Dec 18, 2012 - Ethiopia southbound No. 2

Our trip south detoured to the Omo valley area where many different subsistent tribes live, each with their own customs and clothing. We visited the Hamer tribe first where the ladies wear goat skin skirts, decorated with beads and the men wear a sarong and beads and not much else! We were lucky to be there for a bull jumping ceremony, performed for an 18 year old boy's initiation. He can't get married before he accomplishes this. Female family and friends of the boy sing and dance and blow horns requesting young men from neighbouring...

Dec 17, 2012 - Ethiopia southbound No. 1

We met up with the rest of the group in Addis Ababa. Our leader for this trip was a Korean born girl, adopted by a Swedish family and an English guy was the co-driver. The other 15 in the group were British, Australian, Swiss, Canadian, Phillipino/American and us, ranging in age from 25 to 69 and most taking extended holidays - only two were heading home to jobs at the trip's end. Helena was the name of our truck for this leg. We have been allocated cook groups of three and buy food from the local markets to cook on gas burners beside the...

Nov 19, 2012 - Ethiopian Highlands No. 2

Part 2 of our Ethiopian Highland travels. The local bread is called injera. It is a greyish colour, made from the tef grain and looks suspiciously like grey tripe, or like a towel when it is served rolled up. It tastes sourish and is best eaten with spicy foods. Another local speciality is tej (honey wine). People are friendly, very smiley and like to practise their English but the conversation often ends up with a request for money for something - pen, dictionary, football, school fees. In Lalibela we visited a local school where the...

Nov 18, 2012 - Ethiopian Highlands

Ethiopia is not at all as we pictured it! We still had visions of the heart-rending pictures of starving children from the mid 1980's famine. Instead, it is a productive and almost entirely cultivated country, where terraced fields reach high up into the mountains. 80% of the population are farmers. Ethiopia has a population of 80 million, 7 million are in Addis Ababa. Addis is a chaotic city with matatus, tuktuks, buses and throngs of people. There are lots of beggars, women with children, people with deformities and many people who sleep...

Mar 15, 2012 - Gondar

Tuesday 13th March Debark to Gonder We left from our hotel in Debark at around 8am and headed off to our last destination in Ethiopia – Gonder – the town famous for its castles. It was once the capital of Ethiopia – many towns have been the capital over the centuries, dependent on who was running the country at the time. As usual, the roads were very dusty in places because there were quite a lot of road works on the way. We came down from 2,650m at Debark to about 2,300m at Gonder so the altitude does not affect you as much. The trip to...

Mar 12, 2012 - Axum to Debark and Simien Mountains via Inda Selasie

Thursday 8th March Axum to Debark Left the hotel in Axum just after 8am after drinking our macchiatos in the car park. The road was very good for about 1½ hours and then the road works began. They are building a new road all the way to Debark (about240km). It is through the mountains and the road conditions at present are absolutely atrocious – it must be the largest road project in Ethiopia. They are planning to have it finished by October 2012 – that seems to be an impossibility. They are still blasting mountainsides, gouging out...

Mar 6, 2012 - Axum

Tuesday 6th March Mekele to Axum Up early today. Set off around 7am from our nice hotel in Mekele to head north to first look at the rock hewn churches of Tigray. They are located quite a distance off the road and are built into the cliff faces. There are many of these churches in this area and you have to pay to go in each one (usually between 50 and 100 Ethiopian Birr – about $3-$6 each). It took about 2 ½ hours to get to the first church and we parked the truck at the bottom of the hill and walked up. There were many children attaching...

Mar 5, 2012 - Lalibela to Mekele

Sunday 4th March Lalibela to Korem Went out again for breakfast at John’s Café in the town and had the same as yesterday (fried eggs, bread and honey, and macchiato) – it was delicious again. We met Elias again near the restaurant. Elias is a young man age 15 that we have formed a friendship with. He speaks very good English – all secondary school students have all their lessons in English. Elias comes from the country about 40klms away but lives in Lalibela because he wants to continue his studies. He lives by himself in a small room and...

Mar 3, 2012 - Lalibela

Thursday 1st March Bahir Dar to Lalibela The plan today was to leave at around 8am but Gertie(the truck) wouldn't start as the batteries were flat, so we had to enlist the help of the whole group, hotel staff and other people to push the truck so that a minibus could pull in next to us and jump start the truck. After that was successfully achieved, we set off towards Lalibela approx 289km away. First we had to buy a new gas cylinder in Bahir Dar before we left. The drive to Lalibela was quite beautiful, first near Lake Tana then up into the...

Feb 29, 2012 - Bahir Dar

Monday 27th February Dejen to Bahir Dar Woke up in the hotel this morning after our adventure last night near the Blue Nile Gorge. We had to pack up the tents, poles, sleeping bags etc. from last night before we left. There was a sense among the group of a lucky escape. We had breakfast then left on the road to Bahir Dar about 240km away. An uneventful day today, lunch on the road (without too many spectators this time) and we arrived at the hotel in Bahir Dar and set up our camp in the hotel grounds, around the back under a very large...

Feb 26, 2012 - Blue Nile Gorge and an unpleasant experience

Sunday 26th February Addis Ababa to Dejen via the Blue Nile Gorge We set off from Addis about 8am but had to do quite a bit of shopping before we finally set off, so we went to a place on the way out of town where we had a really beautiful breakfast at a café where they were hosing out the inside and then mopping it. After breakfast we did our grocery shopping, vegie shopping etc. for the next few days on the road. The country to the north of Addis is very scenic but there was a distinct haze everywhere (which we later found out was due to...

Feb 25, 2012 - Addis Ababa

Thursday 23rd February Lakes Abiyatta-Shalla National Park to Addis Ababa Left our camp site at “The View” overlooking the two lakes – very hazy while we were there – and set off towards Addis Ababa. There was more traffic in this area as we approached the city. We stopped on the way for lunch at a pleasant hotel where we were able to buy cool drinks. Lunch was made from the rest of the things we had on the truck, bread, fruit, guacamole etc. After lunch we drove on towards the city arriving at our hotel, The Taitu, oldest hotel in Addis,...