So far on our journey we have visited 17 countries over 172 days and have taken approximately 11,000 photos (now who wants to see our slide show when we get back!). We have 188 days to go and several more countries to visit. We would like to say thanks to everyone who has been following along and all the nice comments we've received. We're actually quite surprised at the number of people who are actually reading this thing. Some of the highlights of our trip are: 1. The Sahara desert drive through Mauritania 2. The White Desert in Egypt 3. The [View Full Entry]

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What a great way to spend Valentine's day. While the falls are not nearly as impressive as they were in the past we were actually quite pleasently surprised to see as much water flowing as we did. Previously we had been told that there would only be a small trickle of water due to the hydro-electric dam that was built upstream. Prior to the dam being built, the Blue Nile Falls were apparantly quite spectacular and were often compared to Victoria Falls in Zimbabawe/Zambia. I guess you can call this progress. For Valentine's Day supper Jordan took me out to a [View Full Entry]

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Tigray and Lalibela are home to the famous rock-hewn churches of Ethiopia. Rock-hewn means that the chuches were literally carved out of the cliffs and volcanic rock formations rather than built up. While not as famous or spectacular, the Tigray churches are very interesting and likely pre-date the Lalibela churches (11th Century). We also made a day trip from Lalibela to see Yemrehanna Kristos church which was built into a cave and demonstrates fascinating Aksumite architecture. The drive to get there was a harrowing 2 hour journey on bumpy, narrow, dusty, winding mountain roads. Not r [View Full Entry]

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Axum is a very interesting place full of history that has yet to be discovered. Little of Axumite history has been uncovered by archaeologists (only about 4%) but it is believed that the Axumite Empire rivaled the Egyptians. There are several churches and monestaries in the surrounding area including the church that is believed to be the resting place of the legendary Arc of the Covenant. Of course no one is allowed to see the Arc and there is a single guard that is chosen by the church. We also visited the baths and palace that are believed to have been [View Full Entry]

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The next part of our journey through Ethiopia took us to the Semien Mountains National Park. The scenery was so spectacular and we took so many photos. It was so hard to decide which ones to show on the blog so we decided to divide it into two parts. The main animals that we saw were the Gelada Baboons which were absolutely everywhere! We also saw a few Walia Ibex which were pretty cool because of their huge antlers. There were also all sorts of interesting plant life which was very different for us to see at altitude when we're used [View Full Entry]

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Kathie is wondering why when guys travel they tend to lose weight, but when girls travel, they tend to gain weight???? no fair!! This is part 2 for Semien mountains, just cause we couldn't decide which photos to post. Enjoy!! Also just wanted to wish my sister "Happy Groundhog Day" [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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During our stay in Khartoum we had the opportunity to check out the "Whirling Dervishes". Every Friday the Sufi Muslims gather at the cemetery and take part in an interesting religous ceremony that involves lots of chanting and dancing. The idea being that the ceremony brings them closer to God. Some of the participants work themselves into such a trance by spinning and hopping around that they really do appear to be in a different world. One guy was witnessed to be spinning for half an hour straight. Pretty incredible! Our last night in Sudan we camped near the Ethiopian border. [View Full Entry]

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I think we have seen all the temples we can possibly handle at this point, hence, Temple Overload!! We took the various 'token' photos, but also tried to have some fun with it. These are mostly random photos from the temples at Naqa and Muskwarat. [View Full Entry]

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We arrived at the pyramids at Meroe at sunset and drove behind a nearby dune to set up camp. Practically before the truck came to a stop, we abandoned our truck jobs (Kathie was meant to cook and I was to throw tents off the roof) and raced to the site to get photos of the pyramids in the light of the setting sun. The next morning we paid to enter the site and explored the pyramids whilst getting blasted by sand as it was a very windy and overcast morning (so glad we got the sunset pictures). Again, there was [View Full Entry]

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