Tunisia

Saturday 15th September

We woke up and bade Jeff, Brendan and Han farewell – it will be strange to not have the ‘yellow truck’ with us anymore. They are heading straight for Tunis and we are exploring Tunisia a little bit. We have really enjoyed our time with the Oasis overlanders and their leaders and drivers all seem great as we heard from Ingrid and Will that they also met some Oasis guys in Kenya and they were also lovely people! Their address is www.oasisoverland.com
We traveled NW towards Medenine and then Toujene where we saw ‘ksour’ dwellings – mud and stone houses built around a courtyard used for grain storage. Then on to Matmata to see the ‘troglodyte’ houses that were featured in the opening sequence of the original Star Wars movie – these are 4th century cave dwellings with a storage room above and the living accommodation below.
We then headed W into the interior of Tunisia through flat desert until we reached the oasis area where we drove through 1 000’s of date palm groves. These oasis are scattered all around Chott El Jerid which is a large salt lake – we drove on the edge of Chott El Jerid through a massive salt pan until we reached Tozeur, an oasis town watered by 200 springs, in the north. Here we found a pleasant campsite and have stopped to catch up with laundry etc.
N 33 54.833 E 8 07.464


Sunday 16th September

After visiting the old town district of Tozeur where we saw the buildings with distinctive pale yellow geometric brickwork designs, we headed N towards Tunis. We drove through 100’s of kilometres of olive trees, prickly pears, chillis and fruit orchards – the cultivated land stretched as far as the eye could see. We stopped in Gafsa to draw money at the ATM and that was a unique experience as the only language options were French or Arabic! Luckily it is 6 months down the line with me drawing money at ATM’s and so I know the prompts! Here in Tunisia they speak French and the written word is French but written in Arabic letters – so that is backwards!
Petrol in Tunisia is R6.82 per litre so our money is once more going mainly on petrol. It also explains why we have seen so many petrol vendors on the side of the road selling petrol out of containers – they go to Libya and bring it over the border to sell here in Tunisia.
The last 100kms into Tunis was on a double highway – a luxury we had all but forgotten about. We drove into Tunis at about 5pm and headed straight for a hotel on the GPS and then tried to find something for dinner.
At home, although there are lots of Muslims, we are hardly aware of Ramadan, but here and in Libya, it is a different story. Basically, during the day when everyone is fasting, there is little to no activity and business going on, most shops are closed. If you manage to buy something to eat or drink (especially later in the day when everyone else is very hungry and thirsty), you have to be discreet when drinking it or else you get shouted at! Then at about 5pm there is a frenzy of activity when all the locals go out to buy fresh bread. As the sun sets at around 7pm, everything halts (even border posts close), for the locals to break their fast – literally ‘breakfast’ – they eat dates and milk and then go to mosque. Between 8 and 9pm all the shops, patisseries and restaurants open up and the general festivities begin – men visit the Sheesha Cafes where they smoke and drink tea and lots of people are out and about, shopping, playing soccer in parks, doing business etc. This carries on until midnight or after – we are in bed so are not sure what time but in Tripoli it was after 2am!
Also, since Sudan, we have had Muslim working days, that is, Sunday till Thursday, and then Friday and Saturday are the weekend. It is quite weird to have a Sunday as the first working day of the week.


Monday 17th September

We spent the morning in the city centre of Tunis looking around and booking out ferry ticket to Palermo in Sicily. Then we headed NW to enjoy our last few days in Tunisia. We drove as far as Bizerte and then set up a ‘bush camp’ just off a beach on the outskirts of town. It is amazing how relaxed we have become being in countries where crime is not a major problem. No one bothers you and it seems quite acceptable to just camp out wherever you want to.
N 37 19.894 E 9 50.763



Tuesday 18th September

We carried on our relaxed meandering of the NW corner of Tunisia. The people are all happy and wave at us as we go along our way. We kept to the coastal road and went all the way to Tabarka which is a town right on the Algerian border. This corner of Tunisia is very green with lots of pine forests and cork oak trees. We then turned S to go inland and from a view point, we could actually look into Algeria. We are now camped in a cork oak and pine forest near a picturesque red-roofed village called Ain Draham.
N 36 46.566 E 8 42.072



Wednesday 19th September

We headed back towards Tunis. Tunisia is definitely more Mediterranean than African – the people are olive skinned and live in flat roofed houses, the women wear colourful head scarves and the men wide brimmed straw hats. They are all very friendly and we have really enjoyed our stay. The only problem has been Ramadan! Tunisia is normally very liberal, but because it is Ramadan, there is no alcohol available and all the street cafes are closed during the day. I think the whole atmosphere would be really festive and social if it were not Ramadan.
We parked Garfield and then went to wander around the Medina of Tunis – a colourful labyrinth of narrow alleys and dead ends filled with stalls and shops ranging from perfumes, nut & fruit, jewelry, lingerie, silverware, curios, leather goods etc and of course heaps of sweet patisseries! None of the restaurants were open due to Ramadan, but we still had fun wandering around the souk and taking in all the sights and smells around us.
By evening we were exhausted and headed back to Garfield and drove out to near the hotel we had stayed in the first night in Tunis a few days ago. But this time we had decided to just camp out on the beach front.



Thursday 20th September

This morning we had a complete clean out of Garfield and did laundry and car maintenance. The rest of the day we relaxed on the beach and had our last swim off the top of Africa.
Tonight we bid Africa farewell after a journey of 6 ½ months along the eastern coastal regions and over the top of our fair continent. It was a dream of ours and we feel elated that we have managed to live out our dream. Triumphant and yet sad, that a big goal that we worked towards for 10 years, is now over. It has not always been easy, but for the most part we have really enjoyed our journey. We feel perhaps like a Comrades runner feels on completing the marathon – we had doubts about whether Garfield, and in fact us would manage the long journey - physically, emotionally and politically with visas etc – but we have done it! For Dave and me, it has been a very special 6 months – we have been together 24 / 7 – I don’t think we will ever have such an intense time together again in our lives. Luckily, working together as a team, we have come through it, and at the end of our journey we love each other more than ever before.
Tonight we catch the ferry to Palermo in Sicily, where we continue on the last leg of our journey through Europe and then back home to South Africa and our precious family.

Into Libya

Thursday 6th September

We drove up to Alexandria, a distance of 225kms, along the Desert Highway which was verdant and green most of the way! It’s amazing what water can achieve in a desert. There were fruit orchards, banana plantations, fields of vegetables and acres of olive trees to name but a few. Alexandria is a sprawling city over about 20kms of sea frontage. We headed for the Eastern Harbour and the Union Hotel which had been recommended to us. It was on the Corniche on the 5th floor, and had spectacular views over the harbour. A local man invited us for a juice at a café on the Corniche while we waited for the hotel staff to find us parking for Garfield in the side street next to the hotel. So we spent a pleasant hour chatting to him.
Once we were settled, we made our way to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina which was completed in 2002 at a cost of $355 million, and resembles a giant discus embedded in the ground at an angle like a second sun rising beside the Mediterranean. Pictograms, hieroglyphs and letters from every known alphabet are carved on its exterior to illustrate the diversity of knowledge embodied in this library. It is a new form of the Ancient Library which was founded by Ptolemy I – from ancient times; it was law that all ships docking in Alexandria were obliged to allow any scrolls on board to be copied, if they were of interest. It was a fascinating visit as there were several exhibitions to see and we saw one of two computers in the world, which can print and bind an entire book in 20 minutes!


Friday 7th September

After breakfast, we cleaned out Garfield and then waited for Jeff – he was catching the train up from Cairo. Jeff arrived at 10.30am and we left Alexandria to drive W along the North Beach road towards Libya. We stopped at El Alamein to look at the cemetery and museum. El Alamein means ‘Two Worlds’ and is an apt name for a place where the 2 sides in the Second World War met and fought fierce battles in the North African Campaign. From 1940 to 1943 more than 100 000 lives were claimed but in the 4 month battle at El Alamein alone, some 11 000 were killed and 70 000 wounded! The Allied War Cemetery was a tranquil place planted with trees and flowers in the middle of the desert, and had over 7 000 graves and almost 12 000 names in the memorial cloisters. Further along the road we passed the German and Italian cemeteries but we did not stop at these.
It is not safe to wander off the roads in this Western Desert area as a staggering 17 million landmines from the Second World War are estimated to still be in place.
We continued W along the Beach Road towards Mersa Matrouh which is a major ‘Summer holiday’ town for Egyptians and Libyans – their summer holidays are drawing to an end so there was a mass exodus in progress, and subsequently Brendan had managed to find a beach cottage right on the Mediterranean for us to stay in for 2 days. We met up with Brendan, Lisa, Han and the yellow truck at the cottage in the evening.

N 31 24.499 E 27 01.066


Saturday 8th September

We spent the morning relaxing and swimming in the crystal clear aquamarine and turquoise waters of the Mediterranean. There were actually quite big waves and I really enjoyed it. The sand is almost pure white and is a fine powdery texture, although there is not a shell in sight, just a lot of litter.
At 2pm we drove back into the town, a distance of about 25kms, to chat to our children on skype at an internet café. I am managing my homesickness now although I cannot explain how much I miss my children. I don’t know how I would feel if I was separated from Dave, but being separated from my children feels as if a chunk has been ripped out of me – there is a huge gaping hole inside of me and I think I am only coping now, as I can see the end in sight! We are having a wonderful time and I am still glad that we have done this trip, but I don’t think I ever want to be separated from all my children for such a long time ever again in my life. The thought of me lying in the bath with my kids sitting on the closed toilet, chatting to me for hours on end is one of the motivational thoughts that keep me heading north!


Sunday 9th September

A leisurely walk along the beach started our Sunday morning followed by a swim in the warm waves. The beach was not crowded so luckily I did not feel intimidated in my bikini – the local ladies swim fully clad here, head scarves and all. We then relaxed for the rest of the day and bade Lisa farewell as she was returning to Cairo to fly home to Canada. We left the beach cottage at 3.30pm and headed W towards the Libyan border, reaching Sollum just before sunset. We tried unsuccessfully to camp on the beach as the military kept chasing us, so eventually we ended up sleeping in the road outside the police station – they were very hospitable and gave us the use of a toilet inside. The local children were very intrigued with us and even after we all went to bed they were hanging around – they must have gone to bed at some point as they were all gone in the morning.

Our costs for Egypt were

Garfield customs and landing R1 261
Accommodation R1 305
Petrol R1 201
Sight seeing R1 706
Food R1 754
Drinks R 661
Transport/Taxi R 489
Internet R 79
Purchases R3 471



Monday 10th September

We were at the border before 8am but it took a full hour and a half to exit Egypt. As we crossed the border Zwam, our Libyan guide was waiting to meet us, which was a great relief for me as I had organized it for all 5 of us and I was stressed that there would be a hitch. With Zwam’s help we were through the border in about 1 ½ hours which even included Dave and him going off in a taxi to do the necessary paper work to register Garfield – once again with new number plates. The procedure was similar to Egypt (according to Dave) but just a lot quicker and easier to accomplish. But it still cost about R675 to get Garfield into Libya. The only way that travelers to Libya are granted visas is if it is done through a travel agency here in Libya, and it is mandatory to be accompanied by a Libyan escort all the time.
The countryside in Libya was much the same as Egypt – flat – but with a little more green growth around. Tobruk is a big city and we stopped to visit the Tobruk War Cemetery just 4kms S of Tobruk where there were 2 500 graves, and the Acroma War Cemetery which was 20kms W of Tobruk with 3 500 graves. A lot of the men killed were only boys and I am very glad that I have not had to send my son off to war – what a waste of life it is! The cemeteries are very well laid out and beautifully maintained – if only the human race could learn from these past wars and cease with greediness and fighting.

We traveled till after 8pm – everyone was tired and it was pitch dark! Dave seemed particularly grumpy and it is the wrong time of the month for me and I am one girl amongst 5 men so it is not easy – I had asked Dave to set up the shower as this will be the second night that we would not be able to shower. He was being otherwise and kept saying that we must just sleep in the truck with all the men as it was too windy for our tent – never giving a thought that I need the privacy of my tent to use my potty and to do my necessary ablutions! It was definitely not one of my easiest evenings in Africa.

N 32 36.270 E 23 07.608



Tuesday 11th September

We got going early at 7am and headed W along the coastal road. The roads in Libya are great and we have almost forgotten what potholes look like! The vehicles are really overloaded with the loads being taller than the height of the vehicle itself. There are lots of extremely old vehicles and we have taken a few photos of Peugeot trucks like Dad had years ago and Mazda like CJ’s old car, but these ones are really battered and bent – panel beaters don’t seem to exist in Libya and the cars just ‘nudge’ their way into spaces – Garfield has been bumped a few times by other cars trying to park behind or in front of us, but luckily we have strong bumpers and bull bars! The vehicles do not even look road worthy – sometimes all the back lights are missing! But we no longer see donkeys and bicycles; this is definitely a land of oil and petrol. Petrol is now only 87c a litre for us and in their money it is only 16c!!! It is really strange to watch the litre counter going faster than the money counter on the petrol bowser.
We drove past the Green Mountains alongside the Mediterranean until we reached Apollonia. N 32 54 054 E 21 57 914 Apollonia was a port city during Roman times in the 6th century AD. The Eastern Basilica was the most impressive with huge marble columns and fine mosaics on the floor.
After that we went to Cyrene which is the most important city of Greek origin in North Africa and is thought to have been founded in 631BC. It stands on a hill at 600m altitude with a magnificent view over the Mediterranean. The wealth of Cyrene is thought to have been due mainly to a native plant called silphium which had medicinal properties, in particular as an early form of birth control, and was exported all over the Greek Empire. Sadly it was harvested to extinction. We looked at the northern necropolis where the dead were entombed from the earliest times. There were 1 000’s of tombs cut into the rock and 100’s of carved stone sarcophagi spread across the hillside.
The third site we visited was Qasr Libya N 32 37 818 E 21 23 775 which is a 6th century Byzantine fort and church. In 1957 a floor of 50 stunning mosaic panels were discovered in almost perfect condition and are now housed in a museum. They are a unique collection showing the date the church was built (AD 539-40), Pharos lighthouse in Alexandria, Nile scenes, animals, birds and fish. They were similar to a tapestry – that is best viewed from a distance when their magnificence and detail came to life
Dave and I bought some lamb and couscous and once we found a beach camp for the evening, Zwam helped me to prepare a typical Libyan spicy lamb soup to be served with couscous. We are also eating a lot of local fruit – loads of melons and prickly pears.


Wednesday 12th September

We had a long day of traveling from 8 in the morning right through till 7pm when the sun set, covering a distance of 686kms. We only stopped once in the town of Banghazi to go to the Tunisia Consulate to check that we would be able to get our Tunisian visas at the border – luckily this info I had was correct and we can get them at the border.
Libya was granted independence from Italy in 1951 under King Idris but it was a poor country until oil was discovered in 1959. In September 1969 there was a coup in Banghazi and the charismatic 27 year old Gaddafi became the leader. He was deeply religious and wanted to establish a true Arab nation with Islam as the state religion so one of the things he did was ban alcohol. In 1976 Gaddafi shared his vision of equality of all people by publishing his ‘Green Book’. Because he supported radical armed groups around the world and Libya was implicated in the PanAm Lockerbie bombing in 1988, sanctions were imposed by the UN in 1992 and only lifted in 2003. This long period of isolation gave Gaddafi the opportunity to rethink the direction of Libya, and recently private enterprise has replaced state socialism with a new emphasis on Libya becoming the leading state in Africa. Libya has just celebrated National Day on the 1st Sept and everywhere we go there are green flags flying and billboards advertising the 38 years under Gaddafi’s dictatorship.
One of the largest civil engineering projects in the world today was started here in 1984, when water trapped deep under the Sahara (undisturbed for 15 000 years) was pumped up and piped thousands of kilometres to the N where it is most needed. The total amount of water in this reservoir under the Sahara is estimated to equal the discharge of the Nile for 200 years; however there are still some who criticize this project.
We once again just camped out on the beach and the first thing we all did after the long drive, was to dive into the refreshing waves. Then after a fresh water shower we sat and chatted while Zwam made us a Libyan spaghetti dish with camel meat in it! The meal was very tasty despite our initial reservations.



Thursday 13th September

We left at 7.15am and traveled till lunch time when we had to stop at a customs office to get our passports stamped, similar to the ‘registration’ in Sudan.
We then visited the Roman city of Leptis Magna N 32 38.102 E 14 17.204 Only about a third of this ancient city has been uncovered but what has been, is absolutely magnificent and our visit was a highlight in Libya – especially as it was so uncrowded. Phoenician traders from the eastern Mediterranean first developed Leptis Magna in the 6th century BC as a coastal trading post. It had fertile soil and the city increased in importance through grain and olive production and also because of the expanding trans-Saharan desert trade. During the 2nd century AD the city reached its peak of prosperity when the Libyan Septimius Severus became emperor and the city was home to 80 000 people. The first thing we saw was the recently restored Triumphal Arch of Septimius Severus – it is massive with carved marble panels. Then we walked down the 20m wide streets towards the Hadrianic Baths which was a vast complex of linked bathing rooms – the natatio (cool swimming pool), frigidarium (cold chamber), tepidarium (warm chamber), caldarium (hot bath) and finally the laconia (sweat room). After that we went into the Severan Forum which is an open courtyard (100 x 60m) edged with arches and columns topped with charismatic Medusa heads – this was apparently the social centre of the city. We also saw the market, the 8 000 seat theatre and the 16 000 seat Amphitheatre which stands majestically overlooking the sea and was the site of mighty gladiatorial contests to the death between man and beast! These Romans certainly had everything they needed and also enjoyed life. The devastating earthquake in AD365 started the decline of Roman power and in the 5th century the Byzantines were attacked by local tribes so that when the Arabs arrived in 643 the city was already in ruins.
We left Leptis Magna at 5pm and made our way to Tripoli, the capital of Libya. What a lovely city – clean, well lit and friendly. The litter in Libya is a real problem and it seems that they do not have an effective system of garbage disposal in place – the towns are clean but it seems that all the collected litter is then just scattered out all over the countryside and beaches! We have been absolutely shocked to see litter lying everywhere and Libya is definitely the dirtiest country in Africa, although their toilets are spotless and they are clean and tidy in their daily living.
Libya is not set up for tourists at all and we have ‘bush camped’ each night – even here in Tripoli, Zwam took us to the park on the beachfront and said that we could just camp out! So here we are camped in a parking lot with 100’s of locals all around, playing soccer, walking and just generally enjoying the evening out. It is Ramadan now so all the people are fasting and basically resting in the day, and then they come out at night.
We went out to dinner and then walked around the souk stopping for a cappuccino and the boys smoked a sheesha. Before we knew it, it was midnight and we headed for bed.


Friday 14th September

Being a Friday and Ramadan there was basically nothing open or happening in Tripoli. Luckily, there was a Friday market (much like our Sunday markets) that we all went to. Tripoli is a beautiful city – well laid out and with a lovely beach front area.
We left at lunch time for the border to Tunisia, stopping on the way to see Sabratha, another ancient city dating back from Phoenician times. N 32 48.181 E 12 29.105 A lot of the city has not been restored and is still just ruins, but the theatre was restored by Italian archeologists in the 1930’s and has a towering 3 storey stage wall with 108 columns and gives the theatre a real presence.
We reached the border at 6.30pm and had left Libya and Zwam within the hour, but then it took another 2 hours to get the visas to enter Tunisia. So by 9.30pm – which is actually 8.30pm here in Tunisia – we were heading the 32kms towards the first town and a hotel with a shower!

Our costs in Libya were

Libyan visas R 557
Libyan guide R1 331
Garfield border fees R 675
Petrol R 328
Vehicle repairs R 55
Sight seeing R 219
Food R 342
Purchases R 71

Egypt 2nd week

Thursday 30th August

Dave and I woke up early and walked to visit the Temple complex of Karnak which was built over a period of 1 300 years and covers over 100 acres which is big enough to house 10 great Cathedrals! At the height of it’s supremacy Karnak’s wealth was staggering and a list of it’s assets during the reign of RamsesIII included 65 villages, 421 662 cattle, 83 ships and 81 322 workers and slaves to mention just a few of the assets! Ordinary folk were barred from entering Karnak and only priests, the pharaoh and his representatives were allowed entry. We only looked at the beginning part of the Precinct of Amun which is the grandest of 3 separate temple enclosures within Karnak, as it was hot and we are a bit ‘templed out’ as the overlanders say. However, you can’t help but marvel at the magnitude of these ancient monuments and we feel very privileged to be able to see these wonders for ourselves.
We then walked back through the back streets of Luxor towards our camp and were amused to see sheep and chickens right there in the city streets.

Luxor N 25 42.682 E 32 38.920

The overlanders were busy doing a major truck clean, so we joined them and cleaned out Garfield, even washing down our awning and tent. Then we all left at 1.30pm to join the convoy to Hurghada on the Red Sea. There were about 30 tourist vehicles in the convoy and it took us about 4 hours to reach Hurghada. As soon as we turned E and left the Nile, we were reminded that Egypt is actually not a green paradise, but rather a huge land of desert! Just inland from Hurghada, the barren desert plains erupted into the Red Sea Mountains which were stark and dramatic against the blue, blue sky. These are the highest mountains in Egypt, bar the ones in Sinai.
Hurghada itself stretches over about 20kms along the beach front which is just wall-to-wall hotels – a lot still under construction. We arrived at our hotel at 7pm and after booking in and making arrangements for tomorrow, we all went out to dinner. Jeff, has been a real help to us and has basically ‘adopted’ Dave and I – he books us in at their preferential rates and so we are only paying R25 each for bed & breakfast at a very decent hotel.

Johan has been the only ‘bad’ part of my day today as he notified me that he won’t be making it through Libya and so I have had to contact the agent and cancel his applications! And that is, after he asked me to add 2 extra people (passengers he had planned on picking up), only a few days ago. So I feel a real idiot and can’t imagine what the Libyan agent is thinking. The problem Johan has, is that he never had a carnet and now is unable to orgainise one, so Toyota (who sponsored his vehicle) have instructed him to make a U-turn and return to South Africa. Anybody planning to drive to Egypt must have a carnet for their vehicle and the carnet needs to be in the drivers name and not for example a company’s name.

Hurghada N 27 15.564 E 33 49.142



Friday 31st August


After breakfast all 10 of us went on a day snorkeling trip out to Giftun Island. I had vowed not to go on a sea cruise again, after my terrible sea-sickness in Shimoni Kenya, however the Red Sea looked so calm that I decided to chance it. The day was really enjoyable and the sea colours and clarity were amazing. We stopped at 2 different reefs to snorkel and we snorkeled off of Giftun Island itself. There was good coral on the one reef and at all the sites we saw plenty of colourful parrotfish, clownfish, etc. They served us a very tasty lunch of fish, rice and vegetable ratatouille, so all in all it was a very relaxing day and we all returned with better tans. Jeff is trying to compete with Dave – with no success! The tourist trade is certainly flourishing here in Egypt and we counted 50+ boats in the Red Sea on similar trips to ours, and our boat had between 30 and 40 people aboard.
We got back at 4pm and then our work began, as we had promised to cook for the crowd! We went and bought some beef – the butcher just hacks off a chunk from the carcass, selling from the top down, so we got meat from near the bottom of the carcass as it was near the end of the day! We cooked them a good ‘Durban’ curry with rice, a veggie casserole, sliced bananas and papadams. They were all very impressed and a pleasant evening was enjoyed by all, with some of them smoking the sheesha after dinner.

Things are quite cheap in Egypt, although nothing is marked with a price and they always try to ‘add it on’ for tourists. Teachers only earn LE 250 a month which is about R330! And one of our guides told us that her husband, after 35 years in the government was only earning LE 750 so the people are relatively poor.
We have suddenly become aware that the people are no longer ‘black’ but have lighter complexions. This change seems to happen around the Sudanese border with the Nubians being the last of the darker complexions.


Saturday 1st September

We had a leisurely start as the convoy for Suez only left at 11am. We had been told that the ‘tourist convoy system’ peters out N of Hurghada and sure enough, I don’t even think we would have been made to wait until 11, as we got to the check point at 10.30am and were just waved through with no register etc being written down. The overlanders are staying in Hurghada till Monday and we will meet them again in Cairo on Wednesday. We traveled N through flat desert with the Gulf of Suez on our right – at times it was lapping (no waves as such) within 10 metres of the road. There were fields of wind turbines along the way and the temperature was around 35 degrees which is manageable. Along the way there was loads of construction – 100’s of hotels and holiday apartment blocks – one wonders who is going to occupy all of them?
Since we left home we have now done a total of 25 800 kms.
We reached Suez Port at about 3pm and saw all the ships waiting to enter the Canal. Twelve kms further N we went through the Almed Handi Tunnel (for a toll fee of R3) under the Suez Canal and then we were in Sinai and traveling South! We traveled for a while and then stopped and set up camp on the beach, overlooking the Gulf of Suez and back towards Egypt. Soon we were seated with our sun-downers and there in front of us were a whole lot of dolphins! They say it is good luck to see dolphins in the Red Sea so we were very pleased. The sunset was beautiful over the sea with just Garfield, Dave and I all alone on the beach.

N 29 17.297 E 32 52.191



Sunday 2nd September

We didn’t have the best nights sleep as it was very windy and the tent flapped a lot. Anyway, we were on the road by 7am and carried on down the coast for a while before turning to travel E across Sinai. Inland there were stark, ragged mountains and it was quite beautiful. We stopped for breakfast at about 10am and within minutes 2 Bedouin men had joined us – we offered them tea and bread and then they took their leave. The Bedouin are the local people who live in the Sinai. We continued and reached Dahab on the Gulf of Aqaba at about noon. What a beautiful town – colourful streets lined with bougainvilleas and palms led down to the sea front, where on crystal clear turquoise water, there were 100’s of windsurfers, all at different levels of expertise. And all this is set against a backdrop of jagged, golden mountains. There are hotels with palm lined frontage on the water’s edge, but we can only take photographs of these – we have to then hike down the road until we find more affordable accommodation – like backpackers!! We actually found a very nice place also on the beachfront with a helpful manager and he pointed us to the first dive site, before we set up camp at Alaska Camp.

The site is called The Canyon Coral Garden and is honestly the most amazing snorkeling that Dave and I have ever done. The coral was spectacular and the fish amazing – we were both enthralled. We thought of Andrew & Dee and how much they would enjoy being here. Of course, I wished we could share this beauty with our kids, and I truly hope that they will all get here one day to see such underwater beauty. The coral ranges from bright iridescent green to pinks, purples, blues and then the more subtle creams and pale yellows. It comes in all shapes and sizes – big succulent looking ‘carpets’ that cover whole rocks, clam-like shaped ones, little upright bonsai type corals and then huge delicate lacey ones, to name but a few. The fish are a rainbow of colours and sizes – bright yellow anemone fish, blue and yellow angelfish, ornate brown and cream lion fish, turquoise and pink parrotfish and so on.
After we had set up camp, we took a stroll along the beach walkway which is paved and lined with cafes and restaurants. Right in the hub of things there is another dive site called Lighthouse. We thought it would be completely destroyed with all the 100’s of people diving and snorkeling, but we were wrong – it too was wonderful with sheer 20 metre drop offs, covered in every type of coral you can imagine with 1 000’s of fish. Dave and I are completely blown away with this snorkeling and can’t wait for tomorrow.
Back at our backpackers we have met several other travelers, a South African from Hilton, Pietermaritzburg and even a young Russian couple, who have invited us to contact them in Russia!
We made dinner at the campsite and then took a stroll along the beach walkway which had come alive at night! After a long walk we stopped at one restaurant and had ice-cream for dessert.

N 28 29.830 E 34 30.960


Monday 3rd September

We woke up and after early morning coffee, packed up as we were going to drive to ‘the Blue Hole’ to snorkel. This is a 80m deep hole in the reef and the sheer sides are covered in coral and of course fish. As Dave says, if you took every type of coral you could imagine, and then added 1000’s of tropical fish of every colour and shape and size; you could not create a wonder as good as we are seeing! The Red Sea basin was created by the same tectonic stresses that formed the Rift Valley and the Dead Sea. It is cut off from the Indian Ocean by an underwater ‘sill’ where it is only 100m deep. The Gulf of Aqaba is cut off from the Red Sea by the 200m deep Tiran Strait. Neither the Red Sea nor the Gulf of Aqaba are fed by rivers and the rate of evaporation exceeds the rainfall, so they are exceptionally warm and salty which makes them the ideal environment for tropical fish and coral reefs, the warmth in particular is responsible for the brilliance of colours of the coral.
We then drove back a bit to snorkel the Canyon again and then came back to camp for breakfast. After breakfast we went to snorkel Eel Garden. We really just can’t get enough – even Dave is loving it, as the water is warm and the sights so amazing – a kaleidoscope of colours and shapes. Eel Garden was as wonderful as the other sites but on the sandy sea bed there were 100’s of snake-like eels all waving in the water. All these sites are right on the shore and you just wade in ankle deep, before snorkeling over the coral reefs.

We relaxed at camp over lunch time and then went for another snorkel at Lighthouse just before sunset!


Tuesday 4th September

We woke up and went for one last snorkel before heading back into the interior of Sinai to visit Saint Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai. This is where Moses heard the Lord speaking from a burning bush and where Moses received the Ten Commandments. The St Catherine’s Church within the monastery was very ornate with lavish chandeliers and a superb mosaic depicting Jesus on the cross. Outside we saw a thorny evergreen bush which is said to be a transplanted descendant of the Burning Bush. All attempts to grow cuttings from this bush in other locations, have apparently failed. The monastery’s Bell Tower was impressive against the blue sky and the backdrop of Mount Sinai.
Mount Sinai is also venerated in the Islamic faith and the prophet Mohammed is said to have visited the monastery in 625AD and in the 11th century a mosque was added to the monastery. This Christian outpost has thus always been protected in an otherwise Muslim country throughout the ages.
There was a very well laid out and informative Visitor’s Centre which we spent a while at and then we were back on the road. We made quite good time and decided to push through to Cairo. We reached Cairo just as the sun was setting at 7pm and then started negotiating the traffic! Even if I say so myself – we did really well! Dave drove like an absolute star in the chaotic traffic and I managed to navigate and keep us on the right road – what a team! We went over the Nile to the West Bank of Cairo and a bit S towards Giza, where we knew there was a campsite. It took us 2 hours but we didn’t have to make one U-turn so we were pretty chuffed with ourselves!


Wednesday 5th September

We got going early and traveled 20kms S to see the pyramids at Dashur. There were 2 Old Kingdom pyramids we wanted to see – the Red Pyramid and the Bent Pyramid. These were both built by Snofru (2613-2588BC) who was the father of Cheops who built the Great Pyramid of Cheops at Giza. The Red Pyramid is the second biggest pyramid and is open to the public. There were only a few tourists at this site and in fact Dave and I were alone in the burial chambers, which added to the eerie feeling down there in the middle of such a gigantic stone structure! You have to bend in half to creep down the tunnel right into the middle and it is really hot, so by the time we came out we were sweating profusely. We then visited the Bent Pyramid, a km away, where Snofru was buried. This pyramid is very well preserved and has most of its limestone cladding still intact, so you get a feel of how the pyramids used to look – all smooth and white. This pyramid is peculiar as it is steeper for ¾’s of its height and then tapers off to a gentler slope, thus giving its sides a ‘bent’ appearance.
Dashur Pyramids N 29 48.331 E 31 12.289
We then drove back up into Cairo to meet the overlanders at the Havana Hotel.

Egypt

Thursday 23rd August

Well, we had a cool night and slept fairly well in our air conditioned cabins. The breakfast was not too great – a bowl of sloppy beans which is called ‘ful’ but we had some biscuits with us so we ate those instead. We came into the harbour at 11am and were delighted thinking that we would be in Aswan in a short while. Well, if we thought it had been a long procedure to board, then, this was even more drawn out and completely chaotic! We spent the next 4 hours pushing between the 500 passengers to get our passports stamped by the officials in the dining room, waiting in our cabins, and then finally, all squashed into the stairwell, while they called passengers out name by name to disembark!! You can imagine the chaos with every Mohammed, Abdulla etc squeezing from the back, complete with cardboard boxes, suitcases etc. Finally, at 3pm we were off the boat and through the customs – except for the drivers of the vehicles – they were held up another 2 hours trying to clear the vehicles through customs. The overlanders had a big problem as their carnet was in the company’s name and not the driver’s personal name, and Johan had a problem as he never had a carnet – both have had to sort this out. However, customs is just one part of the procedures, the next is the traffic police who have to give the vehicles Arabic number plates and check the vehicles engine number, and there was no time yesterday for that, and tomorrow is Friday(everything is closed) so Garfield has to stay at the harbour until Saturday at least!
In between all this, I received disturbing sms’s to say that my mother had been admitted to ICU as she had a cardiac block! She was raced into theatre at St Anne’s where they fitted a pace maker – luckily all went well and she should be out of hospital on Saturday. I certainly felt helpless right up here in Egypt!
We booked into the hotel in Aswan with the overlanders and we were all like kids at Christmas because we had showers with water coming out the shower rose and shower curtains, toilets with seats and double beds with air con!!

Our costs in Sudan were

Visas R 854
Registration R1 099
Taxis R 377
Cooldrinks R 319
Groceries R1 074
Internet R 40
Accomodation R 401
Sight seeing R 14
Petrol R1 435
Departure tax for us R 280
Departure tax Garfield R 350

Dave & my ferry tickets to Aswan were R 980 and Garfield’s Barge ticket was R3 237.
We are in our element here in Egypt as petrol is R1.71 a litre!!!! Cheaper than bottled water which is R2.20 a litre!
The average price we have paid for petrol in each country is as follows
Botswana R5.56
Zambia R11.71
Malawi R8.50
Tanzania R7.13
Kenya R8.63
Uganda R9.47
Rwanda R8.02
Ethiopia R6.29
Sudan R5.48



Friday 24th August

We woke up at 3am!! Yes you are reading correctly – we were going on a bus back down to Abu Simbel (275kms) and all the vehicles go in convoy. About 50 buses and mini buses all travel down together. We arrived at 7am and had 1 ½ hours to marvel at the enormity of this monument that Ramses II had carved out of the mountain side – and then the magnitude of the task of moving this gigantic rock structure with scientific precision so that it would not be drowned. Then it was the 3 hour journey back to Aswan. We arrived in time for lunch at the hotel and after that we had an afternoon nap – it is so hot anyway and all the shops close from about midday until 5pm.
At 6pm we went to the Nubian Museum which was really well laid out and gave a very good perspective of the Nubian history & culture, as well as an overview of the whole Nile valley with all the temples along it’s banks and the flooding of it when the Aswan High Dam was built in the 1960’s. UNESCO actually rescued 22 temples from the rising waters and relocated them – 4 were given to countries that helped with the mammoth project and we met a lady from USA who said she had seen the one temple in a museum in New York!
We came back to our room, watched a movie and then went out to buy some ‘street food’ at about 9pm. Aswan is so ‘1st world’ compared to Sudan, but I must say nobody can compete with the Sudanese on friendliness and hospitality – they are the best we have come across.
Aswan has the lovliest setting right on the Nile River with the Corniche(riverfront promenade) running just in front of our hotel.


Saturday 25th August

Dave, Harry and Harun have gone back to the port with Mohammed (our local agent that we have via Jeff and the overlanders) to try and sort out number plates etc with the traffic police. Johan and Jeff cannot proceed with this step until their carnets are sorted out.
I just spent the morning catching up on the computer work – blog and photos. Then I went up to the rooftop pool and relaxed with the overlanders, 44 degrees is certainly more manageable when you have air conditioning and a swimming pool at your disposal!
Dave finally came back at 3pm with a folder full of documents in Arabic! The Egyptians are bureaucrats at their best – Dave says there are several ‘windows’ you have to go to with no signage at all and absolutely no queuing system in place at the licensing department in Aswan town. They then had to go to the testing grounds, also in town, to collect an officer to take to the port 25kms away to check the vehicles engine and chassis numbers – this process took 4 hours (3 waiting for the officer to be found)! Then it was back to the traffic department back in Aswan to get documents signed and by then the working day was over. So tomorrow he will have to continue with vehicle insurance and number plates and payment of levies due. Dave says this would have all been completely impossible to achieve without Mohammed.
We relaxed until 6.30pm when we set off with Haan in a taxi and then a boat to Philae to see the sound and light show at 8pm. The main temple, the Temple of Isis was constructed over some 800 years by Ptolemaic and Roman rulers from 200BC till 600AD. After the construction of the first Aswan Dam which started in 1898, rising waters lapped and surged about the temple, submerging it for 6 months a year. With the building of the new High Dam in the 1960’s, the temple would have been drowned forever. So UNESCO relocated it and the rest of the Philae temples to Aglika Island from 1972 till 1980. Of all the cults in ancient Egypt, the worship of the goddess of Isis was one of the strongest and Isis-worship eventually spread throughout the Roman Empire. The nurturing, forgiving, loving Isis was Christianity’s chief rival between the 3rd and 5th centuries. Early Coptic art identifies Virgin Mary with Isis and Jesus with Horus(the son of Isis) - perhaps Christianity’s attempt to wean people away from Isis?
The light and sound show was really spectacular and the lights especially, seemed to bring the rock engravings to life!
At 9pm, when the show was over we went to the bazaar, where we had roast chicken for dinner and then we wandered around amongst all the colourful clothing, spice and jewelry stores. On our return to near our hotel, we paid a visit to a shopkeeper whom we had promised to visit yesterday. Well, we entered his very small shop, only to be led up and into an ‘Aladdin’s Cave’ filled with everything you can imagine. Before we knew it, it was after midnight and we had bought more than we intended!! So we bade him goodnight and hit the sack.


Sunday 26th August

Dave set off at 9am to try and finally retrieve Garfield. He got back at 2pm – exhausted and irritated but finally triumphant! Garfield is now parked in the street with an Egyptian number plate – apparently ‘20’! The temperature in Garfield had gone up to 55 degrees being all closed up, and our batteries had gone flat over the week, so the fridge had stopped working and the meat was rotten! Luckily we only had 4 or so packets, but still it was a stinky mess to sort out. Dave had thrown the meat out yesterday, but we still had to clean out the fridge.
We then went to the internet to ‘skype’ CJ and Daryl – unfortunately Rayanne could not get internet access so we missed her in our conference call. Then it was dinner before going off to the Tourist Police to sign up for the convoy to Luxor in the morning. We had to pay LE20 (about R25) each and I had to be ‘mauled’ by some official who put his arms around me to shake Dave’s hand and kissed my cheek in the process! These Egyptian men are something else and a few of the overlander girls have been propositioned with offers of ‘hour long sex as their British boyfriends can only manage 10 minutes!’ Luke, one of the British boyfriends, was not amused!
Driving at night is a little scarey as most vehicles do not use their headlights, so there are just ‘shadows’ coming towards you out of the dark – occasionally the driver will give you a flash of lights just to let you know he is coming!



Monday 27th August

We left at 7am to meet the convoy – all tourists in private vehicles or taxis or buses have to travel in convoy with a police escort. We traveled N to Kom Ombo where we stopped to look at the Temple of Haroeris and Sobek – this one is quite ruined so we didn’t pay to go in but just looked from the outside. Then about another 70kms N at the town of Edfu, the convoy stopped again for an hour for us to go into the Temple of Horus. This was very impressive and we enjoyed our visit although it was extremely hot.
The road continued N with the road, rail and river snaking together through the desert. The Egyptians certainly utilize the Nile water and there are cultivated fields all the way along – unlike the Sudanese who don’t seem to realize the potential of the ‘life blood’ that is flowing through their country.
We reached Luxor at 2pm and found Rezeiky Camp (www.luxorcamp.com) where the overlanders are going to meet up with us later – they have to catch a bus up as their truck is still at the port awaiting clearance! We are camping here but we do have the luxury of a lovely swimming pool.


Tuesday 28th August

We woke up at 7am and after a cup of coffee set off for a walk along the Corniche towards Luxor Temple. Most of Luxor Temple was built by 2 rulers, Amenophis III(1417-1379BC) and Ramses II(1304-1237BC). It was Ramses II that added the pylon and the pair of obelisks at the entrance. The temples along the Nile were generally built by successive kings and dynasties, some of whom added major sections and others merely decorated a wall. Each temple was envisaged as a progression from this world into the realm of divine mysteries and so halls get darker and doors lower and narrower as you approach the inner sanctuary. Generally, the inner sanctuary is the oldest section and the pylons are the newest. The temples were enclosed by lofty mud-brick walls and commoners were seldom allowed entry. The remains that we see are huge and very impressive and as we gain a better understanding of them, we enjoy them more and more.
After our visit, we then got a horse and carriage, Agmud the driver with his horse Cindarella. Agmud was a real gem and we had a good laugh as he took us into the labyrinth of alleyways that make up the souk.- at times people and produce had to be moved out the way to just fit our carriage through! Agmud bought us vegetables and fruit as well as sugar, matches etc and we even braved buying some beef! It was a very relaxing way to shop – the 2 of us reclined in the carriage with Agmud jumping up and down to do all the bargaining.
Then we came back to the camp site and just relaxed during the heat of the day – mainly in the swimming pool. Dave spends ages in the pool – can you believe it kids? Dad lolling in cold water! But it is just so hot that he says the cold water is wonderful.


Wednesday 29th August

We left at 7am with the overlanders in a minibus to visit the Valley of the Kings. The Valley of the Kings is on the west bank of the Nile as the sun sets in the west so the west bank signifies the end of life. First we stopped at the Colossi of Memnon which is a pair of 18m high statues originally from the front of the Temple of Amenophis III which later pharaohs plundered and destroyed. Then we went to Deir el-Bahri –Arabic name for the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut – Hatshepsut was the only woman to reign over Egypt as a pharaoh(1503 – 1482 BC) that is for a period of nearly 22 years. Unfortunately her successor, Tuthmosis, defaced most of her images – she was portrayed as a male wearing a pharaoh’s kilt and sporting a beard!
Then we went around the bone-dry Theban Hills to the Valley of the Kings where we went into 3 of the 63 tombs so far un earthed – they descend at an angle into the ground, as the ancient Egyptians believed that the after life was in the middle of the Earth and not in Heaven as we believe. These tombs were secretive and most of the labourers only worked for 6 months at time to try and keep the secret safe. Sadly, they failed the test and the tombs were robbed mainly by past labourers. However, the dramatic shafts leading down into the ground and the carvings and decorations have remained for us to see and are truly amazing.
We did not go to see the Valley of the Queens, but instead went to Deir el-Medina, the Workers Village where the masons, sculptors and painters lived who created the royal tombs. In their time off, the chief labourers, who stayed for longer than 6 months, actually carved out their own tombs and built pyramids over these tombs. These tombs were so vividly painted that it looked like the paintings had been done a few months ago, not 3 000+ years ago!
We relaxed and swam in the afternoon and then had dinner with Jeff and the others at their truck. Jeff had gone into the markets and bought an assortment of local food and sauces plus some grilled chicken, so we had a real banquet. After dinner we all took a walk into town to the souk where we had fun bartering with the vendors. We bought an electric fan to hang up in our rooftop tent and we really slept well with our ‘air conditioning!’

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.