On leaving Axum, we decided we wanted to try visit some of the rock-hewn churches, which Tigray is famous for. We decided to get to Adigrat first and use it as a base. Unfortunately, a lot of the churches aren't easily accessible (one requires you to climb up a rope to visit), especially when relying on public transport. By the time we arrived in Adigrat, we were too late to make it out to visit anything, so just had a walk around town. There isn't much to see or do in Adigrat and they certainly do not get many tourists there. There is quite a few NGOs there though, as it bore the brunt of a lot of fighting in the most recent Ethio-Eritrean War. After one night there we got a bus south on the ... read more

We spent a couple of days in Gonder trying to figure out the best way to do a trek in the Simien Mountains. After speaking to a couple of tour operators, we decided the best option was to head to Debark and organise it ourselves there. The extra days in Gonder gave us a chance to meet up with some other people we had met over the past few weeks and we had one good night out, where we went out to one of the local clubs. I tasted some tej that night, which is their local honey liquer and fairly potent. We were up at 5.30 a.m. to get the bus to Debark. This left at around 6.30 a.m. and after just the one breakdown, arrived 4 and half hours later. We were quickly harassed ... read more

We took a bus down to Bahir Dar after a couple of days in Gonder. This should have been a relatively straightforward 3 hour bus journey. But we quickly learned that straightforward and bus journeys don't belong in the same sentence in Ethiopia. Despite our bus having 'Lufthanza' emblazoned on the front, it was anything but reliable or efficeint and after about 45 minutes we were broken down. After about a half hour or so of maintenance work, there was still no restarting 'Lufthanza'. A second bus pulled up and more maintenance work continued. We were assured that the guy from the second bus was an expert mechanic and would get the bus started. After about an hour we decided to cut our losses and decided to get on a minibus going by, despite having to ... read more

We had to get up at 6 a.m. to get the bus out to Kassala. Kassala is right beside the border with Eritrea and the bus took 8 hours to get there. It was pretty much desert the whole way until we got closer to Kassala, when we spotted lots of villages of huts made of mud and straw. The bus dropped us at a little souk about 5 minutes away by taxi from Kassala. We arrived and found the Riyad hotel, which we checked into. Walking around Kassala, we got a lot more stares than anywhere else and loads of people coming up to us to shout 'Khawaja' (foreigner). This wasn't done in a threatening way though and people were extremely friendly. Registering at the police station was another experience of comical Sudanese bureaucracy. We ... read more

We had to get up at 6.30 a.m. to get our bus to Khartoum at 7. The bus didn't end up leaving until around 8ish but got bought some tea by the guy in charge as we waited. The coach was another proper one with air conditioning, but again with blaring Sudanese music. The speaker system must be new as music was pumping throughout the bus. We arrived in Khartoum at about 2 p.m. and got in touch with our couchsurfing host, Gareth. We went back to his flat and chilled out for the afternoon after not getting much sleep on the coach. Later, we got in touch with Nathan and Rien who we had met on the ferry to Wadi Halfa and were still in Khartoum. They happened to be staying near us, so we ... read more