Bjorndahl

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

So the Juba Airlines (or Airways) flight I took from Berbera ended up being the most questionable flight of my life. Security at the airport was extremely tight (though you were then charged $10 for it), and everything else was a standard experience. I was glad I could get rid of the last of my Somaliland Shillings, because there was no where to exchange them, as it helped kill the time (you had to arrive two hours early for no apparent reason). The airplane was really old, ended up combining 4 flights (Djibouti, Bossasso, Mogadishu and Nairobi), and felt light it was going to fall apart before it left the ground. Good thing Berbera has Africa's longest runway! When we were coming in for our landing I saw Djibouti City, and my first reaction was, "WOW, ... read more

I set off from Hargeisa in mid-morning for the small mountain town of Sheikh, as suggested by the Director of Tourism. The ride was in a cramped shared taxi that was reminiscent of West Africa. We stopped for food and tea in a number of places before we finally climbed into the mountains that surrounded Sheikh. When I finally uncramped myself, I realized that I was in a beautiful natural environment with mountains ringing the town. I stayed in a small boarding house with students who were taking their international examinations in the town (apparently the number one secondary school in the country was there as well as the best vetrinary school in the Horn of Africa). The biggest problem was that it was really cold! As low as 6 degrees at night! I spent my ... read more

Reflecting that I only left Harar 3 days ago is a bit baffling because a lot has changed. I had to deal with my usual bus station obstacle course, though it was nothing compared to Gonder, and again got the front seat in a minibus heading towards Jijiga, the capital of Ogaden, the Somali area of Ethiopia. The first thing that I noticed was that bribes were quite evident at every checkpoint, either something I hadn't noticed before or something that is more common in that area. Next the geography changed completely. About 45 minutes outside of Harar we went through what is translated as "The Valley of Marvels", a rocky valley which is made up of some kind of rock that erodes in a number of interesting shapes. There was a lot of what appeared ... read more