What a change! Women in public. Guys and girls holding hands. Beer! The roads also changed almost immediately, twisting up in to the Ethiopian Highlands. The temperature was cooler too, which was a welcome relief after our time in Libya, Egypt, and Sudan. We stayed in Gondar on our first night in Ethiopia. Like many places in the area it was well over 2000m above sea-level. The following day Jaap was under the weather, so I headed north for an explore in the Simien Mountains. After 100km the map said to turn right if I wanted to reached the Simien National Park. But the road was just a rutted dirt path, and I wasn't convinced. However I tried it, and it improved to a rocky dirt road. I was stopped at the gates of the park, ... read more

After the week-long emotional high of Libya, we were soon brought back to earth by the worst place on earth: the Egyptian border offices at Salloum. Suspicion, arrogance, repeated searches, requests for "tips", and endless bureaucracy was the theme of the day. We were ushered into the dark, grime-smeared corridors of a rotting building to get our passports stamped. Shifty characters loitered about, eyeing us up with what seemed to be a mixture of curiosity and resentment. Finally we were issued through to a dark room with a large desk where three uniformed guys sat. We were introduced to "The General" who with incongruous politeness informed us that we would need to purchase our visa on exit from the country and then waved us away. I had organised a fixer to travel from Cairo to sort ... read more

"You want adventure? Libya is the real one" advised our fixer Masoud with a big smile. He was helping us complete the various formalities at the border, while at the same time giving us our first insight into life in post-revolution Libya. The clear message that came across was that there was real excitement about the potential that a Gaddafi-free Libya held for the people, but also frustration at how slow progress was. As a far as safety was concerned, he felt that the main issues were between Libyans (different provinces / militias), and as tourists we would be welcomed. And welcomed we were. At the outskirts of Tripoli we were met by half a dozen guys on Harley Davidsons, and escorted into town as the sun set. It was the start of a week of ... read more

The trip has started. On the 23rd September I left home on a KTM 990 and will any luck with end up in Cape Town. 20,000km and three months. The plan is to head down via the east of Africa: catching a ferry from Genoa to Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Namibia, and finally South Africa. A Facebook page with regular updates is here. The idea for the trip was a bit last minute. Two months ago a Dutch guy Jaap, who Jeremy has ridden with in Laos, suggested that he might want to join him on a trip through Africa. Due to work Jeremy wasn't able to, but over a few beers he hatched a plan with Trace for me do it. Initially it seemed unreasonable to me - three months away ... read more

I had a semi-cunning plan. Surprise Trace by taking her to Paris for our anniversary. Well the surprise was a good idea in theory until I mentioned something about taking anniversary photos in Paris about a month before the weekend. At least we had a few minutes of side-aching laughter at my Homer-like ineptitude. Doh. In the end we had a really really good weekend. After a bit of sleep in on Saturday morning we wandered off to the Louvre, which is simply massive. We struck a nice balance of seeing interesting stuff, but not over-doing it. On leaving the Louvre we emerged from the glass pyramid into swirling snowflakes. This continued for much of the day, but this was kind of cool, and the temperature was not any different to that at home. After the ... read more