Gondar The Royal Enclosure Tuesday we spend the whole day visiting some of the sights of Gondar, one of the old capitals of Ethiopia. Top of the list for me is The Royal Enclosure which is where all the castles are. The sight of these medieval-looking castles must be one of the most unexpected sights in Africa. Someone makes the observation that they look similar in design to some of the castles in India. Each Ethiopian king, during this period, built themselves a new castle. There are a total of seven in the compound. The one exc [View Full Entry]

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I have heard nothing good about Ethiopian bus journeys, and aim to be at the bus well before the departure time to ensure I get a decent seat. With the expectation of a long day's travel ahead, and covered in a layer of dried sweat from the previous night, I decide the least I can do for my sanity is to wash my hair. Thus at 4AM I am crouched in my undies next to the communal tap, lathering and rinsing by moonlight. I notice that several of the other guests have pulled their beds out into the courtyard, and hope [View Full Entry]

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In fact, it does take nearly 11 hours to reach Gondar via Bahir Dar the next morning, and this is considered a short ride as I have taken a hired minibus instead of a normal public transport bus estimated for 2 days. The guesthouse I have stopped at in Gondar is the second one I have tried after the first one being full. This one has no single rooms and no dorms (not unlike the rest of Africa) but actually only has rooms with two twin beds for the price of 120 Birr. This is only like 12 USD but thats [View Full Entry]

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Before you ask I didn’t find Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Gondor but Gondar a city in Ethiopia. Camelot of Africa is the nickname of Gondar as it has, smack bang in the middle of the city, a Castle looking like its coming out of medieval England. Strangely enough the biggest damage to the castle was done by the British during the Second World War. The Italians were at the time occupying Ethiopia and were hiding in the Castle when the British bombarded it. Gondar was the capital of Ethiopia from 1636 and many kings and [View Full Entry]

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We're beginning to wonder if we've ended up in some sort of strange Lord of the Rings allegory. Our first stop in Ethiopia is the ancient capital of Gondar. Later on we were scheduled to drive through a village called Shire. It's a shame that the Semien Mountains aren't called the Misty Mountains... Okay, I think the relation seems to stop there but it gave the geeks in us (...okay me) a bit of entertainment for a while. We immediately took a liking to this country. The food is excellent! They have teriffic pizza (Italian influence), tasty coffee (especially when instant [View Full Entry]

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Well, suelam from Gondar, Ethiopia where we are still trying to adjust to life as travellers in a very different land and fight against our jetlag! It's now 6pm so at least we are still awake! It's day 2 since we've landed here after quite an eventful trip. Our flight from Vancouver to Washington went without a hitch including getting excellent pick up service by our friends, Kristine and John. After a very brief visit we were back at the airport bright and early the next day for the marathon journey from Washington DC to Addis Ababa via Rome on Ethiopian [View Full Entry]

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The morning plan was to visit the Royal Enclosure which included a 6 castles, of which Fasilidas’s dating from 1640 was the best example, together with other disused and half ruined buildings. These included a judiciary hall, a chancery, a music hall and impressive stabling. This complex had been used by the Italians during their occupation from 1936 - 41 and had suffered bombing by the British forces which, sadly, had broken up various parts. Fortunately for Gondar, the accuracy of the bombing left a little to be desired! But no grudge is felt - so they told us. We had [View Full Entry]

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It was lovely to wake up with trees and shrubs all around us and not till we had nearly finished breakfast did some youngsters herding cattle find us - they just stood and stared. Seeing us oldies getting ourselves sorted out, I suppose, must have been stare-worthy! Ian and Chris had a dilemma. Ian had lent his ball point pen, a very smart Schaeffer, to the official who filled in our forms at the border crossing. Did he drive back and get it or forget all about it? With our encouragement he drove back to the office where, much to his [View Full Entry]

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An adventure north of a different kind: this time by public transport. We left the motorbike behind at Jungle Junction in Nairobi. 'Broken down' doesn't feature in the BMW motorbike handbook so we prefer to use the term 'waiting for parts'. Actually, this was the case. The bike had been running terribly for a month and getting progressively worse. I didn't really have my broken toe up resting on the couch as much as I was proscribed, finding it far more interesting to figure out why the bike wasn't running as it should be. Luckily I was able to swap parts [View Full Entry]

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Now, I don't usually take to quoting Tony Blair for the titles of my posts, but the above quote is perhaps one of the most appropriate things the once-PM and once-decent guy ever said. One thing you cannot escape when you travel through Africa is the pure, unadulterated poverty that exists on this continent. As a brief illustration, let me quote some rankings from the UN Human Development Index. This is the list that tries to establish how poor a country is, not just by looking at pure economic figures, but by taking into account other factors, such as adult literacy [View Full Entry]

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