Harar, Ethiopia

From Hargeisa, Somaliland, we caught a shared taxi, a station wagon, the back was loaded with two mums with babies on their back and two men. The back seat had four people and John and I were crammed into the front seat by the driver. The bags were loaded onto the top and we headed off for the Wajaale border town. The main street was under construction and the rest of the place was dirty and dusty with lots of makeshift stalls lining the roadsides. We were told by our travel friend Andy that we would have to pay $20 US for an exit tax but the man in the immigration office stamped us out of Somaliland and wished us well.

Several touts directed us to a bus that was quickly filling up and when we were five people squashed into the four seats across, with more sitting on the entrance steps, we headed off. Passed through lots of police check points where we all had to get out. At one stop the police wanted to check my backpack on the roof. I had padlocked all my zips so he couldn't get in and after undoing buckles and lifting off the lid he gave up. The boy who loads the roof had the job to watch the checks and then zip everyone's bags up again. Some police women checked all the plastic shopping bags that were left inside the bus and even frisked some of the women passengers. Later we heard about an Italian man who was taken away from his group to a small shed where he was asked to pay a bribe, at this same check point. We continued a few kilometres and were checked again. Before each town and after it we were also stopped.

Not far from our destination, Jijiga, Ethiopia, we could smell a burning smell and we had to stop and replace a wheel bearing. Luckily they had spare parts and it was all done in no time.

At Jijiga, we changed to a large bus just as it started to get dark. We left with a few empty seats but picked up people along the way. We drove through some towering rock mountains that looked like someone had piled giant rock sculptures on top of the pinnacles and cliffs. It was a smooth trip on a sealed road.

In Harar we found a hotel near the bus station and had to walk through the crowds of women selling fruit, vegetables, food, and clothing along the street. We were able to eat at the restaurant and look down over the market area below.

Harar is a World Heritage site with a walled city. In just one square kilometer, there are 368 alleyways, 87 mosques and shrines, as well as shops, houses, and government buildings.

One of the five old city gates.

One of the lanes with a bougainvillea bush.

One of the circles in the old city where these old taxis have died and look forgotten.

Some people have painted their places in bright colours while others are left natural.

It took four men to lift this bag of grain onto this man's shoulders, then off he staggered.

One of the strange things that happens here, is the night feeding of hyenas by some of the men in the town. According to our guide book, 'it's not a touristy show, it's a tradition'. We met people who had to pay to see the show and saw tourist posters showing the men with entrails in their mouth that the hyena took from them. It was pretty expensive and we had seen enough hyenas in our travels so we didn't bother to go. One of the local touts who wanted to be our city guide told us they feed them so that they will leave the farm animals alone. During the Epiphany celebrations the hyena don't come to eat as the locals give them food when they slaughter animals for the feast.

There is a lot of qat grown in the area so in the afternoon the men sat around chewing the leaves. The city centre is very pleasant and clean. There are wide streets with huge jacaranda trees providing greenery and shade. At night there were very few street lights in parts of the city but it felt safe to walk about. In the evenings we met up with Carlo from Italy, who lives in Nepal, and an Australian woman who gave her boys to her ex-husband and will spend two years doing tours in Ethiopia.

We found a pleasant restaurant with a huge choice of dishes and were able to see the news of the devastating earthquake in Christchurch, NZ. The internet services in Ethiopia are woeful so we could only check on the internet when there was a connection and then we were lucky if we stayed connected for longer than 15 minutes at a time.

Berbera, Somaliland

From the caves at Las Geel we continued on to Berbera on the Red Sea. There were several police check points along the way but as our armed guard spent three months at each one we didn't have to stop. He called to his mates and we continued on our way.

The houses in this area are thrown together with what ever they can find or afford.

We only saw one river with a tiny bit of water in it and only one small plot where vegetables were being grown.

Berbera is a container port that is also used by Ethiopia, which is land-locked. The town itself is not much. There are lots of very poor housing between the shipping company offices and lots of rubbish every where. Some of the once grand buildings are decaying and crumbling.

These wrecks sit in the harbour. One caught fire and all the cars in it were destroyed.

Berbera has a huge runway that was built in the 1980s as an emergency landing pad for the NASA space shuttle.

We drove out of the town area to Baathela Beach and checked into a hotel there. We had planned on spending two nights there but when we saw that some of the hotel was under construction with lots of banging and crashing we decided on one night only. There was a generator for the lights and air conditioning and it was only on for part of the day and night. It was much hotter than Hargeisa and each room had air conditioning but the rooms were tiny with no outlook so it would not have been very pleasant stuck in them.

The beach was deserted and stretched for miles. A Muslim lady with her long gown and head dress braved the coolish water. A few boys kicked their football in and out of the water and a few camels grazed on the dunes. We walked along the beach and saw lots of dead small mussels on the rocks. Our guide book described the white sands but we saw a lot of black sand right where the high tide hit the dunes so wondered if it was oil from the tankers and ships we could see heading for the port.

At the hotel is a British guy, Steve, who operates a dive business. He gets a lot of Non Government Organisation (NGO) staff coming for the weekend to dive here and at some off shore islands. This brings a lot of guests to the hotel but the place needs a lot more work to make it relaxing and enjoyable to stay at.

We were surprised to see long grass growing around the hotel and Steve told us that it was sold at the markets for animal fodder.

Steve told us that they did a survey of the locals in the area to see how many ate fish. They found that many didn't like it even though they had never tasted it. Eating fish for some of them was a sign of a weak person. We only saw two people with rods out fishing and it seems they don't take advantage of the cheap food source on their doorstep.

From here we headed back to Hargeisa for a night and then will take shared taxis to Harrar in Ethiopia, where we know the internet service is woeful.

Las Geel, Somaliland

The Somaliland government is really keen for the republic to be recognised internationally so we have to have an armed guard when ever we travel to some areas. The hotel organises the police permit and the

Hargeisa, Somaliland

Somalis were originally from the Ethiopian highlands and influenced by the Arab traders in the 7th century because of the trans-Indian Ocean trading network. In 1888, the European powers divided the country up. The French got Djibouti, Britain got a lot of the north, Italy got Puntland and the south. A war with the British went on for two decades and in 1960 the three areas, Somaliland, Puntland and southern Somalia united. The different clans in this area fought, the USSR supplied arms, and even Ethiopia battled with the locals, all contributing in tearing the country apart. When the Somali leader fled, Somaliland declared independence and Puntland also broke away.

The Republic of Somaliland was declared in 1991 and with its majority clan of Isaq people, has remained peaceful and stable since then. Somaliland has its own democratically elected multiparty parliament, Hargeisa as its capital, a flag, a currency (that is printed in Libya), a university, and oil and gas potential. Unfortunately, it is not recognised by many nations in the world.

We have found the people to be the friendliest that we have met so far in our travels in Africa. They greet us on the streets, and welcome us to their country. They help us and never ask for money. According to the locals the only beggars on the streets are Ethiopians and there are very very few of those. If the locals see the children following us or asking for money they reprimand them. We hope the tourists who come here don't bring bags of lollies and chocolates and encourage the children to pursue them for these treats. We saw a lot of tour groups in Ethiopia do this and now the children expect you to give them footballs, sweets, pens, buy them school books etc.

We do have to get used to the locals staring at us and crowding around us in curiosity but that is because there are hardly any foreigners here. It is not a tourist destination yet. For those who speak English there are many who know that New Zealand has taken in a lot of Somali refugees and surprisingly they know a bit about our country. There are Anchor milk powder billboards in the street and they know about our milk.

We are staying in the centre of the city in the most-cleaned hotel we have ever seen. When someone checks out the room it is emptied and cleaned from top to bottom. They have free Wifi and we have been using it to death! The restaurant has some nice simple dishes and fresh juices and you can drink the water from the taps! The Oriental is an oasis in the middle of a dusty, noisy, city of 1 million people. The guidebook describes it as a place 'where you can feel the heartbeat of the city from your room'...that means the loud speakers from the nearby mosque will reverberate in your room during prayer time! All Somalis are Sunni Muslims and all the women wear headscarves while some also have veils. Rural areas still have arranged marriages.



The hotel was established in the 50s and there is a photo on the wall of when it was bombed. The staff are extremely helpful. It is the first hotel built here by a local.



There is not much to do in Hargeisa but we have visited the Somali Airforce MIG , a war memorial, in the middle of the street.

There are several goldsmith shops near our hotel and a goat and camel market. A camel costs about $500Us while a goat is $50US. They graze in the Berbera area and get exported to Saudi Arabia.



When we got our visa for Somaliland in Addis Ababa, the staff told us we could use Ethioipan Birr as currency but fortunately we changed some US dollars and had to change these on the streets here for Somaliland Shillings. There are only two notes in their currency; a 500, equivalent to 12 NZ cents and a 100 shilling note. The moneychangers have no buildings, no guns, no guards, and no security systems. The bundles of money sit on the footpath at their feet like paper bricks!



There are several second hand Toyota cars on the streets as well as small buses and minivans. These donkeys deliver water to the street stalls on the road sides.



We only had a single entry permit for Ethiopia and had to get another visa to go back there after Somaliland for our flight to Ghana. First we had to copy our passport, our Somaliland visa and supply two passport photos. Accompanying this we had to write a letter requesting the Somaliland Liason Office help us get an Ethiopian visa. The streets here do not have names so we had to take a taxi to find the place. The Somali office commander was at a meeting so by the time we had got a letter from him to take to the Ethiopian Embassy, it had closed and we were told to return the next day. We got up early the next day and were at the gates at 7.30 and woke the guards who were asleep in a tent by the fence. He shooed us away as it was Prophet Mohammed's birthday and therefore a public holiday. We returned the following day at 7.30 and were pleased when the Ethiopian staff gave us the visa on the spot as it normally takes two days. We have not had so much trouble getting a visa to date as we can usually pick them up at the border posts.



The Ethiopian Embassy is unsigned as there was a terorist attack on it several years ago and this is the entry to the compound with the soldiers tent on the left.



The subsistence farmers are nomadic so houses like this are quickly constructed from branches and covered with plastic bags and cloth and then easily moved to new grazing areas.

Have met a couple of young travellers from US and Holland as well as some Somali girls who now live in Melbourne, Australia. There have been a couple of guys from Italy as well and one of them was unwell with measles and has to stay put in the hotel for at least a week while he is on antibiotics.

We are able to keep up with the protests that are happening in the Arab countries with the BBC World news on TV.

Djibouti to Somaliland

In the morning we were to leave for Somaliland we headed to the internet shop in the European Quarter. On the way we saw lots of students in the middle of the road and they were shouting and waving their arms in the air. We wondered if they were celebrating the resignation of Mubarak. Further on we saw a huge group of students in the square surrounded by police carrying shields, in full riot gear. We scooted around the group just in case it all turned nasty.

When we returned to the hotel, everyone had gone and torn up bits of paper were the only sign that something had happened there. We asked Mohammed, the hotel receptionist, what was going on. He told us that they were university students and they had just got their latest exam results. He also told us that only 10% pass and so those that didn't, were protesting.

Our guidebook showed us where to get a 4x4, the only public transport, to Somaliland. Mohamed phoned the 4x4 owner to book us a 'good seat' because they put 2 or 3 people in the front by the driver, then four people in the seat behind the cab, then six on the two side seats in the back. He assured us our good seat was the seat with only four people on it. A taxi picked us up from the hotel and took us to the street where we could see the 4x4 s, all easily identifiable by their dual number plates- Djibouti and Somaliland. There were about 13 of them waiting for passengers. There was no station or building for us to wait in and a spare parts shop owner gave us a couple of white plastic seats to sit on, in the shade, in front of his shop and not far from the local public toilets, where, every now and then we got a whiff of the sewer smells.

We had to wait about three hours and watched the goings on in the street around us, and chatted with anyone who wanted to practice their broken English on us. In this time the qat, arrived from Ethiopia and the locals spread out cardboard onto the footpath and sat to chew their 'cud'. In no time at all, a steady stream of local kids came along to pick up the discarded twigs and tough leaves that the chewers had left. Some kids had huge bags full and would chew some themselves and probably sell some to get money.

A lady had a tea stall set up on the median strip in the middle of the road and used the abandoned truck to provide anchorage for her umbrella.

At one point the shop owner ordered us into his shop. Lots of boys were throwing stones in a stone fight between a gang from Section 2 and Section 5 area. Lots of police vehicles arrived to chase them off as well as the riot police we had seen earlier. Luckily the shop owner shut his steel doors and window shutters as some of the stones ended up hitting his shop. In that time the stall holders on the street and shop owners shut up shop and went home. As fast as it had started it stopped and life was quiet on the streets.

At about 5 pm all the passenegers arrived for the 4x4 and all the gear was piled on the roof. We shared our good seat with an elderly man, a young plump Muslim woman who sat neat to me and then John by the door and half of his seat was the unpadded wheel arch. There was no room to move our feet as the space under the front seats was jammed packed with spare parts in case the vehicle broke down. The 4x4 left at night to avoid driving in the heat of the day through the scrubby desert.

Outside Djibouti city, on the way to the border, we passed through an area that looked like a rubbish dump. There were plastic bags and plastic bottles everywhere, as well as dead cars and electronic appliances carcasses. At the border we exited the Djibouti immigration post and were surprised that they processed everything on paper. A short stop away we went through Somaliland immigration where they had passport scanners and processed us electronically. We did however have to unload all our gear and have it checked although they were not interested in our packs. All the 4x4s had to get to the border before it closed and so they all left at 5pm and the baggage checkers were working up a frantic sweat getting through all the luggage.

There was an area, on the Somaliland side of the border, where they reduced the air pressure in the tyres to travel on the sand, and used an air hose to clean the air filter, and even carry out any last minute welding repairs if needed. This young man on our roof, checked the oil and water, dusted the windscreen and kept an eye on the gear on the roof. He spent the whole journey on the roof rack wrapped up in his ski jacket as it was pretty cold.

We stopped in a village for a meal. They had generators to supply lighting and run the TV. The toilet was anywhere in the desert. The boys in the back took their shoes off and ate their food on the mat that was put in the sand. The one dish supplied was spaghetti and meat sauce, which was eaten with their hands. As soon as the diners left the mat the family sheep moved into drink the tea left in the cups or to scavenge any food left. We ate French cheese, mustard mayonnaise, and tomato bread rolls that we had prepared.

We managed to doze on and off during the night, and about 3.30am we stopped at a small village. Although the driver ate bundles and bundles of qat, and smoked two packets of cigarettes, drank bottles of coke, he couldn't stay awake any longer. The locals spread themselves around on platforms in the front of a house and we were given two beds in a huge room to sleep on. The bed was a frame without a mattress and we slept on a thin fibre mat with a rock hard pillow stuffed with hay stalks. The room had painted mud brick walls and a roof of branches, grass, leaves, plastic bags, old refrigerator parts, tin cans, and bits of old clothing. The ceiling was lined with a huge sheet of plastic with the UNHRC logo all over it. As soon as we heard the mosquitos, we plastered ourselves with repellent and had a short but deep sleep till 7am.

In the morning it was great to be able to see the landscape. We also caught a glimpse of some long-necked antelopes, dik diks, a couple of troops of baboons, several camels, and a desert fox as well as a few birds. That was a whole lot more wildlife than we ever saw in Ethiopia.

We knew we were approaching Hargeisa as soon as we saw the piles of rubbish increasing.

Djibouti City, Djibouti

Got up at 4.00am to get ready to catch a 5.30am bus from Addis Ababa to Dire Dawa where we could connect with a bus to Djibouti City. The bus was a lovely new modern Chinese Yatong one.
We had bought the ticket the day before on our way into the city from the airport. Sometimes tickets have to be bought 2 days ahead as there is only one bus a day. The bus had a host who served a slice of cake for breakfast as well as a box of juice. Later he brought us a bottle of mineral water. He even collected all the rubbish up and put it in a box which was surprising as the locals just toss it out the window or leave it on the floor. There were two DVD screens in the bus and we could watch a movie and video clips of traditional songs. The airconditioning worked and all in all it was a comfortable nine hour trip. The roads were all sealed and the driver was kept busy tooting his horn at the people and animals moving from place to place on the side of the road.

As we got higher up into the hills there were a lot of farms growing qat (chat, hkat, jaat, miraa).
In Yemen, such farms would have armed guards in towers to stop anyone stealing their valuable crop, but it seems it is not an issue in Ethiopia. At first sight the bushes look like tea bushes and are about the same height. Where tea is grown in rows without a gap between bushes, qat has new leaves that need to be got at from all parts of the tree. The chemical in the leaves is like ecstacy and suppresses appetite.

The bus stopped at a few places for the passengers to eat and then the beggars lined both sides of the doorway as you got in and out. Sometimes the locals chased them away from us as they targeted us.

We met a young lad whose mother is from New Zealand and his father from Ethiopia. He lives in Melbourne and with some family members they were making a visit to relatives in Dire Dawa. He was able to help us get a tuk tuk to the bus station where we needed to find a local bus going from Dire Dawa to Djibouti City. We found the bus we needed but it was not leaving until 7pm so we had a five hour wait for it. The bus station was in a dusty part of town near market stalls and we were constantly followed by children and beggars so we headed back into the town centre. Across from the railway station we were able to sit in a hotel patio and drink tea and cold drinks away from local attention. After work a lot of the locals came and drank coffee or tea and coca cola or had a beer. No one seemed to mind us at all.

The bus slowly filled up and we didn't leave until about 8.30pm. Beside the driver was a padded cover over the engine and the conductor and a hyperactive Muslim lady squashed up there. On the side of them were two guys in a seat facing the driver. They had barely space for their feet and had to slot their knees in between the conductor's and the hypo lady so they could fit in. We sat at right angles to them and had to fit our feet around the engine and under the side of the boys' seat. Pretty cramped! The bus company charges the locals to put their bags on the roof of the bus but they don't want to pay and so they stuff their sacks and plastic bags of gear around them or in any space they can find. As one side of the bus has seats for three people and these three people have multiple bag. It is chaos as they spill over into everyone else's limited space. Chaos!

We later learnt that most of the passengers were traders, taking their goods to small villages near the border with Djibouti. There were sacks of grain which are very expensive in Djibouti as they have no rain and can't grow anything. The hypo lady had plastic bags full of bundles of qat leaves and the boys told us she had too many so she was passing them around for others to take. We don't know what happened but there was a huge argument with the lady and the bus driver and conductor. At one stage they pushed her out the door and she was crying and yelling. After this the bus driver crossed himself and let her back in the bus. When we stopped at one of the many police check points she complained to the police about her treatment and by now everyone was in on the argument. Eventually all parties calmed down and began chewing their bundles of qat to keep them awake.

It took seven hours to cover the 150 kms to the border town of Gelille and as the border was not open we all settled down, the 50 of us in the 45 seater, to get some sleep. The driver kicked everyone off the engine cover and plonked his mattress down and promptly snored. Some of the folk put woven mats on the ground outside the bus and slept there, while a few wandered off to some nearby by buildings. A couple of buses and trucks joined us as well.

In the morning, one of the boys told me that a woman across the aisle had never seen a white person before, let alone one in trousers. When he told her I was a woman she said 'Oh, a girl woman!'

When the border opened we had to queue to give our passports to an immigration officer but the woman traders had to go to a different place as they did not have any travel permits. There was a huge shed with open sides and several flat deck trucks with wire cages on the back pulled up in the shed. In no time they were filled with small bags of qat and headed off to Djbouti City in time for the lunch time qat shoppers.

A minimum of about five hours a day is spent grazing on qat and the reason behind the many divorces in the country!

After two and a half hours we got our passports and got into a small bus headed for the Djibouti border post. Everything was unloaded from the bus and all the bags were checked. We had to show our vaccination certificates and after one and a half hours we were ready to continue to Djibouti City. It was a dirty, dusty post and squatting in the dirt was a row of women with thermoses selling tea. There were flattened yellow plastic jerry cans for their customers to sit on while they drank their tea.

We saw a lot of people in a compound with some of them handcuffed to the iron railings. The sun was beating down on them and they looked rather forlorn as they watched us getting processed.

Djibouti bus being checked at a police check point.

The road to Djibouti City was sealed and mostly in pretty good condition but we had to pass at least three more police checkpoints. At the Tadjoura road junction there were dozens of stalls set up selling qat.



Outside Djibouti the rural villages looked poorer than anything we had seen in Ethiopia. The houses were 'humpies'- round shaped dwellings covered with hessian, rags, bits of old clothing, flattened pieces of tin cans or drums.

The bus stopped in the African Quarter of the city and we got a taxi to an ATM to get some local
currency. The taxi was a wreck!



The first guesthouse we went to was noisy as they were renovating some of the rooms so we looked for another one. A local guy followed us and took us to a place but it was too expensive. We finally ended up at a hotel near the city centre for a reasonable price.

Djibouti has a population of about 800,000 people and was once a part of the Ethiopian kingdom of Aksum. In the 19th century, Europeans carved up parts of Africa and as the British had Yemen on the other side of the Red Sea, the French countered by developing French Somaliland. In June 1977, the colony won sovereignty from France and became the Republic of Djibouti.



Some of the old colonial buildings in the European Quarter of the city.



A local mosque. Islam was introduced by the Arab traders in AD 825.

We found Djibouti very expensive. A restaurant we had a coke in charged 12 times the price we could get it in a small shop. We found a large supermarket and bought some food there to keep costs down. Most of the food was imported from France.

We saw several military men about the city from Japan, France, Britain and US. Djibouti has a huge port with a large-capacity oil terminal and container terminals partly funded by Dubai Port International.



These city goats had to find shade under a broken down abandoned truck in the middle of the road as there are hardly any trees.

Near our hotel was the Djibouti University and we heard lots of shouting and saw large groups of students walking in the middle of the street. At first we thought the noise had something to do with President Mubarak resigning in Egypt but the hotel receptionist told us that the students had just got their exam results. Only 10% of students passed the exams. We later saw a group of students in a square surrounded by police in riot gear.

The internet service in Djibouti was cheap and fast so we were able to get a lot of research, emails, and some of the blog done after three weeks in Ethiopia without any decent access.

We looked at some of the tours to the salt lakes but they were too expensive for our budget so we decided to head to Somaliland and look at some of the sights there instead.

The only public transport going to Hargeisa in Somaliland was a 4x4 Landcruiser. We had to wait for about four hours at the transport office to be sure we would get a 'good' seat. They put two people in the front, four in the middle seat and six in the boot- three each side on a low seat.

While we were waiting for our ride the spare parts shop owner hussled us into his shop as young men in the street were throwing stones. It seems that a group from one section of the city was having a fight with another group from a different section of town. We could hear the stones on the metal shutters as we sat inside. We had seen the stone throwing earlier but were quite a distance from them. The police came by in several vehicles and sprayed the groups with tear gas and they dispersed quite quickly.

Lalibela, Ethiopia

When we researched the trip from Aksum to Lalibela and then onto Addis we realised we would have to do some long days on crowded buses so found the flights that Ethiopian Airways had a reasonable price and a more comfortable travel option. If you fly in and out of the country with their airline they give good discounts on internal flights.

From the aeroplane the terraced fields in the hills looked like the lines on a topographical map. Most of the settlements looked like they were on the flat topped montains and we wondered how they got their water. In the flat farming areas with grain crops we could see the circular areas where they thresh and separate the chaff and grain using animals. Many of the village houses had corrugated iron rooves and we wondered if the government provided some kind of assistance for the locals to be able to afford to use the iron rather than thatch.

The Lalibela airport is about 25 kms from the town of 8500 people. We took a van with 6 others and got off at a new hotel a short walk from the town centre. As the town has a short tourist season the locals charge the same prices as the hotel operators in Addis so that they can afford to keep going all year round. Our hotel was spotless, warm and had a great outlook over the hills.

Lalibela, according to our guide, ranks among the greatest religious historical sites in the Christian world. A local guide found us and we agreed to take two half days to see the sites with him.

King Lalibela returned here after 13 years in Jerusalem and it took him 23 years to get 11 churches hewn out of the volcanic rock, about 1,000 years ago. The churches are pretty close together in some parts and the second group of churches is a short walk down hill from the first. The churches are closed in the middle of the day for mass and the first one we visited still had a service going on but we were still allowed to wander amongst the worshippers and even take photos.

They are as impressive as the stone temples in Petra, Jordan, but these have been carved so that they stand as separate buildings away from the rock. Sometimes we had to walk through dark unlit tunnels to get from one church to another and at other times we crossed bridges that were constructed over trenches.

This is St George's church taken from the edge of the rock that the church was carved from. To the right is a ramp that goes down through the rock to the entrance.

Another view of St George's Church.

The tukul are traditional houses. This one is in the church complex and preserved as part of the World Heritage site. Some of the monks still live in these houses in the village. The cooking area is outside the building with only space for sleeping inside.

As our guide was a Deacon, his priest friend dressed up in his robes and displayed the processional crosses for us to photograph.

Saturday was the traditional market day so we watched the farmers coming into town in the morning with their grains and animals for sale. By midday you could hardly move for all the animals and sacks of grains lining the hillside.

This trader was selling shoes made from car tyres.

We have seen these colourful baskets used to hold food for weddings. They are woven from grasses and dyed with natural dyes from plant and rocks.

One night there was a big celebration at our hotel in the car park and we were invited to join in. The owner was celebrating the success of his hotel business and had invited his family, neighbours and other business people who had helped him. They lit a big fire on which they stewed huge dishes of goat pieces that everyone could help themselves to. This old man is an azmari or wandering minstrel and played a traditional single stringed fiddle instrument - he made up songs to make fun of the guests, politicians etc. A young boy sang unaccompanied and the locals gave him money to encourage him. Some of the women danced with the most popular movement being shaking the shoulders forwards and backwards really quickly to the beat of the music. The owner provided St George beer and at 10 o'clock everyone went home.

From Lalibela we flew onto Addis Ababa where we stayed again in the Ankober guesthouse. We ate at the Wutma Hotel where they had set up a big screen and laid seats out for the locals to buy a ticket to watch Arsenal and Liverpool play football.

The next day we visited the National Museum to see Lucy, a 3.2 million-year-old fossilised upright hominid discovered in 1974.

When many of the villagers move to Addis, for the things the city has to offer, they continue with the way of life they had in the countryside. These sheep are herded through the streets looking for any thing to eat that they can find. Here they seem to be feeding on something in the rocks but I couldn't see anything growing there. At night, they pen them in their house or in a small section of a yard. They are looked after either by older folk or children. If all the children under 16 attended school in Ethiopia there would be hardly any workforce as they represent almost half of the country's population.

While Ethiopia is not an expensive place to travel in, we found the tax on food confusing. Some places would charge us 2% for one kind of tax and then another 2% for another kind. The tax rates ranged from 4% to 26%. When we asked some Ethiopians why the tax varied they said it was just another form of begging and the government never saw any of these taxes, they just went into the restaurant/cafe owners' pockets.

Aksum, Ethiopia

The day before we needed to leave Gonder for Aksum, we went to the bus station to get a bus ticket. We were lucky enough to get the last 2 seats on the bus and as soon as we were issued the tickets the office closed and the workers went home at 10am.

The next day we had to get a tuk-tuk to the bus station just after 4am and lined up outside the locked station complex with all the other early birds. The guard checked our tickets and let us into the compound and showed us our bus. There were only a handful of us inside and we were the only foreigners, but as soon as the gates were opened there was a huge stampede as people raced around looking for their buses. The armed guard directed us to the front seats and later came back for some money for letting us in and getting us good seats! We didn't sit in the front seats he gave us as there was no place to put your feet as there was a seat where our feet should be so we moved to a better place that had a window that could open and that was not covered with black film.

John finished his course of antibiotics and was back to normal health. He kept an eye on the bags being stacked on the roof of the bus while I held the seats. There were more than 30 buses in the compound and they all started their poorly maintained engines at the same time and being side by side the fumes spread through all the buses. We couldn't see for black sooty diesel smoke as it irritated our eyes. The bus exhausts were in line with the entry door so everytime someone got in the bus, it filled with smoke. The whole yard was enveloped in the stuff and people were coughing and complaining everywhere. There was no escape from it.

We climbed up and down through valleys and there was a lot of road construction. Sometimes we would not be able to pass until the bulldozers cleared the huge rocks and rubble from the middle of the road.

We passed through the town of Debark which is the place where trampers get off to walk the trails in the Simien Mountains. We had originally intended to do this too but as getting around the country is so unreliable we decided against it. We were the only foreigners in the bus and only saw 2 guys from the Czech Republic who were heading off to walk the trails.

We crossed the Tekeze River and saw a caravan of camels. We had read about 30 camels that had been stopped near this area. The camels were carrying huge bundles of second hand clothing and they were being illegally brought into the country. It seems the clothes come from Europe through Dubai and camels crossing remote borders bring them in to the city traders. The people are too poor to afford brand label clothes so there is a huge market for second hand label clothes.

Something happened to the fuel line on the bus so we had to wait while the driver's assistant hitched a ride to get some spare parts. Two hours later they had it repaired. We had hoped to get from Gonder all the way through to Aksum but by the time we arrived at Shire, where we were meant to connect with a minivan, the last minivan for the day had already left.

An Ethiopian man who spoke good English helped us find some accommodation. He worked for a communications company in Addis and was doing some marketing in Shire. The hotel was near the bus station and it was really cheap and basic. We headed off in the dark to find somehere to eat and the only restaurant we could find had just one dish on the menu- cow stomach and ingera, well that is what we think the waiter was describing as he pointed to his stomach! However, he did offer us eggs and bread, he forgot to tell us the bread was stale.

While we were eating, an Israeli guy came in looking for food too. Eight years ago his family adopted an Ethiopian Jewish boy and he was heading to a small village in the north where the boy's mother lived. He was taking a parcel of photos and things with him as the mother had not seen the boy in all that time. He had already had 12 hours on a bus and had another 12 hours before he would reach his destination. Israel opened its borders to anyone who was Jewish, so the boy's family sent him there.

The minivan from Shire dropped us outside the Africa Hotel in Aksum. It was a clean warm place with a small restaurant. The stickers on the walls in reception showed it was well used by the trucking tour companies but we only saw one other foreigner. He had been tramping in the Simien Mountains and was drying out his camping gear on the roof.



From here we could easily walk to the historic sites that we wanted to visit in Aksum. The ancient kingdom of Aksum was one of the most powerful before 400BC. It was an important commercial crossroad between Egypt, the Sudanese goldfields, and the Red Sea. Aksum exported frankincense, grain, skins, apes, and ivory. They imported goods from Egypt, Arabia, and India.

We visited the stalae fields which are UNESCO World Heritage sites. There are over 120 stelae ranging from 1 meter to 33 metres high. Under these are a number of underground tombs.

Aksum is also the Christian heartland of the country with St Mary of Zion church their holiest shrine.

We passed by the place where the Queen of Sheba used to bathe and it is now where the local water supply is stored.

We walked to the outskirts of town where we visited the ruins of Dungar- the Palace of Queen Sheeba. Most of the walls have been rebuilt to a height of 2 metres and you could look down on the complex from a platform.

The local children from the farms surrounding the city call for money, sweets, pens, and food from all the tourists. When we walked back into town, we were followed by several kids who

took turns voicing their begging mantra. It happens from the second you leave the hotel till the second you get back into it and is quite draining!

Some of the farms in this area used camels to carry goods as well as donkeys.



The knitted wool mats were a favourite item in the souvenir shops.

In the evening we went to one of the big hotel where they had a good selection of different dishes to eat. We watched the BBC News on their TV and saw the protests in Egypt developing each night. On the street was a bar that had local draught beer where we would have a pint and watch the locals watching us! The beer was called St George, and he seems to be a pretty popular saint in Ethiopia.

There were a lot of 5+ storey buildings being constructed in the city but not very many private vehicles. The local taxis were the blue and white tuk tuks from India. The main road was sealed and a few side streets were cobbled but most streets were rocky and dusty. Sometimes we could get an email written or read, but more often than not there was no internet connection available. Surprisingly Aksum was a pretty clean place, especially in the centre, but outside the town the rubbish piles were where the animals scavenged.