Into Egypt

Yesterday we sailed across the Sudanese - Egypt border and are now in Aswan. Once again the change across the border is dramatic...welcome to a dense population of leering men! hehe!!

From our last post in Khartoum we did the most amazing drive we have ever done. We headed through the desert along the course of the Nile river to the border town of Wadi Halfa. The scenery was spectacular - crazy desert and then in the midst the Nile weaves its course and supports a lush green vegetation strip of date palms for about 10m on either side of its banks. Dotted all along the river are tiny towns that are stark white and have pretty Nubian paintings all over them. About 100m away from the river the desert then reclaims the land and there is nothing. Absolutely nothing but sand....and a few Pyramids that date back to when the ancient Egyptians invaded the land.

The camping in the evenings has been incredible - starry skies, cool breeze and absolutely no one in sight. Ah, this is what it's all about!

When we got to Wadi Halfa we had to wait three days for a ferry boat to arrive for us - and despite the odds we all agreed it was one of our favourite parts of the trip. There was nothing to do and no where to go but absorb the desert and local town. Lots of coffee and tea drinking and using the shower at Mazar's house (our "fixer" in the town).

The border ferry was hyped up to be a tumultuous experience best avoided by anyone with a modicum of sanity...but it all turned out ok for us. As the girls in the group Katie and I got sent on ahead to use our girlish charms to try and secure some sleeping space on the deck (it's an overnighter). We shoved and pushed our way through and ended up being some of the first up there and spread out all our stuff to guard some space. When the boys arrived we were feeling very smug! Turned out to be a great night sleeping under the stars - apart from the fact that any time we woke up the same man was sitting there staring at Katie and I all night. In the morning I noticed he had his fly undone. Nice.

The downside to the ferry trip actually started when the trip was over. We approached the port and then just sat there for about 3 hours in the sun waiting for Immigration officials to enter the boat and stamp us all through. Very chaotic and disorganised. We were all glad when we finally disembarked and made it to our hotel (truck is on a separate ferry so we have to "rough it" for a few nights!!). Even better is that Scott and Summer's parents are in town and we were treated to a nice meal to celebrate.

We're heading to Abu Simbel tomorrow which should be great (other than the fact we have to leave at 3am!!! What is with that???) Will report more soon...

xxx

PS. hope some of you notice steve's MO! We've got the whole truck doing Movember so the photos will be posted soon! FUnnily enough the Egyptians are loving it and keep yelling out "nice moustach"...that might e because they ALL have them too!

Observations....

While I've got a few minutes I wanted to jot down a few things that I've been noticing...

1. Surprisingly Africa is full of Eucalypt trees. They are everywhere...but rumour has it from the locals that they make bad charcoal.

2. Even though Kenya grows a lot of coffee they can't seem to make a good cup. Ethiopia wins hands down.

3. Kenya and Tanzania appear to have greater poverty and poorer infrastructure than Ethiopia and Sudan. I thought it would be the other way around?

4. A lot of the tap water we have come across is drinkable. I thought it would be dirty, but it seems to be ok? On that note, bottled water is pretty much the same price as at home....so not very cheap.

5. If you put a whole egg in a fire it explodes.

Have I mentioned how hot Sudan is?

We're in an Internet cafe in the middle of Khartoum which is definitley one of the most modern and buzzing cities we have come across in Africa. Sudan is turning out to be a great spot - even though it is winter it is seriously hot (especially whilst wearing "suitable" clothes and donning a headscarf). It is almost a city that has grown out of a desert - the roads are covered in sand and it has a definite arabic flavour. Men wear the white dresses, restaurants serve Shish kebab, there are loads of fresh juice stalls and the markets are full of dates and spices. Oh yeah, and there is no alcohol (amazing how when you can't have any it's all we feel like!)

So Sudan hey? After all the time people spent worrying about the border entry it turned out to be pretty simple. Oh, apart from the supplementary $65 "registration fee" that no one happened to mention we had to pay. None of us are particularly sure that the fee was very official, but given the fact a towering 6'5 man the colour of the ace of spades was commanding it we all paid up. When crossing over from Ethiopia the change is immediate - the green hills of Ethiopia abruptly end and the desert soon unravels into a not baron landscape.

We're currently staying in a yacht club that doubles as a campsite and our tents are pitched right on the edge of the Blue Nile. I'd love to post some photos but they are kind of illegal to take here. Apparantley a photo licence is required and people have been arrested for taking photos so we are keeping the cameras fairly well hidden.

We made a trip to the souk yesterday and today we are aiming to see the camel markets which should be interesting. Actually on our drive into Khartoum we came across a group of about 6 camels dead on the road that we think may have been hit by a truck in the night....very smelly.

Heading north again tomorrow so probably out of reach for a while. Adios!

Northern Ethiopia

In case anyone was wondering what happened to my blogging for the past few weeks, well it seems that Ethiopia has a block on all blog sites so I had to just write them up and save them to post later on.

In a nutshell from Addis we headed north to Bahir Dar to see the monasteries on the lake (not quite as impressive as we were hoping but still very relaxing), and the Blue Nile falls (which were great). Steve and I both ended up with flu for a few days which meant we couldn't go to Laliebela, but we tucked ourselves up in bed and emerged a few days later feeling much better. We managed to make it out to the Obama Cafe in town for the most grossly oversized and disgusting burger we have encountered so far...but the cafe was certainly the hip place to be!

From Bahir Dar it was up to Gondor to see the castles and trek in the Simien Mountains. Gondor is a quiet sleepy town with lots of good Ethiopian hospitality and a series of very European style castles. We had a night out in the San Fransisco Golden Gate bar, and tried a Tej Beat (local bar) for some home brew honey wine.

The Simien trek was GREAT. It was a two night three day trek where 6 of us (Gav, Shin, Katie, Ryan and us) drove into the mountains and got 3 ponies to carry our gear for us. We trekked up to a base camp and from there walked to several look out points. It's amazing scenery quite unlike anything I've seen before. Rather than the mountains being peaks it is more like a giant plateau range that you clamber over at 4000 m....quite high. We could certainly feel the altitude while climbing and at night the temperature dropped to well below freezing. Consequently Steve and I were also freezing as I checked the rating on our sleeping bags and it was -2, and on the way our sleeping bags had somehow got wet which wasn't a good start. Let's just say we wore everything we had to bed that night and were still freezing cold.

On the trek we saw lots of a special kind of long haired baboon, and it was also a good chance to see some locals living a truly tough agricultural lifestyle in the mountains. I don't know how they manage to cultivate the ground...we were struggling to just walk up the hills let alone farm them.

After our trekking we arrived back in town very dirty but satisfied. We then packed up all our gear in preparation to head into Sudan...everyone was feeling a bit nervous at this point as the Sudanese border is apparantly notorious for turning travellers away. Fingers crossed.

Macchiatos in Addis Ababa

I just read my last entry about going out for Ethiopian red wine. It
brought shivers back…lets just say three bottles is too much and the
night ended with us doing very inappropriate things with Injera in a
local restaurant.

For now I've left Steve doing a workout in our room and headed down to the
Internet cafe for a while. We're in Addis Ababa and are both
rating it as our favourite city so far in Africa. It's choc full of
people but has a really good vibe about it - lots of cafes, market
stalls and chaos! We've also decided to upgrade to a local hotel for a
few days away from the tent and are enjoying the delights of a hot
shower.

The focus of our stay here is getting more visas…and drinking lots of
excellent coffee (thanks to the Italians that were stationed here
during the second world war!). All is looking good for us with the
Egyptian and Sudanese visas...but not for all our group. The poor
Danish girl Maree has been told that there is no way she will get a
Sudanese visa (do you remember that Danish journalist that drew some
derogatory cartoons about Mohammed a few years back? Well apparantly
the Sudanese are not happy about that so they have banned all Danish
from visiting). Poor girl has to make alternate travel
arrangements at her own expense so she is not very happy. Additionally
Sid the New Zealand guy has to cut his trip short and go home as his
dad is very sick...so that isn't great news.

Other than that all is well for us...I did however get a tick in my
leg the other day which I wasn't too impressed with! He hitched a ride
with me for a good few hours before I found him!! Gav ended up ripping
him out for me…along with a good chunk of my skin. Ouch!

Addis is rumored to have the largest market in Africa so we've spent
several hours exploring that, and we also went to the National History
Museum which has the remains of the oldest human fossil ever found.
"Lucy" is apparently 2.2 million years old and old stands about a
metre tall. Very tiny!

One other good thing we did yesterday was take a visit to a local "spa"
facility. Not quite what we are used to...imagine what a old fashioned
psychiatric hospital might look like and picture us trying to relax
while the electricity flickered on and off. It was a good experience
though - for $7 we each had a giant hot bath soak followed by a
massage. It felt the cleanest I have been in the whole 10 weeks!

I've also just splurged out and bought some jeans…had to buy male ones
as the ladies were all too short….but luckily Ethiopian men seem to
like a tight slightly gay fit. Perfect for me!

Nairobi to Awassa (into Ethiopia)

We've made it into Ethiopia and are currently in the largest town inthe south called Awassa.

We've really noticed the change as we crossedinto Ethiopia…as soon as you cross the border the people look much more Arabic and the coffee and tea suddenly became amazing.

The trip to get here through northern Kenya was pretty full on. From Nairobi we headed north towards the Samburu national park(unfortunately our last game drive). It wasn't a great day of travel for me as I was the last of the girls on the truck to have a 24 hour throwing up virus. The game drive was still quite spectacular eventhough I was only popping my head up for the highlights! We saw a baby elephant that they think was born that day and it was struggling toget to its feet it was so tiny.

The next day we headed on an arduous journey to Meskabit, a muddy outpost town in the middle of nowhere. We had our first truck bogging incident and all had to get out and dig out the truck and create some launch ramps out of thorn bushes. Steve of course was right in the action and consequently ended up covered in mud!

When we arrived late that day we checked into Jey Jey's hotel and the following day hired a guide to walk us up the local volcano crater and visit a local village. The next day it was then back in the truck forthe drive to Moyale, the border town. For some of this journey we had to hire armed guards to join our truck as it is apparently bandit territory. Nothing like two men in camo outfits holding assault rifles in the back of the truck. We didn't see any action though…and I'm starting to wonder if the $40 armed guards were actually the new way the bandits are focusing on raising revenues?

Anyway we crossed the border with no hassles and spent the morning all running around the border town in excitement once we had discovered the local coffee, tea and cakes! Mmmm! Sure beats the tomato sandwiches we have been surviving on. Although we're not sure about the local Ethipian staple called Injera. It's kind of like a giant spongy purple pancake thing that accompanies most dishes. It's sourand a bit odd to eat…a book I am reading likens it to eating a dirty dish cloth!

From there we headed north and spent a night at Yebello and then on to Lake Awassa which is where we are now. Heading out now to sample some local Ethiopian red wine…it comes in beer bottles and costs $2 per bottle…. Dangerous!