When we arrived in Gondar we planned to stay a few days to rest and relax and to decide if we want to go trekking in the Simien Mountains National Park. That decision was cut short when met the Belgium couple we did the Lake Tana tour with. They were planning to do a four day trek and leave for the Simien Mountains the next day. They were looking for people to share cost with. All of it seemed like a good idea. We did a quick tour of Gondar and left the next morning for the Simien Mountains. The Simien [View Full Entry]

---

---

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]

---

---

There is a lot top be said about expectations especially if they are not met. I read about the famous monasteries, which are dotted around the shoreline and islands of Ethiopia’s largest lake, Lake Tana. I imagined extensive compounds and large impressive decorated churches. Well there is non of that. The compounds are small and so are the churches. From outside they are unimpressive as there is virtually no decoration and they are mainly made out of wood, straw and mud. The decoration inside is slightly better and there are lots of paintings on the wall. Some of the paintings and [View Full Entry]

---

---

tribes The main reason to go down south in Ethiopia (switch of your dirty mind, no pun intended) is to see the various local tribes. This should be accompanied by wish to get shaken and stirred in a Land Cruiser for hours on end on bad roads. It is a long drive down but very worth it. The first tribe we saw were the Hamer people. They are subsistence farmers and are quite happy living like its 1599. Our first encounter was in a small market in a small town. The great thing about Ethiopia is that it is defiantly not [View Full Entry]

---

---

Why Ethiopia The reason why we are in Ethiopia starts with a visit to a Colombia shop a few years back. In this store I stumbled over the bored husbands section where the shop provides a few seats, a coffee table and a coffee table book. Not being a bored husband but curious I picked up the book and you guess right it was about Ethiopia. It looked like a great country (as all countries do in those kind of books) full of old stuff to look at. Just what I like and I decided then that I will go to [View Full Entry]

---

---

Why Ethiopia The reason why we are in Ethiopia starts with a visit to a Colombia shop a few years back. In this store I stumbled over the bored husbands section where the shop provides a few seats, a coffee table and a coffee table book. Not being a bored husband but curious I picked up the book and you guess right it was about Ethiopia. It looked like a great country (as all countries do in those kind of books) full of old stuff to look at. Just what I like and I decided then that I will go to [View Full Entry]

---

---

If someone told you that I paid USD500 to see some apes in the jungle then you might laugh at him and call him a liar (especially if your name is Marc ;). Fortunately this time you would be wrong. Not that it was my idea to go and visit them. Kellie insisted on it in the beginning and I'm glad she did. There are three countries which still have Mountain Gorillas left which are Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo (which is neither democratic nor a republic) and Rwanda. There is a limited number of gorilla trek permits each day in [View Full Entry]

---

---

Doing an organized tour is not my favorite holiday experience (to put it mildly) and it took a lot of soul searching and some obstacles in the way to join one. The main reason why we decided to do it was me saying a while back that I don’t want to spend a lot more time on uncomfortable busses, the ability to see lots in little time and as main reason that it is not possible to get gorilla trek permits from outside Uganda. So we signed up for a 14 day Gorilla overland truck trip. If you have never seen [View Full Entry]

---

---

A Serengeti safari is must when you are in Tanzania. That’s at least what David Attenborough and Bernhard Grzimek make me believe when I saw their documentaries when I was young (back then in the good old days) and right they are. But let me start from the beginning. We arrived after the visit with God in Arusha where we were greeted by a friend of our WorldVision guide. The WorldVision dude asked us a while ago if we want to do a Safari and we told him to give us some information but don’t book anything. In good African tradition [View Full Entry]

---

---

Yep God lives in Africa. God is the sponsor child of Kellie and he lives in Tanzania. Kellie inquired where exactly he lives and it turned out that he lives more or less close to our travel route so she started arranging a visit. That’s easier said than done and involves a lot of paper work (including a police clearance) but was successful in the end. We got picked up by a WorldVision LandCruiser (which we had to pay for…) containing our “guide”, a driver and someone else working for this charity and we set off. It turns out that God [View Full Entry]

---

---