say that they and the Days will meet us here tomorrow, so we will spend another day here – it is so beautiful that we don’t mind.


Friday 29th June

We got up, had coffee and packed up. Yehuda also packed up his tent as we were going to give him a lift to Diani after he had shown us the bottle store where he bought his wine, which we had slotted last night! In Diani we bought wine and bread, bade farewell to Uda and visited the internet café before coming back to our campsite to wait for our fellow travelers. They arrived at lunch time and told us all their woes – Brian had had to replace his whole clutch, power steering pump, bearing on his fan belt tensioner and his alternator plus his windscreen surround had cracked and had had to be reinforced! Neville’s rear prop shaft universal had to be replaced. So that is why we had such a long wait for them! Anyway, we are relaxed and tanned and hopefully we can move on tomorrow. The weather is sunny although a bit windy and we are loving swimming in the sea. Tonight we are having prawns for starters then fresh fish and chips – we bought a 6kg fish this morning and Dave & Will filleted it so it should be delicious.


Saturday 30th June

The others need to recharge their batteries so we are spending one more day here at Tiwi Beach, but it is such an idyllic spot that we don’t mind. After early morning coffee, Dave and I took a long walk along the beach to Diani Beach and back again – it is spring low tide so it goes right out. Then we came back for yogurt and toast before relaxing on the beach. There is a traveling fruit & veg man on a bicycle, called Mr Mango Man, and he pays us a daily visit to see what we need, and there are fish salesmen who also visit us daily to sell us fresh fish and prawns! Really, we could stay here for a month!! Tonight the Hardmans and us are going to make chicken & prawn curry. In the afternoon the tide comes in, and there is really lovely swimming right in front of our camp.
We have just had Eddie, the man who sells us coconuts, give us an a-z demonstration of coconut milk production – he started by climbing a 25 metre high coconut palm to pick them, de-pulped them, cracked them with a panga, grated them on a grating stool and then washed the fresh pulp with water through a reed sieve. Carmen-Jo, you would have loved it – we are going to buy you a grating stool – no more tinned coconut milk for your cooking!

After dinner Brian was walking between our campsites and he saw something in the grass! Well, that started the night game hunting – there we were with the torch hunting in the bushes – and we found white bellied hedgehogs, cute little things that are apparently quite common in Tiwi Beach according to the night watchman, and lots of coconut crabs attacking the left over coconut from us. Ingrid, Will and I had attempted a night hunt at Harm’s house in Shimoni as he had told us that there were elephant shrews, but on that occasion we were not successful. But now we have decided that night hunts are fun.

My brother, Trevor, is plotting our trip and I promised to give him GPS co ordinates, so from now on I will periodically give them. Tiwi Beach S 04”14.465’ E 039”36.172’


Sunday 1st July

We left at 8.30am and headed N – I am so excited as from now on we will be going N and that means I will be getting nearer home! We crossed with the ferry onto Mombasa and the city was much quieter as it was a Sunday. After stocking up at the supermarket we headed up the north coast and up to Kilifi which is a beautiful coastal town on a river estuary. There is absolutely no camping available and we are once again camped in a hotel parking lot using one room as an ablution.


Monday 2nd July

After drawing money at the ATM we went to look at the Mnarani Ruins on a steep cliff on the southern bank of the Kilifi Creek. It is not known for definite but it is speculated that the Swahili founded this site in the early 13th century and there was a settlement here until the late 16th century. The Great Mosque is interesting in that it’s Mihrab, which always faces Mecca, has multiple arches and is full of Arabic inscriptions. In Kenya, we are still faced with this annoying custom of charging foreign visitors 5x and more, the price that they charge locals, to enter points of interest. Dave, Will & I refused to pay to go in because of this, but after I stood chatting to the curator, he sent me in at no charge, with my own private guide as he wanted me to write about his site on our blogspot – perhaps we should always tell the people we are running a web page! From the Mnarani site there was a spectacular view of the Kilifi Creek and the Kilifi Bridge which was completed in 1984.
We then left Kilifi and traveled up to Watamu. Once again we battled to find a campsite but eventually we met a very friendly Brit, Helen, who allowed us to camp on the volley ball court at Ocean Sports Hotel, as they are actually closed to hotel guests at the moment as they are doing major renovations. It is a super campsite, lawned and right on the beach & she has given us the use of one room for a shower and toilet. Best of all, she informed us this afternoon, that there is a wireless access to the internet in the bar area. So we are going to brave the painters and carpenters etc to go and sit amongst them and connect to the internet.
Dave stopped taking Doxycycline, the anti malarial, about 10 days ago, as his skin was becoming ultra sensitive so he is taking extra care to apply mosquito repellant. Otherwise we are both exceedingly well!


Tuesday 3rd July

The wind blew all night last night and we have woken up to rain and grey skies – hopefully it will clear soon. It did clear at about 9am and so we took a long walk in a northerly direction up the beach. The bay we are in is called Turtle Bay and with these monsoon winds it is full of sea weed. We walked around to Blue Bay which is sheltered and the beach is completely clear of seaweed. The rock formations and islands sticking out of the sea are amazing. On our return we visited the fishing tackle shop at the hotel – it is not really open – he was taking stock – but he was very happy for us to look around. His stock is amazing and you would have loved to go wild in there Daryl, although everything is marked in US dollars! Willy did say that the prices were not over the top though.
The weather has deteriorated once again and we have all made the decision to move on tomorrow – I am thrilled as we have been going very slowly lately. Daryl suggested that we go on Skype tonight, so we are looking forward to that before we head off north.

Well, before and after dinner we sat glued to our computer talking to our kids on Skype – we could hear them talking but we had to type to them, as we never had a microphone headset. At first they were hesitant talking to a computer that wasn’t talking back, but soon they gabbled on and I typed as fast as my little fingers could go. It was wonderful to chat to them all – Mike & Dono too, so we were really spoilt! Dave also set it up for Ingrid, and CJ invited Ian (their son) around to our house and Ingrid & Will chatted to Ian and their other son, Gareth in London. Ingrid and I are very happy Moms now! Eventually, Dave got tired and came back to the campsite to clear up and then he had to come and haul me away from the computer at bed time. Thank you, Daryl for suggesting it – I feel so happy that I have been able to connect with you all. We love you all so much – you are the core of our existence.

Watamu S 03”21.629’ E 040”00.525’

Tomorrow we plan to travel up to the mainland near Lamu Island and then go over to Lamu for a day or two. It is very likely that we will not have cell signal there but I am hoping that we will.
Chatting to our kids last night, they asked for more photos, so seeing as we have this wireless connection we are dumping more photos to the web this time and they are full size. We have also been compiling an album called, ‘Bicycles of Africa’ so we thought this would be of interest as our kids are doing lots of cycling at the moment. We are sure they are not utilizing their bikes to the fullest though!!!