For once it’s obvious which title I should use for my blog entry. Perhaps the standout attraction of Addis Ababa is the Ethiopia National Museum which houses the skeleton of Lucy, a well preserved 3.2m year old fossil, considered to be an early ancestor of man. It was discovered in 1974 in the Afar region of Ethiopia and has been described as simply one of the most important fossils ever discovered. At the team campsite after the skeleton was discovered the lead scientist played a Beatles cassette and the track “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” came on. They already thought that the skeleton was female so the name seemed appropriate and stuck. The real Lucy skeleton is securely locked away in a vault, but if you didn’t know that you wouldn’t realise. There is also ... read more

The drive from Bwindi to Kibale (where we have a permit for Chimp trekking tomorrow) takes us up the western side of Uganda through the Queen Elizabeth National Park. We don’t expect that much from the park, but do want to try to find the tree climbing lions in the south of the park. The lions are actually quite easy to find – there are 6 in one tree but these are the only ones we see. I manage to bog the Rav4 in a boggy part of the trail. My travel companions are a bit worried about out pushing us out as we have just seen lions up the road, but another vehicles comes past soon and it doesn’t take too much effort to push us clear. We drive along the main road through the ... read more

In Uganda we.ve decided to do things a little differently than we did in Tanzania. Here we have hired a car – well an old SUV, it’s a 20 year old Toyota RAV4. The benefit of this is that we can see Uganda without having to take an organised tour. I think it should be more fun and also considerably cheaper. This plan doesn’t get off to the best start as we need to wait until after lunch for our car to arrive at the hotel in Kampala. By then we’re decided that we should spend another night in the city and head on out to Jinja - the source of the White Nile- early the next day. Jinja turns out not to be much of a place, but our hotel overlooks the river, is OK ... read more

From Zanzibar we’ve made our way by ferry to Dar es Salaam and then by bus (a very long day!) to Arusha where we begin a 6 day Tanzania camping safari. Two of our friends from England join us here and we will travel together for this safari and afterwards for 12 days in Uganda. Tarangire National Park is our 1st stop out of Arusha. It’s not one of the better known game parks so I’m unsure of what we’ll see here, but I shouldn’t have been worried, the game viewing here is excellent. It’s been almost 30 years since we were last in East Africa (and that was in Kenya) but I’m aware of a number of high profile stories about the problems of poaching and threats to animal numbers such as elephant, but it ... read more

After Europe we’ve planned 6 weeks or so in East Africa, starting with a few days in what we hope will be a reasonably relaxing spot – Zanzibar. Zanzibar is perhaps best known historically for being the hub of the slave trade, and though the slave market was closed in 1876 (after pressure from the British) you can still see the old slave chambers where there is an excellent and very informative museum about the slave trade. One other interesting sight in Stone Town is Freddie Mercury’s old home where his family lived until moving to the UK in 1964. It turns out to be only metres from where we are staying, but the Mercury bar which plays non-stop Queen songs is overlooking the harbour 10 minutes walk away. I like the feel of Stone Town ... read more