Gonder, Ethiopia

In Bahir Dar we had to find a minivan at the bus station to take us to Gonder, our next destination. The van picked us up at our hotel but then we spent another hour waiting to fill up with other passengers before we could continue our trip.

We saw much the same scenery as on the way to Lake Tana. The majority of the mud houses in the farms have corrugated iron rooves and the roads were always busy with locals moving their animals around looking for pasture to feed on.

As we approached Gonder we saw lots of people on the streets. The women were wearing white muslin shawls on their heads. Priests held brightly coloured velvet umbrellas upside down so people could toss coins into them. Young men played goat skin drums and everyone was milling along the roadsides. It was the week after the Epiphany festival but they were continuing the celebrations in this area. This is called Timkat locally.

We had a lot of problems finding accommodation because of the Timkat celebrations and some of the local children took us to a pension. After we settled in to it we found that there was no water and the city had been without water all day. John headed off and found water at the Circle Hotel in the town centre where we had a lovely sunny room although it was noisy and we had to use our ear plugs.

We had not originally planned on coming to Ethiopia but we met lots of travellers who said the people were friendly and we should visit. From our experiences we now know that people are only friendly if they want something from you. No one here does anything for nothing. When the minivan arrived in town some young lads wouldn't let us take our bags from the roof of the van. Once they had got the bags down they demanded a 'service fee'. They gang up and pressure you into paying for the feeble unwanted service. We are independent and do such things ourselves. We are also tough enough to stand firm and not be persuaded by their demands. This habit for service causes us to be followed to hotels, buses, taxis etc as the tout hopes to get paid by either us or the owners/drivers. It also means that WE pay in the end for something we don't want. We have not found the people as friendly as we were lead to believe.

Gonder is famous for its Royal Enclosure, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The palaces were constructed by successive kings in the 17th and 18th centuries. They were pretty impressive and in good condition.

We found a friendly cafe on the street where we sat and watched the world go by while enjoying clove flavoured tea. We bumped into Andy from Aussie again and shared travel plans.

One of the tuk tuks that are imported from India and are a cheap way to get about the spread out city.

The churches are decorated with these symbols on the roof.

In the evenings we ate on the balcony of a modern hotel overlooking the main square. Sunday

is the most common day for weddings and we were lucky enough to see several weddings from the balcony. The minivans were covered with flowers and balloons and had their lights flashing and horns blowing. One party had two men on two horses. The horses were covered with red and white pom poms. They galloped ahead of the procession of cars and did several circuits of the statue in the middle of the piazza. Another man leapt from a car and stood on the statue where he let off fireworks.

Bahir Dar, Ethiopia

Our guide book said that there were no ATMs that accepted foreign credit cards but we were told that there were now several ATMs. One of the problems we had getting money was that the machines were in strange places like the Hilton and Sheraton hotels. Some only dispensed about $20 NZ as the maximum you could get out at one time so it took a bit of trial and error before we found machines that would give us larger amounts in one transaction, as we must pay a fee each time we get money out.

Before heading for Bahir Dar we met a Canadian guy who was heading in the same northerly direction and he had only a short time so decided to fly between the historic sites. We checked out Ethiopian Airways and found we could save four 12 hour days travel on crowded , hot, and dusty buses if we also flew. As we flew in with their airline we got a good discount to fly internally, so before leaving Addis we organised our flights to return from the north.

We caught a 5am Skybus in the main square from Addis to Bahir Dar. It was very modern with a TV showing movies and music CDs. We were given a slice of cake, juice, and a bottle of water for breakfast, all included in our ticket price. I think a taxi driver told us about the bus company otherwise we would have had to take a cramped minivan at 3am. I think whoever refers you to the minivan gets a commission, so it is always suggested as the only option for travelling outside the city.

The bus stopped at a local village restaurant for lunch and toilet stop. The toilets were disgusting and even the local women screwed up their noses at the smell and sight of them. The country deperately needs decent plumbers! Of course the men don't care as they go wher ever they are and whenever they want!

We passed through some spectacular mountain passes and this spot was another toilet stop with no facilities.

In the flat farmlands the locals were harvesting 'tef', the local grain that is used to make the traditional ingera pancakes. We saw men and women using short handled sickles to cut the stalks.

In the fields were circular working areas where the men chased bullocks tied together around and around over the tef grains to crush them. After this they forked the stalks into the air for the wind to blow the husks and debris away in the wind. The stalks were then piled up in stacks to dry. We saw some donkeys loaded with stalks taking them to feed the animals. Outside the mud and daub houses the women could be seen drying the tef or pounding it into flour. It all reminded us of our social studies lessons in our primary school days. They have been doing it this way for centuries.

Bahir Dar is on the shores of Lake Tana and its 'mystical monasteries' according to our guide book. We managed to get a clean and basic hotel and headed off to check out the lake. Dozens of locals were sitting on the shore looking at the lake that looked dirty with lots of green algae. We found a boatman who would take us and Andy, an Australian guy we met, for a trip to see the monasteries.

The monasteries date from the 16th and 17th centuries and some were built on pre-Christian sites. One is supposed to contain the Ark of the Covenant and other than the priests no one can see them or they will go blind.

This old book was in the museum and printed on goat vellum.

Inside the monastery were vividly painted religious scenes.

The outside of the monastery, Ura Kidan Mehret.

We saw several reed9 papyrus ) boats loaded with wood from the islands that they were taking to Bahir Dar to sell or convert to charcoal. The smaller boats were used for fishing.

There are about 20 islands with monasteries and there were many Ethiopian pilgrims visiting some of the sites at the same time as us. Christianity came to Ethiopia in the 4th century. 45% of the people are Christian and 35% are Muslim.

The boat trip was supposed to cover 5 monasteries but the one that could only be visited by men was closed so John and Andy couldn't see it. One of the others was under construction and not worth seeing. The 5th one was nothing like the first one and was a disappointment as it had coloured posters stuck to the monastery walls. However it was quite nice to be on the boat and
see the hippos by the source of the Nile outflow.

John also got to drive the boat.

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

After Lamu we returned to Mombasa in Kenya for one night and then bussed back to Nairobi to take a flight with Ethiopian Airways to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. We had looked at travelling overland into Ethiopia through the northern route but were told by various sources that it was unsafe. There are battles between the two countries over the border areas and there is a terrible drought in the north of Kenya. Consequently, the local cattle farmers fight over pastureland and cattle rustling is a big problem. The roads are in pretty bad condition so we decided to fly this section. During the flight we flew over the top of Mount Kilimanjaro so we were pleased at last to see it!

The aeroplane was brand new and according to the inflight magazine it was on loan from Ryan Air and there were hardly any passengers. It's hard to imagine how they would make any money.

We checked into a guesthouse near the Piazza, which is the old part of Addis city. John found a reference for it online. Most of the reviews that he read for accommodation in the city were about dirty, run down places so we were happy to find the Ankober a spotless place, albeit a bit cold after Nairobi.

It was so cold that we had to get extra blankets and John got out his sleeping bag as he had a terrible fever. Addis is around 2,000 metres above sea level so the nights were pretty cool while the days were pretty hot.

There are not many sites to visit in the city and with John's fever not responding to panadol and rest we didn't venture far. During the week we had to visit the Djibouti Embassy and the Somaliland Liason office for visas.

When John was up to it we walked around the city and as his fever didn't subside we decided to get a blood test done for malaria. Fortunately it was negative so we decided to take a course of antibiotics that we had brought with us. This cleared up his throat and nose infection that had developed.

In the 1970s there was a civil war in Ethiopia and the government was supported by the Soviet Union which supplied it with weaponry. At the end of the Cold War the support disappeared but these monuments still stand to show the influence of that time. A military person told us not to photograph the monument but we had already taken the shot.

In the centre of the city is Meskal Square, which looks like others we have seen in other Soviet countries. It is used for parades and presidential addresses to the people. The building at the centre of the photo is where the president sits in a glass box.

Ethiopia is country number 111 for us.

In 1995, it became the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. We saw areas where the Italians had lived and when we walked down the streets in these parts the old men greeted us in Italian. The locals were not allowed to live in the Italian area or go to their schools and the community was segregated. There are still influences from this time, with cafes having outdoor seating and selling coffee made with big old Italian coffee machines, as well as numerous Italian dishes on every restaurant menu.

We met several travellers at the hotel across from our guesthouse and were able to get information on places to visit in the country and places to stay. There is no tourist office so it was impossible to get information from any official source. Even the local minibuses that commute between the major cities have no main office. You have to talk to the locals, who have a contact, or staff at the accommodation places who have a contact. It all felt a bit uncoordinated and you never knew if a bus was going to materialise at all.

To get about the city there were overcrowded minivans in dilapidated states and old blue Russian Lada taxis. The yellow taxis were more expensive than the blue ones as they seemed to belong to some kind of transport union but they were often in a worse state than the cheaper blue ones. The yellow taxis drivers always warned us about the unsafe blue taxis but we had no problems in the blue ones. All the taxis had doors that didn't have handles or windows that were cracked but they were always scrubbed clean by the young street kids.

The Amharic language is difficult to read as it has its own script and translations to English vary in their spelling. Only 12% of the children make it to high school so there are a lot of children begging on the streets or selling packets of tissues, chewing gum, and cigarettes to get money. Whenever there was a school holiday the number of children sellers increased as the school kids spent their time trying to make some money as well. The tourists are always fair game!

There are often rows and rows of shoe shine boys outside office buildings or bus stops. We only ever saw one woman shining shoes. The streets maybe filthy but it seems important to have clean shiny shoes.

On our first trip into the city a group of three men tried to get into John's day bag. One stepped back into John and then put his arm around his back in the pretence of apologising while a second guy tried to unzip a pocket. The third man distracted me by asking for food so I would look away and not see what the other two men were doing. They didn't get anything and we don't carry anything valuable in our day bags anyway. In the Piazza a tissue seller pushed his tray of tissues into John while his fingers went into John's pocket at the same time. This is the first time in all our travels that we have ever had any experience with pickpockets!

In 1935 there were 15 million people and now there are 80 million. Altogether there are 83 languages and 200 dialects! 90% of the population survive on subsistence farming; goats, sheep, donkeys, camels, grains and vegetables.

The streets are crowded with disabled people, blind people, and beggars. We have even seen naked men mumbling to themselves as they wander the streets. People urinate whereever and whenever they want so the dusty streets stink. The stray cats and dogs also wander scavenging through rubble and piles of rubbish. It can be an obstacle course just to cross the street at times.

We ate the traditional dishes that were always accompanied with injera. This flat fermented spongy pancake like starchy base is served rolled up or laid flat on a dish. The stewed goat, fried beef, minced spinach, or raw meat, gets poured over the top and you eat by tearing some injera up and wrapping it around the meat. The etiquette is to use the fingers of your right hand and they never use any cutlery.

From here we plan to head north to some of the historic sites and return a few times back to Addis.

Mombasa, Kenya

Got back to Nairobi after our mountain trip and spent one night there before heading off in the morning for Mombasa. Caught a pretty comfortable bus and had a good trip. Passed alongside the Tsavo National Park and only saw a few zebra from the bus window. Saw typical Kenyan scenery, maize fields, cassava, bananas, and herders with cows, goats and a few sheep.

We drove into Mombasa through the heavily congested port area. There were huge trucks with containers coming and going and the road was a dustbowl with such heavy usage. All along the highway we passed container trucks and oil product tankers.

It was 34 years since I was in Mombasa too but when we arrived and headed up the main street there was nothing I recognised. The town is crowded with lots of taxis and Indian tuk tuks every where. The footpaths filled up in the evening with hawkers selling plastic products, shoes, clothing, and fruit and vegetables.

The hotel we checked into was on a busy corner and was pretty noisy but it was spotless and had everything we needed. We are used to sleeping with ear plugs and I use a mask to cut out the light and keep my ear plugs in. There were mostly locals in the hotel and a couple of white Kenyans. It felt a little like a boarding house as they sat around watching the "soapies" on TV all night. One of the soapies is an Italian one dubbed in Swahili and then later it is on again in English. We never saw any other travellers in the place.

We walked to a vegetarian Indian restaurant further along the street and although there were hardly any lights on in the street we felt comfortable walking after dark. When we go out after dark we leave our passports and other valuables at the reception desk and have them locked in a small bag. We then only take what we need for an evening meal and nothing else valuable.

Everywhere you look there are mosques and minarets.

Got up early and got a ticket on the bus to Lamu and will stop on the way back to Nairobi again here for one night to break the trip.

Lamu Island, Kenya

From Mombasa we took a big bus to Lamu. We passed through Malindi which was where I had a Christmas dinner on the beach in 1976. It was at a place owned by an Indian family and they cooked us lobsters, fish and vegetables, with a carrot and rice dessert. Malindi is now very busy and hectic. A lot of land has been bought by Italians for their resorts. We decided not to stop there this time.



The area is pretty dry and dusty and the road from Malindi to Lamu ferry was pretty bad and unsealed. For access to a UNESCO site, it is not a good introduction to the island. Lamu can be accessed by an airport at Manda so maybe those are the kind of tourists they want. There were only 4 backpackers on the bus and the rest of the pasengers were locals getting off at small dusty villages on the way.



The main crops seemed to be sisal, maize, bananas and coconuts. A lot of the land that had dry grasslands were used to graze animals and grow palm trees that are used for thatching the local daub huts.



At Mokowe, which is the end of the bus route and the ferry landing to Lamu Island, we couldn't get off the bus for locals touts wanting to carry our bags a few metres to the ferry boat. After fighting them off we had to contend with the touts who had accommodation on offer. We had booked through http://www.hostelworld.com/ and we were met by one of the staff members who was easily identifiable with a tee shirt advertising the guesthouse. She was sent to make sure that we were not taken away by any of the other guesthouse owners. There are not many tourists coming to Kenya, because of the riots at the last elections, so there is a lot of competition for the very few tourists who do come here.



The wind was up and the ferry bounced about a lot. One of the huge empty polystyrene boats that was tied up to the ferry we were on, ended up blowing up on the side rails and the Muslim women on board screamed and shouted hysterically. Although they were born on the island they have never learnt to swim and so are very nervous on the water. I would not like to sit beside them if the boat tipped over as they would claw you to death trying to climb up on you to save themselves.

The waterfront.



The guesthouse was owned by Arnold from Germany. It was spotless and offered free internet, a delicious breakfast and an informative welcome. There was a cool rooftop area where we could relax and meet the other guests. It was a short walk through the narrow 1 and 1/2 metre lanes with their open sewers.



Sometimes we had to jump out of the way of the locals on their donkeys. There were about 6,000 donkeys at one time and when construction booms the donkey population booms too. The only person with a car is the District Commissioner, however, we did see a couple of rusty ambulances that didn't look like they could move, as well as a couple of new tractors that were donated to the island to carry the rubbish.






I came to Lamu in 1976 as well as and I would have to say that things have gone backwards since that time. The open sewers in the street are as black as they were in the 1700s, according to some of the old stories we read about the place. But, of course, nowadays they are not only blocked with grey water and organic matter but also plastic bags. The rubbish piles up outside shops and peoples' doorways and it gets eaten by goats and donkeys and blown about by the wind, and scavenged through by the hordes of cats and crows or chooks . When the tide was out the seafront was full of trash and most of that was broken household items and plastic bags. The council banned plastic bags but everyone still uses them. There are a few wooden slatted rubbish cages on the waterfront but what the wind doesn't blow into the ocean the donkeys spread through the streets. When the rubbish piles get smelly the locals burn them and then start to pile up more waste on top.







The town is a living example of the Swahili culture that once dominated the entire Indian Ocean coast. These carved doors are on many of the houses in the old town. Outside the front of the houses are also plastered seats, like a chaise lounge, where the men sit or lie and discuss matters with other menfolk. There are many Muslim sects on the island so some women wear a full veil while others pin a black scarf over their head. A sect similar to one we saw in Yeman wear pastel coloured capes with a bonnet, similar to Little Red Riding Hood, and a matching skirt.

The men sit about the town square in front of the old fort near the market. The sea used to come up to the bottom of the tree but now it is several metres off the seafront.

Generally the local people are friendly and greet you with a 'Jambo'"(Hello) or 'Karibu' (Welcome). We ate fish most nights in the seafront restaurants as it was lovely and fresh.

One evening we went on a sunset cruise on a local dhow. The 3 men on the boat cooked up a huge black snapper, on their charcoal grill on the deck at the back of the boat, and some stir fried local vegetables. They followed this up with baked chocolate bananas and fresh mangoes. The sun sets really quickly. It was wonderful to see the old dhows still being used but there are also a lot of fibreglass speedboats buzzing up and down.

The one day we decided to walk along the beach front to Shela Village it was really windy and we got sandblasted. The beach was as I remembered it but now there are lots of weathly Kenyans and foreigners who have built houses in the village. Some of the tourists shops were brand new, empty, and expensive.

From Lamu we went back to Mombasa for one night and then back to Nairobi for another night. From here we caught a flight to Addis Abba in Ethiopia. We are not sure what the internet connections will be like in Ethiopia and may only be able to write without photos. We have heard that only locals can get SIM cards here.

Mount Kenya National Park, Kenya

We were met at the airport by Kennedy, our guide to trek Mount Kenya, and his driver Joe. We drove to the small town of Naro Moru, about two and a half hours from Nairobi. We checked into a hotel on the outskirts of the town, surrounded by fields of crops. The hotel had a campsite and a poultry farm in the complex and chicken, eggs, and chips were the only items on the menu.

In the evening Kennedy came to see us because he had to return to the Masai Mara where he manages a tour company. Some people from Uganda had stolen things from the tourists in his camp and his second in charge was not able to handle the situation. However, he introduced us to Gerard who would be our guide for the five day trip

We sorted the gear we would need and the next morning we met Charles, our cook, and Boniface and John, our two porters. All the boys went to school together and belonged to the Kikuyu tribe. We only needed to carry small day bags with gear and snacks we would need while the porters carried our packs with our extra clothes and sleeping bags and then filled the packs with their own gear. Two primus cookers were attached to the outside of the packs and we set off from the Naro Moru gate of the Mount Kenya National Park.

We had stayed a night in Naro Moru to help acclimatise to the altitude as I had suffered from the altitude when we had climbed Mount Kinabalu, in Malaysia. The walk to Met Hut was 9 kms along a dirt road, and we rose from 2400 metres asl to 3049m asl and it took us 3 and 3/4 hours, which Gerard assured us was good going. Saw lots of elephant dung, antelope and buffalo spoor but didn't encounter any of the animals. There were four huts and we had one with about ten beds to ourselves. Next door was a German climber named Frank who had a hut to himself. The last hut had two English girls. The porters had separate rooms away from us and a small room for cooking beside each hut.

This Syke monkey stole a tub of chocolate powder from Frank and climbed up the trees to get into it. The porters all came to throw stones at him to get him to give it back. We had to be sure to lock our door whenever we left the hut to keep the monkeys out. Although the signs says the animals should not be fed, lots of people feed them so they can get close up photos.

In the evening these francolin birds came around to visit. We were told there were leopards, genets, and buffalo near the hut too, but only saw duiker.

Charles cooked soup, battered fish and vegetables, followed by fresh fruit for dessert and we could hardly eat it all there was so much. I couldn't sleep because of the altitude so I heard the tree hyrax calling each other in the trees outside our hut, and I heard the buffalo pulling on the grass under our window and chewing its cud. I wanted to go to the toilet but had to wait until the pulling and chewing stopped. Before going outside at night we had to check for eyes glowing in the dark. The closer the eyes together the smaller the animal we were warned.

The next morning we had a huge breakfast of eggs, pancakes and fruit and headed off about 7 am. Walked through the bamboo zone and then onto timberline forest with lots of African rosewood and giant St John's wort plants.

We had been taking diamox pills to prevent altitude sickness so we both felt fine but I had a lot of trouble getting enough air into my lungs and my diaphragm muscle hurt, similar to the stitch from overuse. Gerard kept reassuring us we were doing fine and the pace was good but I was not so sure. I felt he was trying to humour me. However, he did later tell us of clients who took 15 hours to do the climb so I felt pretty good that we had done the 10 kms in 7 and 1/2 hours, to 4300 metres asl.

Saw several colonies of rock hyrax and spotted a lot of hyena droppings on the trail but saw none. The giant forest lobelia at about 3 metres tall were like something out of a Dr Suess childrens' book. Some fluffy plants were called 'ostrich' plants and they were interesting as they started as a rosette of leaves and ended as a tall spiky fluff of leaves. There were a few clumps of gladioli and red hot pokers as well to add some bright colour to the view. Covering the ground were thousands of everlasting daisies with their paper-like flowers.

We saw a porter carrying Frank's ice climbing gear in a long narrow pack and another carrying his rock climbing gear in a similar pack and they looked so uncomfortable as the packs were taller than the porters and had no support for their backs. Other porters passed us with duffel bags which had even less support, or soft carryall where they had to loop one handle around the top of their head in order to carry the bags to the top. Our health and safety laws would never allow workers to labour under such conditions. We only hope they were generously compensated for such hard work.

At a place called Picnic Rock, Charles and the boys cooked up some noodle soup for lunch. We chatted to a couple of English girls who were taking a break at the same spot too.

Gerard carried a small solar panel to power a small light and for all the boys to recharge their cellphones.

Mackinder's Hut was made of stone blocks and it was absolutely freezing. We shared the bunk room with the two English girls who were suffering from bad headaches and felt unwell so we were grateful to have taken longer than they to get to the hut and not suffer such ill effects. Frank was in a bunk room by himself and he told us about all his climbing experiences in Europe, Sth America ( Aconcagua ) and last year when he was on Mount Kenya as well.

After an enormous dinner, we had an early night as John and Gerard decided to get up at 2.30 am to climb to Point Lenana, at 4985 metres. Once again I didn't sleep a wink but had decided not to go with them. They had to use their headlights to light the trail until the sun came up. John was thankful he couldn't see how steepthe scree slope was as he may well have turned back but was glad he didn't.

I spent the day walking around the trails near the hut and chatting about NZ to the porters and cooks left at the hut and listening to the hut warden talk about the climbers who had problems on the mountain.

John and Gerard had to detour to the north side of Point Lenana because there was an ice field on the direct route and they didn't have ice axes or crampons. They crossed the equator on their climb. The mountain was clear so they had a great view. It took them 8 and 1/2 hours and trekked about 11 kms altogether. I saw them descending through the binoculars and went to meet them in the valley.

We were joined in the evening by seven elderly Norwegians who took about 11 hours to get to the hut. One of the ladies was quite unwell. They must have paid a lot of money for their trip as they had waiters serve them food from their insulated pots and even had table cloths. They are so used to the cold weather and were well prepared with their puffy down jackets and even puffier down sleeping bags.

I had to buy a pair of track pants in Nairobi, but we were already carrying woollen hats, gloves, and thermal underwear, which had been used in Cape Town in June. Our sleeping bags managed to keep us warm even though we woke to sleet on the roof and frost on the ground in the morning.

However, once again I still didn't sleep and Charles, the cook, told me that he didn't on his first few trips to the mountain either and it was probably due to the altitude.

It took us just over four hours to get back down the mountain to Met Hut again. John caught up on some sleep at Met hut and in the evening we tried to spot the tree hyrax and catch the moles digging up the earth but didn't manage either. I thought I'd be low enough and tired enough to sleep but couldn't.

Gerard is an avid bird watcher so we spent a bit of time looking for birds and spotted this crimson chested bee catcher on the way out the next day.

We did manage to see a family of black and white Colobos monkey swinging through the trees on the way down to the park gates.

We drove back to Nairobi with Kennedy and Joe and found a room at the same hotel we stayed in last time and got ready to head to Lamu Island.

Antananarivo, Madagascar

Hired a three wheeler Kanga or moto to the Antsirabe bus station. The touts herded us to a private people mover where a lady spoke Spanish. She needed two more people to fill the private vehicle and it looked like a much more comfortable ride than the minivans or taxi brousse. We had to promise that if the police stopped us that we were to say we were from USA and friends with the lady. We think this was because it was a private vehicle being used as a public one that we had to do this. However, the police, gendarmerie, or soldiers never stopped us.

The driver was quite young and he drove too fast for the conditions and after speeding around a tight corner at 120 kms per hour with squealing tyres, like he was driving in a Hollywood movie, we got a bit nervous. A few kilometres later he sped up again and a bullock cart crossed in front of us and he had to brake hard. We missed the farmer and his bulls by a few centimetres and John then ordered him to slow down. From the voices and gestures of the other passengers we could see they were blaming the bullock cart driver for the near miss. Fortunately the Spanish speaking woman sided with us and also rebuked the driver. After this we continued at a reasonable pace safely to Tana, but also passed a minivan upside down near the top of a hill and this made us feel justified for hassling the driver.

The vehicle stopped in a shanty town outside the city centre. People were living in huts made from anything they could scavenge. Small stores of planks of salvaged timber lined the dusty streets. We were approached by a 'Rasta' man who took us off to find a taxi. It was a pretty desperate place. The taxi driver gave the Rasta man a tip for finding him a fare and we headed off to Tana Jacaranda Guesthouse.

The guesthouse was full of French researchers and they referred us to a hotel at the top of the street. The hotel was on the corner of a very busy street and the room was very cramped. After one night here the staff from Tana Jacaranda phoned to say they had a place for us so we returned there. We had not been able to write any blogs so we were looking forward to using the free internet they offered to catch up with all the Madagascar blogs, so we were thankful to be back with the comforts of our old guesthouse.

We had to organise the airport shuttle bus for our flight out so we headed to Independence Plaza and the railway station where we knew the buses were kept. At the entrance to the train station were many teenage street kids. They hassled John for money and surrounded him tugging at his pockets trying to get money off him. They were unsuccessful. We both wear little pouches that button up inside the waistbands of our trousers where we keep our supply of cash and these can't be reached without taking our trousers off. Our passports hang around our necks under our clothes. John usually carries just enough cash for the small things we need in a zipped or buttoned pocket. After organising the airport shuttle bus to pick us up at 3.30am we left the railway station. The teenagers followed us out and John made a lot of noise shouting at them to go away and fortunately they then dispersed as people on the streets began to look at the commotion.

The plaza was full of all kinds of hawkers. Everyone seems to have more than one cellphone and they buy scratch cards from vendors with umbrellas. As we stumbled our way through the hawkers we heard a guy whistling and then a wave of panic rippled through the street as hawkers folded up their umbrellas, wheeled away their carts loaded with goods, wrapped their trinkets up in sheets, or bundled their wares into cardboard boxes and shoved them under parked vehicles. The police must have been nearby. As soon as the panic was over the peddlers reset their items for sale and carried on until the next warning whistle

In the evening we found a place to have a pizza and met an American guy who has lived in Tana for 5 years. He told us that the teens at the station had tried to rob him 5 times and had managed to get his wallet once. When we saw him pull out an overstuffed wallet from his back pocket we were not surprised that they had targeted him. He recommended a local restaurant to us with a great 'ambiance' so we went there one night.

The restaurant was not far from our guesthouse in an old renovated house with a courtyard. On the way there we passed many people on the streets with their children begging. Others were keeping warm with their charcoal burners or getting ready to bed down on the footpath for the night. There were only four diners in the restaurant and while it had nice food it also added extra taxes to the bill that we hadn't had to pay in other places. The hidden price of 'ambiance'.

We spent the rest of our time in Tana, burning photo CDs, buying a new belt for John as his old one had disintegrated, doing laundry, and writing our annual newsletter and getting it mailed off to friends and family. We repacked our bags and got rid of things we no longer needed or couldn't take on the flight; aerosol insect repellent and cooking fuel.

The flight to Nairobi with Madagascar Air was delayed as it waited for a connecting flight from Paris. While boarding I spotted a guy who looked like someone I had worked with at our local Polytechnic. A little while later he looked at me with a puzzled look and then I knew it was Keith Gregor who tutored marine studies. We had a good chat on the flight about he and his partner's 6 month round the world trip. Africa really is a small place!!!

We had a short stop at Moroni in the Comoros Islands, where the majority of the passengers alighted, before continuing to Nairobi. . Mount Kilimanjaro from the aeroplane.