6th Nov ’12 Axum Well I guess we were lucky as we slept through the night, unlike some of our group whose rooms faced town and heard the chanting competition! It turns out today is a special religious celebration day. After breakfast we wandered out onto the terrace and got fantastic views across the little town and we could look down right over the stelae field. Ok perhaps I should start by saying let me take you back……back into the days of the Old Testament, to the time of the Queen of Sheba, King Solomon, Menelik their son and the Ark of the Covenant, to the King of Ethiopia called Balthazar – think ‘we 3 kings of Orient are’, to piles of frankincense, half explored tombs, secret doorways, ruined palaces and fortresses, unearthed 4th century stone ... read more

4th Nov ’12 Gondar to Debark and the Simien Mountains We spent the morning driving to Debark, with a stop at a viewpoint across the Simien Mountains and it was a spectacular sight – all these different sized and shaped peaks stretching off to the horizon. Tomorrow we are going to be driving right through them and at this moment in time I just can’t figure out how! We carried on passing small villages of huts surrounding greens on which cattle were grazing, young children were carrying babies on their backs and women were walking along bent double under huge piles of firewood on their backs. We arrived in Debark, a town which is expanding as more hotels are being built to meet the Faranji demand for access to the Simien Mountains National Park. The road ... read more

31st October ’12 Awash to Addis Ababa So driving back to Addis today as returning there is the easiest way to then head north and there is a bit of sightseeing organised in the city for the afternoon but I doubt I will make it as I feel lousy and just need sleep! We drove back through the volcanic landscape, passing lava fields and jagged crater peaks. We stopped at Lake Beseka where there were lots of endemic (new word for the trip) Ethiopian birds whose names I have totally forgotten and great views of the volcanoes. Another stop was at a view point where there were lots of children, with lots of older children carrying babies strapped to their backs and once more they were all smiling, laughing and saying hello to us faranjis. By ... read more

After a brief week back in the UK including a weekend in Glasgow we are off on the road again and this time it’s ETHIOPIA! 26th-27th Oct ’12 Addis Ababa A very early 4am wake up and by 5am we were checked in at Teesside Airport, thanks to the above and beyond call of friendship lift from Abi and John! It felt really strange to be setting off from our local airport and knowing we were going to end up in Ethiopia! It was a short flight to Amsterdam and the plane was mainly full of business people and I had to suppress the urge to say we’re not going to Europe, we are off on an adventure to deepest darkest Africa. We had about 3 hours before our onward flight and I was kind of ... read more

14th Patan and Swayambhunath After a bad night’s sleep we still got up early and once again caught a taxi, this time to the city of Patan which is now almost a suburb of Kathmandu. Patan is known as the City of Beauty and I’m sure it once was, now the jumbled mass of houses and shops which sprawl around the historic areas kind of spoil the image slightly. Unlike Bhaktapur traffic still speeds around all the small streets which makes looking at the various temples and shrines a less comfortable experience – you constantly have one eye over your shoulder! However the Durbar Square was still stunning with it’s elegant pagoda temples and intricately carved stone temples. We ran the same gamut of people offering to be guides but once again just wanted to see ... read more