The scenery on the drive to Lalibela was spectacular, impressive mountain ranges soared up around us as we climbed slowly (less than 20km/hr) then upon reaching the top, a plateau at about 2800m that went as far as the eye could see, a patchwork of fields of different colours. Lalibela is not what we expected. It really is in the middle of nowhere and is just a big village. Despite being a big tourist town there are few amenities. Most of the roads are unsealed and the guy at our hotel told us that they only got running water here 6 months ago and electricity only ran 3 days a week up until 12 months ago. Tourism accounts for 80% in this town and being the low season you can imagine how much unwanted attention we ... read more

The plan in Atbara was to catch a bus to the ancient site of Meroe and then flag down something heading to Khartoum. Unfortunately no-one could understand where we wanted to go and the only bus we could find was not leaving until 1pm which would make it difficult to find anything later in the day going to Khartoum. In the end we decided to head straight to Khartoum but the bus was not leaving until 8am so we sat down and had a cup of tea. The tea ladies set up their stands on every street corner. They consist of little more than a brazier and a lockable chest covered with jars of tea, coffee and spices. Stools or old oil cans provide the seating. It is a great way of chatting to the locals. ... read more

The bus from Dahab to Cairo was not nearly as bad as we expected. Given our last bus trip we were quite apprehensive about what the bus would be like and how long it would take, this time though it was much more organised. The bus was fine, it looked to be newer than the last heap of crap and thankfully there were hardly any stops although the places that they did stop at, were absolutely disgusting with revolting toilets which of course you were expected to pay for. Anyway the purpose of our return to Cairo was to sort out a visa for Sudan. We headed down to the Nile City Towers for the NZ embassy to pick up our letter of invitation to Sudan (265EP) which we needed for our visa application. The embassy ... read more

Luxor was stinking hot and we spent a few days there recovering from our illness. Luxor is beautiful especially along the waterfront and is basically a huge open air museum with temples, tombs and other ruins at every turn. Unfortunately it also has some of the worst hassle we have experienced, from felucca rides, ferry crossings, taxis and the annoying horse and carriage rides. On the flip side, the people are just trying to make a living and feed their family but it was hard to keep this in mind while being constantly followed and pestered. This was not helped by the fact that there were not as many tourists around as usual due to the flight disruptions from Iceland’s volcano. Travelling as a female here is quite demanding, the constant unwanted attention and sexist remarks ... read more

After Mt Sinai, it was a long bus ride to Cairo (about 8 hours) the home of McDonald’s and KFC delivery! Cairo is mad, there are about 20 million people here. It reminds us a little of India but with better infrastructure and less rubbish. The driving here is insane, there don’t seem to be any road rules, driving in a lane a completely foreign idea, it seems better to be in the lane furthest away from the street you want to turn into, therefore having to cut across all the lanes. None of the lights seem to work, traffic officers stand in the middle of the intersection and direct traffic and crossing the road is like a game of chicken. That said the people are pretty friendly and there are some fantastic things to see, ... read more