Adis Ababa - Day 67

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Essentially this was Car Care Day. We took all three cars to the country’s main Toyota dealer where we were met with such friendliness.

A huge set-up, possibly because every other car in Ethiopia is a Toyota! The workshop had about 30 or more lifts or pits on which cars could be worked and, once all the paperwork was completed, they gave priority to us travelers and had our cars on ramps with a dedicated team to each. Oil change was the main objective but we found that some torsion bar bushes needed replacing, together with some suspension bushes and brake pads. There were other minor problems needing solving and we all had our drive trains checked, oiled and greased.

Good stuff, but boring for the ladies who explored some of Adis’s shops and bought provisions for our onward travels.

Jeremy had had trouble at the border where the immigration authorities had spotted an error in his Ethiopian visa - it expired in Feb 07 rather than Feb 08. Purely a mistake by the issuing authority in London. However, they rang Head Office in Adis who okayed it provided he called in there when passing through. So Jeremy called in and the Head of Dept okayed it and said that if he had problems at the Kenya border, just to give him a call. He gave him both his land line and his mobile numbers.

We went to a rather swanky restaurant in the evening, going under the title of “The Chop House”. The food was quite good and, although we tried a bottle of local wine, we smartly changed to drinking beer! All in all a very useful day.

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