Blogs from Ethiopia, Africa

Leaving Ambo ended up being an extra special ordeal. After a few hours of negotiations, lots of coffee and some insults, we managed to secure some spots in a car heading to Nekemte. From Nekemte we were suppose to be able to catch a car to Bedele. There was no car that day, which meant a day wandering around a city of about 80000 people who had no real access to tourist attractions. This meant a nice relaxing time with people more concerned with asking us what we were doing there rather than attempting to rip us off. The next morning we went to the bus station where, after about 6 hours, we were able to find a bus that would finally get us to Bedele. On the bus we decended another 800m into a much ... read more

After failing to get to Tradjoura, Djibouti by boat (I arrived too late and the idea of spending another few days in Djibouti wasn't nearly as exciting as meeting up with an old friend in Ethiopia), I decided I would head straight back to Ethiopia. That meant back to 5am buses. I arrived at the chaotic bus station and got a pretty good seat before debating about the cost of my luggage (I won) and departing sometime around 7:30am. We drove through a lot of the lunar landscapes I had seen before as well as the most intensely hot and flat desert I had ever seen. We arrived at the boarder around 10am, where we had about an hour of document and luggage check before officially being stamped out of Djibouti. The process to get into ... read more

Making it back to Addis meant a few interesting things had to happen first. Of course I had to have one last annoying adventure in Bahir Dar before leaving. This one included a prostitute who decided to follow me for a few hundred meters after I said goodbye to all my friends from National Grocery. Of course, what made it worse this time was that some guy (I believe he didn't know her, he just spoke English and saw an opportunity for money) decided to join in the following. I figured once I got back into my hotel they would go away. Nope, instead my hotel let them in (they assumed I knew them), and even after I tried to indicate that I wanted them gone, the security just smiled and gave me the thumbs up. ... read more

After even more Timkat craziness I found my way to what is traditionally Gondar's most famous site, the massive Royal Enclosure which includes a number of castles in various condition dating back into the 17th Century. They were occupied well into the 19th Century by royalty from Amhara Region. The first most remarkable impression I had was noticing just how much they looked like European castles, just with some twists. The enclosure was really quiet and there were very few tourists and no fake guides (or real guides for that matter) around to bother me. I think they were all in the streets enjoying Timkat. It meant that I could slowly wander around, take some pictures and just sit in the shade and imagine the place a few hundred years ago and that is what made ... read more

The big tourist attraction in Ethiopia is Lalibela's Stone Churches. I arrived via a town called Woldia where we caught a tourist angency van which was going to pick up some tourists in Lalibela and drive them to Gonder. That meant it was empty going to Lalibela! Pretty first class after a bunch of the economic travel I have been getting use to. We paid the driver directly as it is the way they earn a bit of extra money. You see this everywhere in Ethiopia, UN vehicles, Red Cross, Tourist Agency vans are always pick up people and you pay a bit but have more comfort. Arriving in the town was a shock. The ashpalt starts where the airport is and runs directly into the center of the city. The only ashpalt for 200km or ... read more