15th - 19th April 2009, Gonder, Ethiopia

  After possibly the easiest and cheapest border crossing of the trip so far, we found ourselves in Ethiopia. The change in the surroundings was instant, going from the serene emptiness of the Sudan to the highly populated people filled roads of Ethiopia.

 Driving through the border town was initially difficult as we found ourselves having to dodge hundreds of townspeople and livestock that filled the road. As we left the town and started to ascend into the Ethiopian highlands we soon settled into the familiar corrugated stone roads that we fell in love with in North Sudan!! 

 Villages were alarmingly frequent with what seemed like the entire population walking along the middle of the roads and every kid in town appearing from nowhere shouting ' You, you, you, you' and waving, although some held out their hands ready for their hand out from the westerners!  

 Again, although it was only 100 miles to Gonder the roads dictated that our journey time took 4 hours, with our arriving in Gonder around 4pm and meeting up with the 'Football Africa' guys (Andy, JJ, Ed and Charlotte) again. We stayed in the Nile Gonder Hotel (100 Birr a night for a room. £1 = 16 Birr) and as the other guys were planning to meet up with a community charity we decided hang around for a few days. 

 After the insane heat of the Sudan the Ethiopian highlands offered a much more bearable temperature of 30 + degrees!! This coupled with the fact that we could finally buy a beer for the first time in a couple of weeks made Gonder very appealing. Football Africa as well as meeting up and interviewing the charity (Link Ethiopia) had organised a football match against the Gonder University team (current University Champions), which Neil was very pleased to make the starting 11!!

 Infront of a good crowd of about 400 people we put on a respectable performance eventually losing 5 - 2, athough this was being blamed on the heat and altitude!! A great experience all the same. Later that evening some of the University Team came over to our hotel for a few drinks and a chat. 

 As Easter is big holiday weekend here we decided to join the festivities starting out at the Dashen Brewery on the Saturday afternoon, organised by Million (a contact made by Football Africa) a local guy who knew EVERYTHING and everyone, he looked after us well. 

On the Sunday we were invited around to Million's family home to take part in a traditional Coffee ceremony, where the coffee beans are roasted over a fire, ground to a powder then used to make 3 lethal doses of Coffee each!! After some unbelievable hospitality from Million's family we spent a quite evening at the hotel over a few drinks and games of Yatzee!!

20th - 26th April 2009, Gonder to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

  Before heading south to Bahar Dar we decided to take a short trip up into the Simien Mounains, which again was at a painstaking pace due to the state of the roads. We climbed up into the mountains for a couple of hours with spectacular scenery and lots of interest from villagers.

  We drove South towards Bahar Dar for the night. The drive was really picturesque and even though it was still hot there was a cool breeze in the air.   

W e arrived in Barhar Dar around tea time, we had picked up an Italian hitcher along the way, the journey seemed a lot longer than it should have after picking him up...... He had a lot to say! Yawn.

 The lake was beautiful, lots of people bathing and jumping around in it, enjoying the spectacular sunset.

 We saw lots of wildlife and were camping in a nice garden area of the Ghion  Hotel.

 The following day we had the long drive to Addis Ababa to tackle so we had an early night!  

 We got an early start to set off to Addis, we had over 500Km to drive today and when your top speed is 50 - 60 mph these things seem to tske a while!

 We were doing pretty well for time, but after about 6 hours we hit steep hills and 40 degree heat! Lady Jane did not like this and decided to over heat at any chance she could! We we're running out of daylight and had to make the decision to camp ib the bush for the night.

 The scenry again was magnificent, so whilst Lady Jane was cooling down we took the opportunity to have a couple of 'Kodak moments'!

 We found what we thought was a quite spot by the side of the road, we soon had a small audience watching us set up camp in the dark! Everyone seemend facinated i8n almost everything we did, and especislly interested in how our stove worked!! We chatted to the children for a bit and they soon dispersed, so we settled down to eat our feast of pasta....again!

 Within minutes the kids had returned with matching cloaks on and holding big sticks, they began to sing and dance for us, it was amazing, we tried to join in, much to their amusement! We gave them all a buscuit to say thank you and they said they would see us in the morning! The night was getting cold, we were over 2000 meters above sea level by now, so we wrapped up warm and hit the sack.

 Sure enough we were woken up by little voices whipering outside of the tent at 6.30am. Neil popped his head out to which I heard a few little giggles! The kids hung around whilst we packed up, we got the video camera out which they absolutley loved, they couldn't quite believe they could see themselves on the little screen in real time!  

   We weren't far from Addis now so we drove straight into the centre where we found without too much trouble, Wim's Holland House, a place we could camp that had been advised by some other overlanders we had met. 

 We decided to spend a few days in Addis, this gave Neil time to give the Landy a well needed service, catch a game of footie and meet up with Colin, a friend of a friend who works for the British Embassy in Addis.......and to have a few beers of course. 

  We had a fantastic couple of days, Colin took us to the pool in the embassy which was bliss, we actually felt like we were on holiday!! We than all satyed at oColin's beautiful house for a night, we were spoilt! Thank you soooo much Colin, you're a star.

 On our last day in Addis we were lucky enough to visit the charitly Grip. Grip is a shelter run by Mulatu Tafesse a place for young street girls who have been raped and need rehabilitation and a safe place to raise their children. They are taught all sorts of skills there, things that will help them find work, the children are also schooled here. We met a woman who had given birth the day before, Mulatu asked my name and it was agreed the baby would be called Hannah!!  

It was a sad experience, meeting these poor young girls who were still children themselves and hearing what they had been through, but it was also heart warming to know that they were now safe and that they could raise their gorgeous babies in this safe haven. 

 We left Addis and headed south to Hawasa. 

27th - 29th April, 2009 Hawassa to Kenyan Border, Ethiopia   Happy Birthday Mum!

 We spent a couple of days in Hawassa, Ed was feeling ill, so we had 'chill days', playing Yatzee, the new game of choice, which Neil is brilliant at and I suck!!

 We went for a walk to lake Hawassa and messed about with some of the kids from the town.  

   It was another long drive to face today! Getting as close as we could to the Kenyan border before crossing it tomorrow. We drove through countless little towns, all busy with people in the roads. And took in the final stunning views of Ethiopia.

 We stopped for lunch along the way, I made noodles which a group of kids thought were hilarious, I gave them all some and they thought they were wiggly worms, they kept coming back for more, but I have a feeling none were being eaten!