http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Slowfeet/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Slowfeet en-us Thu, 31 Dec 2009 09:43:19 +0000 Thu, 31 Dec 2009 09:43:19 +0000 I don't know when I will be able to upload this post. We are currently in Debark in the Simien Highlands of Ethiopia and I am writing this on Boxing Day. There are internet cafes around but the few that have actually been located are well closed. I don't hold out a lot of hope of finding one this afternoon and truth be known I won't get this completed in time to upload today anyway.No photos aga http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Ethiopia/Amhara-Region/Simien-Mountains/blog-463462.html And so into Sudan. Largest country in Africa. Dominated by the Nile. Difficult to visit. Friendly hospitable people.I would like to put up some photos but the link is not handling it here and keeps dropping out so will add them later. Sitting here a little before dawn on the banks of the Nile in Khartoum at the Blue Nile Sailing Club it is just a bit chilly in the breeze blowing across the water. http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Sudan/North/Khartoum/blog-461151.html Sorry. No photos this time. I just can't read sufficient Arabic to work out how to convince this computer to upload the upload programWe are on the real Nile now. Away from Cairo where the river is spectacular but seems to serve as a rubbish disposal mechanism we get see the Nile as the powerful and important river that its size and length justifies. We hadn't seen a great deal of it until Luxor http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Egypt/Upper-Egypt/Aswan/blog-458738.html Nice when things live up to your expectations. Films documentaries and stories have fed my imagination since I was a pup and for me the Sahara became the quintessential desert populated by Bedouins small towns clustered around oases mile after mile of sand hills rocks eroded by the incessant winds a hard extremely fragile environment that takes no prisoners. Deserts are special places for http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Egypt/Western-Desert/blog-457529.html There is no question that what attracts people to Egypt at the moment tends to be the past. So far we haven't seen a great deal of the really old stuff that is scheduled to happen in the next couple of weeks but it is still impossible not to feel that the past is important here. It doesn't begin and end with the pyramids though. There are echoes of the past in a lot of areas.The first time we http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Egypt/Lower-Egypt/Cairo/blog-455097.html Well we have been on the road for over a year A year since we made the change from retireesconsultantsfarmers to travellers. Comes as a bit of a shock. After all we are still getting organised and there is still much more to see and do than we had intended to have left after a year. But it is timely that we review our progress.We have visited 21 countries in the last year some more than once a http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/Greater-London/Acton/blog-453053.html And so we are in London. My Mum would be pleased that we are finally visiting the UK properly. The rest of the world is there and important of course but the UK is really the place you should visit. Better still I know that we get ourselves up to Scotland but London and its area is good for now.We have been here before but only for 5 days and we were pretty busy doing the visa shuffle in prepa http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/Greater-London/blog-449638.html It is possible to get the impression that they don't get a lot of tourists in Northampton or perhaps that tourists are pretty insignificant in the scheme of things. Not for a moment did did we feel unwelcome and we were always treated well. There are some indications though. There are signs for instance to the Tourist Information Centre around the town area but actually finding it is difficult. http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/Northamptonshire/Northampton/blog-448405.html It has been a while since I posted. My apologies to those who look to this blog for light relief. I almost put something up a few weeks ago to say that we were back on the road again but we had to quickly rearrange things cancel the flights and spend some time in Canberra. This time though we are on our way.The plan on our return to Australian on 25 July was very simple. We would drive to Darwin http://www.travelblog.org/Oceania/Australia/Queensland/Brisbane/blog-446567.html If you never have enough hours in the day always struggling to get the planned activities completed in the allocated timeframe and always pushing the hours out then 24 solid hours of sunshine repeated every day for a couple of months sounds like a godsend. Certainly sounded that way to us when we moved across the Arctic Circle into the land where the midnight sun was shining brightly well actua http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Norway/blog-421186.html An apology is in order. The Danes aren't alone in Scandinavia in their capacity to charge. The rest of Scandinavia is right there with them although we have concluded that Sweden offered a little more for our money than the others have so far. The prices are not really unexpected but they do make you blanch a little. And what is the Australian GST A pissy little 10 was it Try whacking 25 on e http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Norway/Nord-Norge/Nordkapp/blog-419403.html We had a plan. We reckon that it was as wellconsidered and reasonable as possible given the scope and nature of the project. Traveling around the world and in the way that we are doing it requires management of many variables some of which are definitely going to be a surprise when they arise. We knew that there would be countries that would be cheaper than others and we set our budget to tak http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Denmark/Region-Midtjylland/Nyborg/blog-415370.html Starting to wonder whether this plan to post on each country makes sense but I will try to keep it up for a bit longer.So what do we know about Slovakia There was one of those filler programs on TV program that focused on British people who bought houses in Slovakia. It basically showed a beautiful country that had cheap houses and an easy atmosphere. Slovakia used to be part of Czechoslovakia un http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovakia/Bratislava-Region/Bratislava/blog-411231.html We have become used to easy and quick border crossings even between countries who don't always get on so it came as a bit of a surprise to spend over 2 hours making the crossing from Serbia to Hungary. The queue on the Serbian side was long but it paled into insignificance with the one on the Hungarian side. Luckily there was a toilet in the area between the control gates. No drama at all at the http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Hungary/Central-Hungary/Budapest/blog-410661.html 'Why would you want to go there' Delivered in a flat cold tone by a woman who had been scrupulously fair and reasonable in our discussions when we mentioned that we intended to travel through Serbia. She was Slovenian though and that may have been part of the reason.Signs on the motorway from Zagreb only started to indicate that we were on our way to Belgrade after we were well on the way. Croat http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Serbia/blog-409714.html Croatia now get that out of Hrvatska. Not that easy at least for me. You are supposed to be able to. Hrvatska is the name of the country after all. A lady in Austria pronounced it for me but I had no hope of copying her. The only effect for me is one a little like the one a lot of Chinese blokes are looking for first thing in the morning. I have to say that Croatian does not seem to be the most http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Croatia/blog-409213.html We didn't spend a lot of time here. Basically a float through on the way to Montenegro and then back after Montenegro to Sarajevo on through Mostar and out again to Croatia. But BosniaHercegovina is definitely worth more of a look than we gave the place. Sarajevo and Mostar are well set up for tourists with plenty of pansions and many many shops.I think to be honest that the aspect of BosniaHe http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Bosnia-and-Herzegovina/blog-407439.html We didn't spend a lot of time in Montenegro. There is not much doubt that longer would have been worthwhile. A visit to Kotor and its old city stari grad that is a run up over the mountain to Cetinje back around to Budva through Tivat and on. Then another run up the Tara Klisura ValleyCanyon. Montenegro or Crna Gora is only a small place. Less than 20000 square miles and less than one mill http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Montenegro/blog-406829.html I read a book recently set in Slovenia written by Paulo Coelho. The main character lamented that no one ever seems to know where Slovenia actually is other than that it is a place somewhere in Europe. I was much the same. This is unfair on the country and the people.Slovenia is one of the components of the old Yugoslavia. It is small. 20000 square kilometres and with just a little over 2 million http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/blog-404553.html If you have to arrive at a major international airport at a little after 5.00am then it might as well be Frankfurt. Efficient well organised and not even slightly fussed about travellers arriving in their country. We had organised a rental car to be picked up at the airport. More costly I know but it was ready and waiting. After a quick cup of coffee and a bit of breakfast Euros 34 A61 or so f http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Czech-Republic/blog-402411.html