Blogs from Harari Region, Ethiopia, Africa

After a daily juice, catch a bus for 20 brr to nearest large town of Dire Dawa, seek out the Salem bus office to find none running 07/01/16 as for Ethiopian Christmas Day, manage to arrange by the offering of someone in the queue (such is Africa) local minibus seat instead for 300 brr. Decide against trying to see the local cave art, more of a group bus outing for the distance, update the blog here and there along with a stroll round the old town and cool market. Enjoy some goat meat tibs and turn back to my basic hotel where I join a 70 year old man in search of water for my shower :) 150 brr room with a fan! 07/01 Armed and ready to go after a 3.30 am call from my ... read more

Nakon dugog vremena provedenog na putu moram priznati da sam se pomalo zasitio i da mi je većina novih mjesta počelo izgledati vrlo slično prethodnom. No to nije bio slučaj s Hararom. Harar je većinski muslimanski grad na istoku Etiopije blizu granice beskrajnim ratom opustošene Somalije. Tim više vrijedi spomenuti da je upravo Harar dobitnik UN-ovog priznanja za mir. Naime Harar je jedan od rijetkih lijepih primjera grada u kojem muslimani, pravoslavci i protestanti žive u miru kroz cijelu 700 godišnju povijest. Stari dio Harara je okružen zidom iza kojeg se skriva beskrajan labirint uličica koje vreve šareno odjevenim ljudima i preko stotinu džamija. No još jedna posebnost koja je Harar dovela i na naslovnice velikih svjetskih medija je unikatan suživot ljudi i hijena. Unutar hararskih zidina živi više od 300 hijena, i može se reći ... read more

It is with a heavy heart that I begin this blog. I am sitting in Gondar airport waiting for my flight to Addis. After 3 months here, my time here in Gondar is up and now I am off travelling for 10 days before starting my next job in Nairobi. I know that I have moaned a fair amount in this blog but I will really miss this place. My colleagues have been a pleasure to work with. They have looked after me so well and I had a lot of fun at work. The daily problems that they face here make me rethink the things I complain about at home. I am grateful to have been born in such a stable and affluent country with all the opportunities that I have had, never left wanting ... 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

After leaving Berbera, we got back into Hargeisa early enough. I had a multi entry visa for Ethiopia, but Jack and Joris had to get new visas. Unfortunately the Ethiopian consulate was closed, so we had to spend another night in Hargeisa, which was fairly uneventful. The next morning the two lads got their visas easy enough and we found a car to take us to the border. We had hoped to reach Harar that evening but we got into Jijiga too late and had to spend the night there. It had only been 5 days, but it was good to be back in Ethiopia and the beers that night went down very well! The next morning we got a minibus to Harar. Harar is considered the 4th holiest Islamic city in the world. The old ... read more