And the rest of you can too. Just not as much.
Merry Xmas!!
NB. We may be experiencing technical difficulties... let us know if the video works..
Saturday 26 December 2009
M and T's Xmas Message
It has come to our attention that certain members of the Finnish community are whining about our lack of Finnish language blogging. So here you go guys, enjoy...
And the rest of you can too. Just not as much.
Merry Xmas!!
NB. We may be experiencing technical difficulties... let us know if the video works..
And the rest of you can too. Just not as much.
Merry Xmas!!
NB. We may be experiencing technical difficulties... let us know if the video works..
Business as usual
14th-20th - Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Addis Ababa - African diplomatic capital, biggest city in Ethiopia, another dustbowl. In all fairness, "Addis" is a city that isn't too hard to like. It's reasonably simple to get around, has its fair share of communist-inspired landmarks (the concrete, red-star-topped Derg monument and the enormous concrete sea of Meskal Square. It also has an array of restaurants serving injera with everything one could possibly wish for. Ethiopia being the first country I've ever visited where I actually care about the food, this is a good thing.
Addis was also the city where we took care of business - visas were needed, as were US dollars for Somaliland and Djibouti Francs, and I had to extend my visa. We checked into a hotel in the nicely named Haile Gebreselassie Street before moving to another cheaper option in the even more wonderfully named Democratic Republic of Congo Street, and spent most of the days sorting out business before taking care of pleasure (injera and beer) in the evenings, meeting up with Cole and Amanda again during the second half of our moderately productive stay in Addis. Our first experience was positive - we had no money and couldn't find an ATM and so we went to a restaurant to ask if we could pay with Visa. No, was the answer, but we could eat there and come back to pay another day if we wanted! Strange in a country where most people seem to be after money by hook or by crook but we didn't complain! Our second experience was more typically Ethiopian - the visa extension. After being shunted from office to office, we eventually got hold of the form I needed and filled it in, before being approached by someone in some sort of uniform whose exact purpose of being there I wasn't too sure of.
"Hi, what do you need?"
"I need a visa extension, where can I take this form?"
"We are very busy today, can you come back to hand it in tomorrow morning?"
"No."
"OK, well just give it in to that office. But we are closing for lunch, so come back in 2 hours."
After another delightful injera, we headed back and sat around waiting for a long time before I had my form taken in, and was pointed to another room where I was to wait for ages again, M was informed that she couldn't wait with me and ignored the guy telling her with considerable ability, and finally I paid my 20 dollars and was barked at to come back at 3 the next day to pick up my extension. Taking previous experience into account, we rocked up at 4.30pm and avoided the queues. I was free for another month!
Generic Addis street scene
The visa run was rather more eventful as we had by this point run out of dollars, and Ethiopia has a curious rule whereby you can't change Birr to any other currency unless you have a flight ticket out of the country. Djibouti was first up.
"Fill in this form, bring one photo, and 40 dollars."
"Can we pay in Birr?"
"No."
"But we can't find dollars anywhere and we have none left"
"Well..." And he shrugged and went back to his business. This would obviously be a tough one.
We decided to try our luck at the Somaliland office instead.
"Fill in this form, bring one photo, and 40 dollars."
"Can we pay in Birr?"
"No."
The deja vu was considerable. However on our explaining our predicament, the delightful ladies in the Somaliland office put in a couple of phone calls and told us with a smile that we could pay in Birr if we wanted. Within 15 minutes the visas were ready and we were sent off to the head of the mission who signed it and gave us some nice info about the country with the exception of the Somaliland Shilling exchange rate, which he told us he had no idea about having not been to Somaliland for two years.
Hurrah!
Our hunt for dollars continued until later that day when, having tried every bank in Addis, we wandered into a travel agent looking for a flight ticket from Djibouti to Nairobi to try and find our way around this impasse. When the woman behind the desk asked if we wanted the price in dollars or birr, a metaphorical lightbulb flickered into life over my head and I asked her if, by any chance, she might know where we could get hold of some US dollars because it's so hard to find here and we've tried everything and if she had any idea could she please tell us because otherwise we can't get any of our visas and can't leave Ethiopia at all please please please. The pleading had the desired effect and she closed the door, went off into a backroom and came back with 80 dollars and a calculator. We shoved our ill-gotted gains deep into our pockets and disappeared into the sunset, celebrating with more injera and Dashen beer.
Next morning, we dragged ourselves out of bed bright and early with a steely determination, and charged down to the Djibouti embassy.
"What do you want?"
"We've come to get visas."
"We are closed today."
"But...ehh... we were told to come back today!"
We were shown a notice board where it was announced that the embassy would be closed on that day due to the Muslim New Year. Next morning, we dragged ourselves out of bed bright and early with a steely determination, and charged down to the Djibouti embassy. This time, everything worked out, we were told with a smile to come back at 3 in the afternoon to pick up our passports. And we were ready to go! We'd got a surprise email from Cole and Amanda that they had been inspired by our Somaliland advertising campaign in Bahir Dar and that they'd got their visas too, so we were to have a little gang there for New Year! A similar advertising drive on behalf of Djibouti failed, so we agreed to meet up in Hargeisa in a week or so.
Aside from embassies and monolithic communist monuments, Addis doesn't have much in particular to see. Having spent many evenings wandering around the different suburbs and taking in the atmosphere, and instead of sitting around for another week eating injera and drinking Awash wine and Dashen beer, we got ourselves a minibus heading to Dire Dawa, from where we would try to get to Djibouti City and find somewhere sunny to spend Christmas holidays while thinking of everyone back home huddling up for warmth...
A reminder of the glorious past!
Addis Ababa - African diplomatic capital, biggest city in Ethiopia, another dustbowl. In all fairness, "Addis" is a city that isn't too hard to like. It's reasonably simple to get around, has its fair share of communist-inspired landmarks (the concrete, red-star-topped Derg monument and the enormous concrete sea of Meskal Square. It also has an array of restaurants serving injera with everything one could possibly wish for. Ethiopia being the first country I've ever visited where I actually care about the food, this is a good thing.
Addis was also the city where we took care of business - visas were needed, as were US dollars for Somaliland and Djibouti Francs, and I had to extend my visa. We checked into a hotel in the nicely named Haile Gebreselassie Street before moving to another cheaper option in the even more wonderfully named Democratic Republic of Congo Street, and spent most of the days sorting out business before taking care of pleasure (injera and beer) in the evenings, meeting up with Cole and Amanda again during the second half of our moderately productive stay in Addis. Our first experience was positive - we had no money and couldn't find an ATM and so we went to a restaurant to ask if we could pay with Visa. No, was the answer, but we could eat there and come back to pay another day if we wanted! Strange in a country where most people seem to be after money by hook or by crook but we didn't complain! Our second experience was more typically Ethiopian - the visa extension. After being shunted from office to office, we eventually got hold of the form I needed and filled it in, before being approached by someone in some sort of uniform whose exact purpose of being there I wasn't too sure of.
"Hi, what do you need?"
"I need a visa extension, where can I take this form?"
"We are very busy today, can you come back to hand it in tomorrow morning?"
"No."
"OK, well just give it in to that office. But we are closing for lunch, so come back in 2 hours."
After another delightful injera, we headed back and sat around waiting for a long time before I had my form taken in, and was pointed to another room where I was to wait for ages again, M was informed that she couldn't wait with me and ignored the guy telling her with considerable ability, and finally I paid my 20 dollars and was barked at to come back at 3 the next day to pick up my extension. Taking previous experience into account, we rocked up at 4.30pm and avoided the queues. I was free for another month!
Generic Addis street sceneThe visa run was rather more eventful as we had by this point run out of dollars, and Ethiopia has a curious rule whereby you can't change Birr to any other currency unless you have a flight ticket out of the country. Djibouti was first up.
"Fill in this form, bring one photo, and 40 dollars."
"Can we pay in Birr?"
"No."
"But we can't find dollars anywhere and we have none left"
"Well..." And he shrugged and went back to his business. This would obviously be a tough one.
We decided to try our luck at the Somaliland office instead.
"Fill in this form, bring one photo, and 40 dollars."
"Can we pay in Birr?"
"No."
The deja vu was considerable. However on our explaining our predicament, the delightful ladies in the Somaliland office put in a couple of phone calls and told us with a smile that we could pay in Birr if we wanted. Within 15 minutes the visas were ready and we were sent off to the head of the mission who signed it and gave us some nice info about the country with the exception of the Somaliland Shilling exchange rate, which he told us he had no idea about having not been to Somaliland for two years.
Hurrah!Our hunt for dollars continued until later that day when, having tried every bank in Addis, we wandered into a travel agent looking for a flight ticket from Djibouti to Nairobi to try and find our way around this impasse. When the woman behind the desk asked if we wanted the price in dollars or birr, a metaphorical lightbulb flickered into life over my head and I asked her if, by any chance, she might know where we could get hold of some US dollars because it's so hard to find here and we've tried everything and if she had any idea could she please tell us because otherwise we can't get any of our visas and can't leave Ethiopia at all please please please. The pleading had the desired effect and she closed the door, went off into a backroom and came back with 80 dollars and a calculator. We shoved our ill-gotted gains deep into our pockets and disappeared into the sunset, celebrating with more injera and Dashen beer.
Next morning, we dragged ourselves out of bed bright and early with a steely determination, and charged down to the Djibouti embassy.
"What do you want?"
"We've come to get visas."
"We are closed today."
"But...ehh... we were told to come back today!"
We were shown a notice board where it was announced that the embassy would be closed on that day due to the Muslim New Year. Next morning, we dragged ourselves out of bed bright and early with a steely determination, and charged down to the Djibouti embassy. This time, everything worked out, we were told with a smile to come back at 3 in the afternoon to pick up our passports. And we were ready to go! We'd got a surprise email from Cole and Amanda that they had been inspired by our Somaliland advertising campaign in Bahir Dar and that they'd got their visas too, so we were to have a little gang there for New Year! A similar advertising drive on behalf of Djibouti failed, so we agreed to meet up in Hargeisa in a week or so.
Aside from embassies and monolithic communist monuments, Addis doesn't have much in particular to see. Having spent many evenings wandering around the different suburbs and taking in the atmosphere, and instead of sitting around for another week eating injera and drinking Awash wine and Dashen beer, we got ourselves a minibus heading to Dire Dawa, from where we would try to get to Djibouti City and find somewhere sunny to spend Christmas holidays while thinking of everyone back home huddling up for warmth...
A reminder of the glorious past!Escape from Gonder (attempt 2)
12th December-13th December 2009 - Days 75-76 - Bahir Dar, Ethiopia
First things first - Giorgio turned out to be a crook. It shouldn't come as that much of a surprise really that at some stage our luck with people would turn, and I think Gonder is where this happened, not that we noticed until the last day there.
On our last full day in Gonder I decided to make sure I didn't have malaria before setting off on the road again (as I had been having a pretty awful flu for the last two week or so), and so we made our way to the local clinic for the second time during our visit in the town. This time we went to a different clinic from the one Giorgio took us to though, and ended up paying 35birr for my visit and lab test whereas last time in the other place we had paid 100birr each for just doctor's consultation alone. Thankfully at least the test result was negative and I was reassured enough by the fact that there should not be any worry even if I would happen to collapse so we eventually made our plans to leave Gonder for Bahir Dar. In his friendly way Giorgio helped us with the travel arrangements which turned out to be effectively the second stitch-up he would impose on us. We got our minibus tickets through a broker he knew and were promised "a good price, not faranji price!" of 150birr per head. On the minibus the next day we came across some kind of an official list of minibus and bus fares for different distances inside Ethiopia (which we of course photographed straight away) with the referenced price of only 45birr per person for our said trip. So we lost some there too.
And upon us discovering all of this Giorgio lost our respect. Not for the reason we would not understand why people here operate in the way they do and accept that to an extent as part of local way of life, but for the reason we had asked him blatantly flat out about the price being the right one and trusted his word after the two weeks we spent hanging around with him with no obvious trace of him trying to benefit from us in any way. Quite the opposite, he had actually helped us on many small occasions and bargained for our share too - also not forgetting his hospitable invite to his house for peanut tea on the last night as I was still not feeling too good. After all, he could have just told us that we simply will end up paying faranji price because that's the way it goes.
In Bahir Dar we stumbled across a cheap bed for the couple of nights we spent there and got over our disappointment with Giorgio by spending a nice and sunny afternoon and evening at a few different terrace restaurants. We have really started to get into the whole injera (the Ethiopian national flexi-pancake-like bread with which, or more literally on which, all local food is served) thing by now, especially after the discovery of the best beer to go with it, Meta.
We also booked ourselves on a small tour around Lake Tana and its monasteries, and had a happy reunion with Cole and Amanda the next morning right before embarking on the tour. They had successfully survived the Simiens, of which I'm still jealous, and arrived to Bahir Dar on the same night as we had. We spent another sunny day out on the lake as part of our different tours but arranged to meet up later. The trip to the lake showed the true side of tourists' interests as none of the people in our boat really cared to see more monasteries than one (there are about 15 in total) and preferred to go scout out for hippos at the outlet of the Blue Nile which is found at the southeastern corner of the lake. And what do you know: I got to the see my two first hippos!
The evening was good fun with local Awash wine (the yellow-label used mainly for cooking), me and Amanda playing DJs and jamming to various tunes (including the shared interest for Bo Kaspers Orkester, the Ark and Stevie Wonder among others) to the annoyance of the boys, injera for dinner, some more wine and a round of ouzo shots, Jungle Shit (as re-christened by Amanda), yet another bottle of wine (this one red and hunted down by the boys at about 2am while swerving away from suggestions of prostitutes), and T and I eventually catching our minibus to Addis Ababa at 4am in a rather more than tipsy state.
Our tipple of choice
Additional information to be declared in this post: our names to be given to hassling kids asking for them all the time from hereon are Poncho Bordel for T and Trumpet Mochacchino for the undersigned. Thanks for the inspiration go to Muffin Rodriguez and Fairydust Bananahammock.
N.B. Trumpet's camera was stolen during the said minibus ride to Addis for which reason there are no scenic pictures to be published for this post. Trumpet will try and kick Poncho in the balls to take more pictures in the future in order to preserve the visual quality of this blog.
It was a long time coming! Cole finally triumphs at Jungle Speed
First things first - Giorgio turned out to be a crook. It shouldn't come as that much of a surprise really that at some stage our luck with people would turn, and I think Gonder is where this happened, not that we noticed until the last day there.
On our last full day in Gonder I decided to make sure I didn't have malaria before setting off on the road again (as I had been having a pretty awful flu for the last two week or so), and so we made our way to the local clinic for the second time during our visit in the town. This time we went to a different clinic from the one Giorgio took us to though, and ended up paying 35birr for my visit and lab test whereas last time in the other place we had paid 100birr each for just doctor's consultation alone. Thankfully at least the test result was negative and I was reassured enough by the fact that there should not be any worry even if I would happen to collapse so we eventually made our plans to leave Gonder for Bahir Dar. In his friendly way Giorgio helped us with the travel arrangements which turned out to be effectively the second stitch-up he would impose on us. We got our minibus tickets through a broker he knew and were promised "a good price, not faranji price!" of 150birr per head. On the minibus the next day we came across some kind of an official list of minibus and bus fares for different distances inside Ethiopia (which we of course photographed straight away) with the referenced price of only 45birr per person for our said trip. So we lost some there too.
And upon us discovering all of this Giorgio lost our respect. Not for the reason we would not understand why people here operate in the way they do and accept that to an extent as part of local way of life, but for the reason we had asked him blatantly flat out about the price being the right one and trusted his word after the two weeks we spent hanging around with him with no obvious trace of him trying to benefit from us in any way. Quite the opposite, he had actually helped us on many small occasions and bargained for our share too - also not forgetting his hospitable invite to his house for peanut tea on the last night as I was still not feeling too good. After all, he could have just told us that we simply will end up paying faranji price because that's the way it goes.
In Bahir Dar we stumbled across a cheap bed for the couple of nights we spent there and got over our disappointment with Giorgio by spending a nice and sunny afternoon and evening at a few different terrace restaurants. We have really started to get into the whole injera (the Ethiopian national flexi-pancake-like bread with which, or more literally on which, all local food is served) thing by now, especially after the discovery of the best beer to go with it, Meta.
We also booked ourselves on a small tour around Lake Tana and its monasteries, and had a happy reunion with Cole and Amanda the next morning right before embarking on the tour. They had successfully survived the Simiens, of which I'm still jealous, and arrived to Bahir Dar on the same night as we had. We spent another sunny day out on the lake as part of our different tours but arranged to meet up later. The trip to the lake showed the true side of tourists' interests as none of the people in our boat really cared to see more monasteries than one (there are about 15 in total) and preferred to go scout out for hippos at the outlet of the Blue Nile which is found at the southeastern corner of the lake. And what do you know: I got to the see my two first hippos!
The evening was good fun with local Awash wine (the yellow-label used mainly for cooking), me and Amanda playing DJs and jamming to various tunes (including the shared interest for Bo Kaspers Orkester, the Ark and Stevie Wonder among others) to the annoyance of the boys, injera for dinner, some more wine and a round of ouzo shots, Jungle Shit (as re-christened by Amanda), yet another bottle of wine (this one red and hunted down by the boys at about 2am while swerving away from suggestions of prostitutes), and T and I eventually catching our minibus to Addis Ababa at 4am in a rather more than tipsy state.
Our tipple of choiceAdditional information to be declared in this post: our names to be given to hassling kids asking for them all the time from hereon are Poncho Bordel for T and Trumpet Mochacchino for the undersigned. Thanks for the inspiration go to Muffin Rodriguez and Fairydust Bananahammock.
N.B. Trumpet's camera was stolen during the said minibus ride to Addis for which reason there are no scenic pictures to be published for this post. Trumpet will try and kick Poncho in the balls to take more pictures in the future in order to preserve the visual quality of this blog.
It was a long time coming! Cole finally triumphs at Jungle SpeedThursday 17 December 2009
Here today, Gonder morrow
25th November-11th December 2009 - Days 58-74 - Gonder, Ethiopia
It's been an up-and-down few weeks, during which we have had many experiences and met many people. Most important of all these was Giorgio, an enthusiastic, talkative, friendly guy, invariably dressed in baggy gangsta jeans. He worked as a drummer in a local nightclub, which he invited us to one evening and where some of our group made fools of themselves in wonderful (and photographed) style.
Giorgio (right). Giorgio's friend (left).
Who let the Qat out of the bag?
One of the days that we bumped into Giorgio was a Sunday, his only day off work. This could mean only one thing - it's qat day! Qat is some kind of stimulant grown in the hills of Ethiopia and Kenya and exported to Somalia and Djibouti where it is responsible for enormous economic damage as men sit and chew the leaf all afternoon instead of working. Ethiopia seems less badly affected but people still like to have a good munch of the stuff. We partook in this activity just when we were starting to feel slightly ill ("It will make you better, I am sure of it!") and decided that it was a make-or-break day. Either we'd get better or we'd go downhill. As I crawled back to the Belegez feeling rough and my mouth covered in ulcers, it became clear that, at least for me, it was break rather than make.
Qat itself tastes slightly bitter and doesn't really have much of an effect at the beginning. It comes in bags (of 50 grams, in our case) and you rip the leaves off the stalks and mash them up with your teeth. Eventually the leaf disintegrates to become small pieces of leaf and juice - the juice is swallowed and the small pieces of leaf remain stuck between your teeth where they become irritating enough that you take another leaf or 3. Eventually, you end up in a state of slight euphoria and total concentration with enormous pupils and a total inability to sleep. This concentration led M to read about Ethiopia's endemic birds throughout the night (a subject she had no previous interest in) and me to repeatedly play a game of golf on my mobile (which I normally have very little patience for). For the next 4 days, ulcers in my mouth made it painful to eat anything at all, and M's flu symptoms got worse.
Would I do it again? Probably. Would I have 3 bags of the stuff next time? Probably not.
The Debark Adventure
Day 70 saw a sense of renewed optimism and energy. We had bumped into Canadian Cole, an uncanny George Michael lookalike and Swedish Amanda, an uncannily typical-looking Swede. They had met in Nairobi and bickered at each other ever since. They seemed to enjoy each other's company though, and we enjoyed theirs as we went around Gonder's "Royal Enclosure" from its days as Ethiopia's capital, and the Debre Berhan Selassie church which was impressively decorated, but full of European tourists toting zoom lenses the size of small rocket launchers. Finally, beers were taken at the Goha Hotel terrace, on a hill above Gonder. Thus was formed the Simien Mountains 4-day-trek team!
It's been an up-and-down few weeks, during which we have had many experiences and met many people. Most important of all these was Giorgio, an enthusiastic, talkative, friendly guy, invariably dressed in baggy gangsta jeans. He worked as a drummer in a local nightclub, which he invited us to one evening and where some of our group made fools of themselves in wonderful (and photographed) style.
Grant weaves some of that Saffer magic...
We bump into Giorgio most days as he wanders around town, meeting and greeting friends. For most of our time in Gonder, this meant our excursions to restaurants or shops before crawling back to the Belegez Pension, our home for the last two weeks, under the haze of illness. On one of these days Giorgio was concerned enough that his promises each day were not being fulfilled ("You will be better tomorrow, I am sure of it! I will pray for you!") and dragged us off to the doctor. After a consultation for both of us and an enormous needle full of painkiller into the butt for me, we headed back to bed with various medicines and still not sure of what ailment we were affected by. M didn't manage to work out what she had and I did manage to unearth that I had an "infection". After a course of medicine I'm up and about again while M is still in bed with flu-like symptoms. Well... 50% success rate isn't bad is it...?
Giorgio (right). Giorgio's friend (left).Who let the Qat out of the bag?
One of the days that we bumped into Giorgio was a Sunday, his only day off work. This could mean only one thing - it's qat day! Qat is some kind of stimulant grown in the hills of Ethiopia and Kenya and exported to Somalia and Djibouti where it is responsible for enormous economic damage as men sit and chew the leaf all afternoon instead of working. Ethiopia seems less badly affected but people still like to have a good munch of the stuff. We partook in this activity just when we were starting to feel slightly ill ("It will make you better, I am sure of it!") and decided that it was a make-or-break day. Either we'd get better or we'd go downhill. As I crawled back to the Belegez feeling rough and my mouth covered in ulcers, it became clear that, at least for me, it was break rather than make.
Qat itself tastes slightly bitter and doesn't really have much of an effect at the beginning. It comes in bags (of 50 grams, in our case) and you rip the leaves off the stalks and mash them up with your teeth. Eventually the leaf disintegrates to become small pieces of leaf and juice - the juice is swallowed and the small pieces of leaf remain stuck between your teeth where they become irritating enough that you take another leaf or 3. Eventually, you end up in a state of slight euphoria and total concentration with enormous pupils and a total inability to sleep. This concentration led M to read about Ethiopia's endemic birds throughout the night (a subject she had no previous interest in) and me to repeatedly play a game of golf on my mobile (which I normally have very little patience for). For the next 4 days, ulcers in my mouth made it painful to eat anything at all, and M's flu symptoms got worse.
Would I do it again? Probably. Would I have 3 bags of the stuff next time? Probably not.
The Debark Adventure
Day 70 saw a sense of renewed optimism and energy. We had bumped into Canadian Cole, an uncanny George Michael lookalike and Swedish Amanda, an uncannily typical-looking Swede. They had met in Nairobi and bickered at each other ever since. They seemed to enjoy each other's company though, and we enjoyed theirs as we went around Gonder's "Royal Enclosure" from its days as Ethiopia's capital, and the Debre Berhan Selassie church which was impressively decorated, but full of European tourists toting zoom lenses the size of small rocket launchers. Finally, beers were taken at the Goha Hotel terrace, on a hill above Gonder. Thus was formed the Simien Mountains 4-day-trek team!
Fasiladas Castle - proof that we're not only getting sick and drinking beer, but that we're also being cultural.
The "Commanding View of the City" from Goha Hotel
We stocked up on supplies, got each other out of bed at 7am and trekked off to Gonder bus station and hit the road for the 100km (6 hours) ride to Debark along a road/path which was made largely of dust and potholes. That same evening, the trek was arranged - park fees were paid, tents were rented, we met our scout (who is compulsory in the park and wanders around holding a large gun in case something untoward were to happen) and went to eat. Cole and I had some beers later in the evening and we arranged to wake up again at 6am, ready to get going early.
M's bugs, however, were having none of this and she wasn't up for any trekking. Rather than stay in Debark where the altitude makes it pretty cold, I dragged her into a truck and we returned Gonder and to the Belegez. This little adventure cost us 800 birr, a phone (which disappeared somewhere) and a pashmina (which was left in the hotel). Pretty good going, even by our high standards!
What next?
Gonder is nice enough - an old-looking town with an attractive setting - but we've seen a lot of it and we're just waiting for an improvement in the health situation before we head off. For a reason that, again, I haven't managed to work out, M got a 2 month visa for Ethiopia while I only got one month and this means that we have to be in Addis Ababa this weekend for me to get it extended. After that we've rehashed our plans to go to Djibouti and Somaliland, hopefully in a more active state.
By way of compensation for making everyone wait for ages and then giving a very uninspiring post, I present a selection of our favourite Ethiopian menus.
Fancy some Egg Bread Craps in your Meat Louf?
Ah, Special Roosted Decide Meat!! My favourite!
They really ARE everywhere...
Thursday 3 December 2009
"Beer eh? Let's give it a go..."
23th-24th November 2009 – Days 56-57 – Gallabat , Sudan /Metemma and Gonder , Ethiopia 
Change of scenery #1: Greenness!
The plan was simple – get to the border, cross over, get as far as possible on the other side. As always, the plan didn’t come off as it should. For once though, it wasn’t entirely down to our own incompetence! On the bus on the way down we got a message from the South Africans – “Grant sick, too weak to cycle, we’re stuck at the border”. Hoping that was it was nothing serious, we found them at a rustic funduk where it seemed he’d gone down with malaria. We weren’t going to leave them behind so we stayed in Gallabat for a few hours, helping them through the somewhat complicated and typically Sudanese overly bureaucratic immigration and to carry their stuff through to the Ethiopian side. After being shunted from office to office on the Sudanese side we were relieved to find that entering
We were by this point surrounded by the usual border-town crowd of guides and hangers-on who informed us that there would be a bus to Gonder at 6am next day, and took us to a bar (where they eventually declared they had no money and we paid for their beers) and to a place to stay, where we agreed a price for the rooms. When darkness fell, the manager came along and announced that the price we had agreed was wrong, and an argument started while Grant was busy expiring in his room. We didn’t want to judge any country from a border town but with these experiences compared to the ones we had in
Change of scenery #1: Greenness!Metemma is a long, dusty road lined with shacks, restaurants serving beer and the Ethiopian staple injera, which is a type of large sour pancake which doubles as knife, fork and spoon all in one. An injera comes with beans or meat piled on top – you rip off a piece of injera, scoop up the meat or the beans with it, and eat the result. With good tactics, you finish the injera and the topping at the same time. After being charged a reasonable price for the injera we decided not the push our luck and headed back to sleep, ready to rise at 5.30 next morning.
And rise at 5.30am we did (or at least nearly)! By 6am we were at the bus station, Grant and Bast having decided to put their bikes on the roof for this stretch of the journey to make sure that Grant could get to a hospital for testing as soon as possible. After protracted and friendly negotiations with the driver about how much the bikes would cost (“Listen my man, I’m not going to talk to you if you continue acting like a prick”) we finally set off into a new world – a green, mountainous world where it was early 2002, the sun reached its apex at 6 in the evening (according to the Ethiopian calendar and clock respectively) and we couldn’t read anything. After 2 months learning to read Arabic, we were back to square one – Amharic is a strange looking language indeed! The bus journey took on a familiar pattern though – people piled on to fill every possible space, loud Ethiopian pop music blared out from the speakers, and M kept falling asleep in improbable positions.
Change of scenery #2: Mountains!
Arriving at Gonder, we bumped into the Belgians from Khartoum who told us about a place to stay a little uphill from the town centre and we went there only to meet Grega, Boris and Josko, the Slovenian bikers we had met in Khartoum Sudan , Ethiopia
Change of scenery #3: no comment
Change of scenery #3: no commentA Hasty Escape...
20th-22nd November 2009 – Days 53-55 – Khartoum to Gedaref , Sudan 
Just a highly comical picture!
Goodbye Sudan - we'll be back!
Just a highly comical picture!In a rare display of discipline, we managed to get up early (read: reasonably early) and headed off to the bus station, where we quickly discovered that we indeed didn’t have enough money to go to Kassala so we headed off on the cheapest bus possible (found with the friendly help of yet another Sudanese happy to help out a khawaja for nothing) and trundled off to Gedaref, the closest town of any size at all to the only open border crossing between Sudan and Ethiopia. It’s a classic border town with plenty of business, plenty of rip-offs and nothing much of interest. We checked into a cheap hotel and enjoyed the last of Sudanese hospitality, unsure of what to expect from
The #1 enduring memory of Sudan - the tea ladies who provided us with so much...
Not much happened in Gedaref – a few bites to eat, a bit of walking around, lots of lazing. The room was hot enough to stop us sleeping until we passed out early in the morning and this contributed to yet another spectacular failure to wake up in time to get to Ethiopia, so we had another enforced night in Sudan. Hurrah! The next day featured equally small amounts of activity and a trip to a hotel restaurant to celebrate our last night in
After another largely unsuccessful night, where the heat of the room combined with an electricity cut which eliminated the overhead fan, we slept in pools of our own sweat for a few hours and finally got up on time to head to the Gallabat/Metemma crossing. Very exciting.
Goodbye Sudan - we'll be back!More pyramids, more aimless walking...
17th November 2009 – Day 50 – INTERMISSION! – Bajarawiya , Sudan 
The juice man.
Toplessness is usually not a bad thing, but in this case... 
Another pyramids and sunset picture but this time not a soul in sight!
We had been talking about seeing the Pyramids on the Sudanese side ever since we had seen the ones in
The juice man.On the road we also made a couple of lengthy stops which were mostly attributable to us being khawajas and therefore our papers’ being checked extensively. Our initial plan had been to get to the pyramids in the early afternoon, in good time to have a walk about and set up camp outside in the desert before sunset. Us being us and leaving later than would have been ideal, and Africa being Africa and making us wait around on the road, we got there only an hour before sunset and only had time for a quick stroll before darkness fell upon us.
The pyramids are situated right next to the Atbara-Khartoum highway near the
Toplessness is usually not a bad thing, but in this case... There are two clusters of pyramids at Bajarawiya, at walking distance from each other. We only saw the ones closer to the highway which counts more pyramids in numbers than the other cluster. The pyramids here were partially very well preserved and for the parts that weren’t, they had been restored to some extent. Their shape is different from the ones found in
After spending our precious sunlight minutes, we hesitated on whether it was actually that much of a good idea for T and I to camp out here in just our sleeping bags without a tent and with time pressure to get travel permits to the eastern parts of the country from Khartoum quickly enough still before our visas would run out. As we couldn’t make up our minds there and then, we all headed off back towards the highway to see whether there would be some food available at one of the roadside stops and whether we could hitch a lift back to
Another pyramids and sunset picture but this time not a soul in sight!The fun began for me and T as we decided to take our shot at getting a lift back and parted ways with Sean who headed back to camp by the pyramids. We started walking towards the next lights that we could see in the distance, waving our arm out as any vehicles passed us by and remembering that there was at least one petrol station we had passed on the way here and possibly some other roadside restaurants. The police checkpoint didn’t seem to be far either, to our recollection. So we walked about a kilometre to the first lights – the presumed petrol station. We walked a few kilometres further, passing a dead donkey and loads of exploded rubber tyres by the side of the road in peaceful co-existence – indeed a roadside restaurant. We hadn’t managed to wave anyone down by the side of the road as most of the vehicles were huge trucks in full load and with no space in the cab. We therefore stopped for another beverage with a sneaky plan to inquire for anyone going to
It was now past 10pm so there would not be many private vehicles on the roads anymore at this time. We asked one more Hilux that was parked at the restaurant, but as it was full already we walked back to the side of the road and put our arms out again. One, two, three, four trucks went by. A couple of private minivans that didn’t stop. A truck-bus stopped and we asked for our chances but heard that we’d cause trouble at the police checkpoint. Another truck, and behind it the saving grace: a big vehicle with very dim lights making it hard to tell what type of vehicle it was. It turned out to be a be a very comfortable bus heading back to Khartoum between services with a couple of very friendly driver guys and apparently the lady friend of one of them inside. The guys promised to take us onboard and we agreed to pay SP15 for the ride each. This included air-conditioning, reading lights, bottled water on the bus, a stop for some shai on the way and the whole back of the bus to ourselves with plenty of space to stretch out!
We were woken up by the driver at 2am when the bus had arrived to Bahri. We got out half-asleep but happy to be back in the big K. Last leg of the race still involved getting back to the sailing club. We asked a lone wanderer on the street for the way to the bridge over to the right side of the
Friday 27 November 2009
Khartoum Characters
12th-19th November 2009 – Days 45-52 – Khartoum , Sudan 
The Nile snakes its way through Khartoum, preventing the khawajas from getting utterly lost
Kitchener's boat/Khawaja dormitory
SU-DAN! SU-DAN! The Merreikh stadium is packed to the rafters
In this big African city, we did big African city things – wandering the streets, going to cafes, partaking in shisha evenings, buying luxury items like toilet paper and shower gel and even taking advantage of some cafes’ free WiFi! It was quite a shock to suddenly find ourselves in situations like this after spending time in northern Sudan, yet Khartoum was also unmistakeably similar to her smaller sisters we visited on the way down. The streets were busier, yet looked the same. The buildings, aside from a few 5-star hotels, the presidential palace and the like, looked the same. And the people, despite having more of a big city busy-busy way about them, were the same. We were greeted, welcomed, and our health enquired about on every street corner. The city is really three cities in one – Bahri, where we arrived,
The Nile snakes its way through Khartoum, preventing the khawajas from getting utterly lostOne landmark was the Nile (or rather two landmarks – the Blue Nile flows into Sudan from Ethiopia and the White Nile from Uganda, and they meet in Khartoum) and we decided to move to the Blue Nile Sailing Club where a night was half the price we had been paying in the hotel and, interestingly, spent on pillows aboard Gunboat Melik, which was last pressed into military action during General Kitchener’s campaign against the Mahdi Army over a century ago. One of the more interesting places we’ve slept, certainly. Just down the road was the presidential palace, and in another intriguing piece of legislation it was forbidden to walk in the road between it and the Nile, meaning that drivers wouldn’t have to worry about pedestrians while they admired the front of the palace, but people without cars were forced to take a long detour to get to the other side. Apparently this regulation had been in place since the British ruled
Kitchener's boat/Khawaja dormitory
SU-DAN! SU-DAN! The Merreikh stadium is packed to the raftersOur final moment of excitement came with the Algeria-Egypt playoff which was held in
We never really did find the soul of
Sudan, the real land of smiles
10th-11th November 2009 – Days 43-44 – Atbara, Sudan
We didn’t really see much of Atbara, at least not in the daylight. Instead, we definitely found more of the Sudanese warmth and friendliness that T mentioned before.
Upon arrival to Atbara bus station – or the dusty plant of land with loads of Toyota Hiluxes of all possible upgrades and minibuses the shape of large yoghurt pots that classifies as a transport station in Africa – we had mixed feelings about where to head off to. Atbara seemed like another one of the towns we’d seen on our way south so far, just slightly more crowded and visibly dirtier with litter scattered blatantly on the streets instead of just in ditches and on street corners like in the northern towns. The general layout was still the same and it wasn’t hard to find refuge at one of the many tea stands that the veiled women tend everywhere here. So I took the lead and ordered us some shai and jabbana (local coffee flavoured with ginger, cardamom and sometimes cinnamon as well) while trying to get T to drag his corpse around the corner from where he had halted with our bags.
We sat and sipped our drinks away, and were trying to locate ourselves on the map with the help of my minicompass (one I got as part of a farewell gift from colleagues - thanks guys, it has come in handy on several occasions!!) at the same time replying to the friendly chat initiated by the locals at the same stand. Next thing we noticed was a determined, well-framed Sudanese guy in black shades and a clean tidy shirt walking up to the stand and giving the tea lady some money for our drinks. As he sat down next to us, he introduced himself as “the king around here”. We tried to insinuate that it was ok for us to pay for our own drinks but he wouldn’t have any of it so we just settled to thanking him. The man offered us some jabbana to taste and noticed that I was actually already having the same thing. He nodded deeply in appreciation and offered us both some more from his own pot. Less than a couple of minutes later, another skinnier guy in a dark blue shirt with a kind smile on his face also sat down next to us. They both asked us about why we were in Atbara and about our trip in general and where we are from, as is the habit to do to khawajas (=westerners) here. They told us what they were doing in Atbara and about their work and where they are from, as it is a courtesy to reply to khawajas’ questions too. They are both engineers working at a building site of a new hospital not far from the tea stand, but are actually from Khartoum and not from Atbara. Soon they found out that we didn’t yet have a place to stay in for the night and insisted that we come to their place, as they live together. T and I looked at each other for a brief second before nodding eagerly at this lovely sign of hospitality. The matter was settled. This is how we met our new friends Mohamed “the King” and Waleed.
The guys really took us around Atbara after that. First, we went to see the building site of the hospital as the working day had not finished for them yet, and also met their boss, the main consultant set to supervise the project. Waleed was in charge of the telecommunications installations at the hospital and took us on a tour of the whole site and also to test the public announcement system. T ordered one of Mohamed’s and Waleed’s friends from downstairs to urgently come and bring some Fanta to the thirsty foreigners on the 2nd floor. There was clearly some work to be done for Waleed still, as T’s voice echoed all around the site but yet we never got our Fantas. In general, the work seemed to be well on its way and the facilities looked modern. When fully built, the hospital will have three big labs, two big surgical operation rooms, around five patient rooms per floor, a restaurant on the top floor and a veranda on the 1st floor for the patients in order for them to lounge and get some fresh air. All the main infrastructure installations had now nearly been finished and presumably the medical equipment would be brought in next. The boss consultant took us into his air-conditioned office for a lengthy chat about Sudan and treated us for some afternoon coffee and shisha at a nearby café still well within the working hours. It was critical that we drive the 200m distance to and back from the café in the boss’ Camry, as it had air-conditioning after all.
Second, after the working day had finished for the guys, Waleed took us to the shop and bought us some food and drinks before we headed back to their house in a rickshaw. We were not allowed to pay for any of this. Mohamed had already got back by the time we got to the house. We chilled for a couple of hours while the guys taught us some more Arabic and told us stories about Sudanese everyday life and the football culture. Mohamed, especially, shined out in this category and enlightened us about the teams in Khartoum: Merreikh, the government team, bad while Hilal, currently top of the league, good. You gotta believe the King!
Third, we wanted to go and see Atbara a bit more so the guys volunteered to come and escort us around. We got a couple of rickshaws around town, both sides of the railway track and to the bank of the Nile, went to the football stadium to see a bit of the training session of the local team al-Amal Atbara (who Mohamed knew half of), and finally had a big meal and some shisha and tea before heading back to the house. Again, we were not allowed to pay for anything, not even for the teas. Waleed also ran off at some point and came back with a local SIM card for which he would not take money for, even if we insisted very hard.
The bridge over the Nile. "No photos!" the guys said. "So come over here and hide, take it from here..."
In the late evening back at the house we chilled some more and the guys both called their girlfriends, who we got a chance to exchange a few words with over the phone as well. We exchanged contact details, I had a shower and T gave the guys the photos from our cameras that we had been taking over the day. Both of the guys went to sleep in the other room for the night, after putting up a cheeky show of how they want to give us some time alone in the bedroom. I scanned the corners of the room for hidden cameras at this point, which caused great amusement to Waleed, the cheekier one of the two. I have strong belief that any material of the nightly actions has not been recorded.
In the morning we slept late with T again. So late it caused Waleed to be late from work, as the poor man had been waiting for us to wake up so that he can get to his wardrobe in the room we were sleeping in. I felt absolutely awful to learn this. Seems, however, that we were good enough excuse to be late from work, as to our knowledge he did not get sacked – even if the big boss had told us earlier that “there’s two reasons not to come to work: 1) you’re dead and 2) you don’t come the next day”. Waleed must be a good worker.
The guys even took us to the bus station together on their way to work and helped us get some tickets to Khartoum. We shared a final jabbana-moment with them at the station (again not spending a single Sudanese Pound of our own), meeting their preferred tea ladies of the place. Everyone here has their own favourite in this regard. We said our fond goodbyes to these incredibly friendly faces and agreed to meet them in Khartoum later in the week, as they were heading back there too, with work finished for their part of the hospital project. There was also a certain Sudan-Benin football game scheduled for the following Saturday so we promised to be in touch concerning hitting the stadium together.
On the way to Khartoum, they both called us at least four times just to make sure we were getting to our destination all good and well and only stopped calling when they could hear the taxi drivers of Khartoum haggling over us on the background.
Waleed, M and Mohamed chillin' near the big bus with no wheels
Can it get more hospitable than this? This post is dedicated to you, Mohamed and Waleed, if you ever stumble across this blog. Many great thanks for everything.
We didn’t really see much of Atbara, at least not in the daylight. Instead, we definitely found more of the Sudanese warmth and friendliness that T mentioned before.
Upon arrival to Atbara bus station – or the dusty plant of land with loads of Toyota Hiluxes of all possible upgrades and minibuses the shape of large yoghurt pots that classifies as a transport station in Africa – we had mixed feelings about where to head off to. Atbara seemed like another one of the towns we’d seen on our way south so far, just slightly more crowded and visibly dirtier with litter scattered blatantly on the streets instead of just in ditches and on street corners like in the northern towns. The general layout was still the same and it wasn’t hard to find refuge at one of the many tea stands that the veiled women tend everywhere here. So I took the lead and ordered us some shai and jabbana (local coffee flavoured with ginger, cardamom and sometimes cinnamon as well) while trying to get T to drag his corpse around the corner from where he had halted with our bags.
We sat and sipped our drinks away, and were trying to locate ourselves on the map with the help of my minicompass (one I got as part of a farewell gift from colleagues - thanks guys, it has come in handy on several occasions!!) at the same time replying to the friendly chat initiated by the locals at the same stand. Next thing we noticed was a determined, well-framed Sudanese guy in black shades and a clean tidy shirt walking up to the stand and giving the tea lady some money for our drinks. As he sat down next to us, he introduced himself as “the king around here”. We tried to insinuate that it was ok for us to pay for our own drinks but he wouldn’t have any of it so we just settled to thanking him. The man offered us some jabbana to taste and noticed that I was actually already having the same thing. He nodded deeply in appreciation and offered us both some more from his own pot. Less than a couple of minutes later, another skinnier guy in a dark blue shirt with a kind smile on his face also sat down next to us. They both asked us about why we were in Atbara and about our trip in general and where we are from, as is the habit to do to khawajas (=westerners) here. They told us what they were doing in Atbara and about their work and where they are from, as it is a courtesy to reply to khawajas’ questions too. They are both engineers working at a building site of a new hospital not far from the tea stand, but are actually from Khartoum and not from Atbara. Soon they found out that we didn’t yet have a place to stay in for the night and insisted that we come to their place, as they live together. T and I looked at each other for a brief second before nodding eagerly at this lovely sign of hospitality. The matter was settled. This is how we met our new friends Mohamed “the King” and Waleed.
The guys really took us around Atbara after that. First, we went to see the building site of the hospital as the working day had not finished for them yet, and also met their boss, the main consultant set to supervise the project. Waleed was in charge of the telecommunications installations at the hospital and took us on a tour of the whole site and also to test the public announcement system. T ordered one of Mohamed’s and Waleed’s friends from downstairs to urgently come and bring some Fanta to the thirsty foreigners on the 2nd floor. There was clearly some work to be done for Waleed still, as T’s voice echoed all around the site but yet we never got our Fantas. In general, the work seemed to be well on its way and the facilities looked modern. When fully built, the hospital will have three big labs, two big surgical operation rooms, around five patient rooms per floor, a restaurant on the top floor and a veranda on the 1st floor for the patients in order for them to lounge and get some fresh air. All the main infrastructure installations had now nearly been finished and presumably the medical equipment would be brought in next. The boss consultant took us into his air-conditioned office for a lengthy chat about Sudan and treated us for some afternoon coffee and shisha at a nearby café still well within the working hours. It was critical that we drive the 200m distance to and back from the café in the boss’ Camry, as it had air-conditioning after all.
Second, after the working day had finished for the guys, Waleed took us to the shop and bought us some food and drinks before we headed back to their house in a rickshaw. We were not allowed to pay for any of this. Mohamed had already got back by the time we got to the house. We chilled for a couple of hours while the guys taught us some more Arabic and told us stories about Sudanese everyday life and the football culture. Mohamed, especially, shined out in this category and enlightened us about the teams in Khartoum: Merreikh, the government team, bad while Hilal, currently top of the league, good. You gotta believe the King!
Third, we wanted to go and see Atbara a bit more so the guys volunteered to come and escort us around. We got a couple of rickshaws around town, both sides of the railway track and to the bank of the Nile, went to the football stadium to see a bit of the training session of the local team al-Amal Atbara (who Mohamed knew half of), and finally had a big meal and some shisha and tea before heading back to the house. Again, we were not allowed to pay for anything, not even for the teas. Waleed also ran off at some point and came back with a local SIM card for which he would not take money for, even if we insisted very hard.
The bridge over the Nile. "No photos!" the guys said. "So come over here and hide, take it from here..."In the late evening back at the house we chilled some more and the guys both called their girlfriends, who we got a chance to exchange a few words with over the phone as well. We exchanged contact details, I had a shower and T gave the guys the photos from our cameras that we had been taking over the day. Both of the guys went to sleep in the other room for the night, after putting up a cheeky show of how they want to give us some time alone in the bedroom. I scanned the corners of the room for hidden cameras at this point, which caused great amusement to Waleed, the cheekier one of the two. I have strong belief that any material of the nightly actions has not been recorded.
In the morning we slept late with T again. So late it caused Waleed to be late from work, as the poor man had been waiting for us to wake up so that he can get to his wardrobe in the room we were sleeping in. I felt absolutely awful to learn this. Seems, however, that we were good enough excuse to be late from work, as to our knowledge he did not get sacked – even if the big boss had told us earlier that “there’s two reasons not to come to work: 1) you’re dead and 2) you don’t come the next day”. Waleed must be a good worker.
The guys even took us to the bus station together on their way to work and helped us get some tickets to Khartoum. We shared a final jabbana-moment with them at the station (again not spending a single Sudanese Pound of our own), meeting their preferred tea ladies of the place. Everyone here has their own favourite in this regard. We said our fond goodbyes to these incredibly friendly faces and agreed to meet them in Khartoum later in the week, as they were heading back there too, with work finished for their part of the hospital project. There was also a certain Sudan-Benin football game scheduled for the following Saturday so we promised to be in touch concerning hitting the stadium together.
On the way to Khartoum, they both called us at least four times just to make sure we were getting to our destination all good and well and only stopped calling when they could hear the taxi drivers of Khartoum haggling over us on the background.
Waleed, M and Mohamed chillin' near the big bus with no wheelsCan it get more hospitable than this? This post is dedicated to you, Mohamed and Waleed, if you ever stumble across this blog. Many great thanks for everything.
Monday 16 November 2009
"A plague on both your feet!"
7th-9th November 2009 – Days 40-42 – Karima, Sudan
I like Karima. Not for any particular reason, but for the same reason that I liked Dongola. It’s got that relaxed feel about it that I’ve only ever felt in the Sahara. When people are walking they walk slowly, and they will always give the Khawaja (foreigner) a smile as they walk past. There are few cars, but those that do drive past will normally have a passenger who leans out the window with a smile and a wave. People lounging around in the midday shade will call out a greeting as you walk past. Unlike in Egypt, though, you actually interpret it as a greeting rather than the beginning of a sales pitch, and it’s always a pleasure to return a smile or a wave. Much like Dongola, Karima has sandy streets and the occasional tarmac one skirted by sand “pavements”, hugs the Nile and is surrounded by fields and palm trees resisting any encroachment from the desert with attacks it from all sides. The walk from the souq where we were left by the bus wasn’t without incident – M twisted her ankle while looking at the map to find out where we should be heading and so we’re having an enforced few days here while it gets nursed back to health.
What human rights?? Brutal abuse of the physically challenged I say.
Karima is a typical north Sudanese town, nice to walk around, drenched in sunshine and buzzing with people at any time of day except between midday and 3pm, when everyone (including shopkeepers, restaurant owners and so on) retreats to the shade of their homes for a nap. Like many typical towns, it has its own little attractions and abnormalities too – Karima, unlike other towns we’ve passed, has a 150$-a-night boutique hotel, the Nubian Rest House, run by an Italian woman. We decided to aim for a spot of luxury by going there for a meal on the second night’s evening – a four course meal featuring such luxuries as spaghetti, mortadella, Italian ice cream and other things which totally remove the visitor from the surrounding country but still makes a nice change…
Karima also has Jebel Barkal, “the holy mountain”, which was revered by the ancient civilization of Kush. It has an old temple at the foot, another one inside, and a 90m statue of a cobra carved out of the side. More importantly, it’s good fun to climb up. By the third day here, M’s ankle has recovered enough to let her scramble up Jebel Barkal, and her slightly slower pace is matched as my sandals from Cairo have started disintegrating. Well equipped as always, then, we start the ascent of Jebel Barkal, picking our way to the top across rocks and soft patches of sand and after half an hour or so the view from the top is laid out in front of us – the town of Karima to the east, the setting sun to the west, the pyramids of Karima to the north, and the Nile snaking its way past from horizon to horizon. It’s a beautiful sight and we sit and watch while the sun goes down. A guy comes to say hello for a few minutes and as darkness falls, we run down a sandy face of the Jebel, at a much quicker pace than we went up at. Heading back to town we bump into Sean at the bus ticket office, where we get tickets for Atbara tomorrow.
Karima from above
Karima also has El Kurru, a site where there used to be some pyramids. Having visited El Kurru (and walked half of the way back to Karima because there were no more minibuses) we can deliver the following report: it sucks. It looks more like a quarry than an ancient cemetery.
We actually saw this car move!
Introducing ourselves to the locals, El Kurru. Their analysis of their town? "El Kurru UGLY!"
We don’t know much about Atbara but it’s a convenient stopping off place on the way to Khartoum and we decide to spend a night there before heading down to the capital. As seems to happen in these towns, on the walk back to the hotel we are showered in greetings, both from people who we don’t know and people who we do – the cigarette man, the guy in the hat who always says hello as we walk past his shop, the rickshaw driver who gave us a lift a few days ago and still gives us a smile whenever we cross him. It’s another show of Sudanese warmth and friendliness, which hopefully will continue in the bigger cities we’ll see further on.
I like Karima. Not for any particular reason, but for the same reason that I liked Dongola. It’s got that relaxed feel about it that I’ve only ever felt in the Sahara. When people are walking they walk slowly, and they will always give the Khawaja (foreigner) a smile as they walk past. There are few cars, but those that do drive past will normally have a passenger who leans out the window with a smile and a wave. People lounging around in the midday shade will call out a greeting as you walk past. Unlike in Egypt, though, you actually interpret it as a greeting rather than the beginning of a sales pitch, and it’s always a pleasure to return a smile or a wave. Much like Dongola, Karima has sandy streets and the occasional tarmac one skirted by sand “pavements”, hugs the Nile and is surrounded by fields and palm trees resisting any encroachment from the desert with attacks it from all sides. The walk from the souq where we were left by the bus wasn’t without incident – M twisted her ankle while looking at the map to find out where we should be heading and so we’re having an enforced few days here while it gets nursed back to health.
What human rights?? Brutal abuse of the physically challenged I say.Karima is a typical north Sudanese town, nice to walk around, drenched in sunshine and buzzing with people at any time of day except between midday and 3pm, when everyone (including shopkeepers, restaurant owners and so on) retreats to the shade of their homes for a nap. Like many typical towns, it has its own little attractions and abnormalities too – Karima, unlike other towns we’ve passed, has a 150$-a-night boutique hotel, the Nubian Rest House, run by an Italian woman. We decided to aim for a spot of luxury by going there for a meal on the second night’s evening – a four course meal featuring such luxuries as spaghetti, mortadella, Italian ice cream and other things which totally remove the visitor from the surrounding country but still makes a nice change…
Karima also has Jebel Barkal, “the holy mountain”, which was revered by the ancient civilization of Kush. It has an old temple at the foot, another one inside, and a 90m statue of a cobra carved out of the side. More importantly, it’s good fun to climb up. By the third day here, M’s ankle has recovered enough to let her scramble up Jebel Barkal, and her slightly slower pace is matched as my sandals from Cairo have started disintegrating. Well equipped as always, then, we start the ascent of Jebel Barkal, picking our way to the top across rocks and soft patches of sand and after half an hour or so the view from the top is laid out in front of us – the town of Karima to the east, the setting sun to the west, the pyramids of Karima to the north, and the Nile snaking its way past from horizon to horizon. It’s a beautiful sight and we sit and watch while the sun goes down. A guy comes to say hello for a few minutes and as darkness falls, we run down a sandy face of the Jebel, at a much quicker pace than we went up at. Heading back to town we bump into Sean at the bus ticket office, where we get tickets for Atbara tomorrow.
Karima from aboveKarima also has El Kurru, a site where there used to be some pyramids. Having visited El Kurru (and walked half of the way back to Karima because there were no more minibuses) we can deliver the following report: it sucks. It looks more like a quarry than an ancient cemetery.
We actually saw this car move!
Introducing ourselves to the locals, El Kurru. Their analysis of their town? "El Kurru UGLY!"We don’t know much about Atbara but it’s a convenient stopping off place on the way to Khartoum and we decide to spend a night there before heading down to the capital. As seems to happen in these towns, on the walk back to the hotel we are showered in greetings, both from people who we don’t know and people who we do – the cigarette man, the guy in the hat who always says hello as we walk past his shop, the rickshaw driver who gave us a lift a few days ago and still gives us a smile whenever we cross him. It’s another show of Sudanese warmth and friendliness, which hopefully will continue in the bigger cities we’ll see further on.
Kawabunga!!!!!
6th November 2009 – Day 39 – Dongola, Sudan
It’s Friday, a lot of shops are closed, it’s hot, and our little commune lazes in our common room. The atmosphere’s good, Rui has a pair of small speakers and we listen to music while doing odd jobs. The English guys read books, Sean and I are typing away, and M washed clothes while I went off to the bus station to get tickets for Karima tomorrow, where we’ll be heading with Sean. Rui will stay another night while Dixon and Lucas are heading to Khartoum but we’ll probably meet up there next week for the Sudan-Benin football game. The battalion’s last day together, for the moment at least.
With the cooling of the air towards the evening the battalion (minus Lucas who was laid low with troublesome digestive complications) trekked off towards the ruined temple of Kawa, with a vague idea of where to go and no idea how long it would take. After stopping off at a shop for a bottle of cold soda each where the shopkeeper asked us to write our names and nationalities on a sheet of paper he’d titled “My Friends”, we were offered a lift by a guy in a pick-up who we’d seen in the hotel once. He drove us around 5km out of town and dropped us off on the edge of the desert and pointed the way, wished us good luck and did a u-turn back to Dongola. Another great example of the Sudanese attitude towards welcoming their visitors! The walk was slow and hot across a flat sandy plain and we were parched by the time we got to the banks of the Nile without any ruin in sight. Another great example of the Sudanese ability to give directions! I spotted what seemed like a wall off in the distance and we set off. Halfway there, what seemed like the ruin of an old house appeared in the sand – it wasn’t much to look at, but it somehow seemed far better than any of the ruins we saw in Egypt. Out here in the middle of the desert with no touts, other tourists, ticket offices or organization of any sort in sight, we felt less like sheep and more like adventurers discovering an ancient ruin for the first time. An empty Pepsi bottle nestled in the sand put paid to that feeling, but still…
The apparently previously enormous temple of Kawa
Feelin' hot, hot, hot
Continuing on towards the mysterious wall, another wonderful aspect of Sudanese tourist attractions – pieces of Kushite pottery thousands of years old were scattered over the ground along with other pieces of rock and carved objects that had been used for something or other. Dixon, the group’s only geologist, looked with interest at a lot of the objects and we formed educated guesses as to what they could have been. Spear points, balls used as part of a pestle and mortar combination, handles from cups and bottles. We walked slowly, picking up anything of interest and analyzing it before leaving it in the sand ready for the next visitors to wonder over. When we finally got to the ruined temple and found that the walls and pillars had been eroded down to less than half a metre in height it didn’t really matter so much – the walk and the isolation of the place still made it a really interesting place to sit, imagine the past, and listen to the total silence interrupted only by the occasional breath of wind and the slow passing of the Nile a few hundred metres away. As the sun went down, we decided on heading back to the road while there was still a bit of light left for the 6km walk back to Dongola. This being Sudan, of course, the 6km walk never happened as a pick-up stopped in front of us and we were enthusiastically welcomed aboard, swelling the population of the truck to 18 people!
As we opened the door, we heard voices from within the room – it was Sebastian and Grant, the South Africans on bikes who’d caught us up! Not only that but they’d met a South Korean guy who’d moved to Dongola with his wife and three sons (and why not indeed?) and he welcomed us to his house where he and his wife plied us with industrial quantities of hibiscus juice, watermelon, lemonade and cake which the neighbours had baked for them – a real oasis in the desert! M and I were sat up the other end of the table from the hosts with Dixon where we were being terrorized by the kids so we didn’t really get to follow the conversation much at all but we appreciated the gesture all the same… Once again, we slept like babies, ready to be up bright and early for the bus to Karima tomorrow.
The gang at the Korea House (minus one idiot who was taking too long to emerge from the toilet...)
It’s Friday, a lot of shops are closed, it’s hot, and our little commune lazes in our common room. The atmosphere’s good, Rui has a pair of small speakers and we listen to music while doing odd jobs. The English guys read books, Sean and I are typing away, and M washed clothes while I went off to the bus station to get tickets for Karima tomorrow, where we’ll be heading with Sean. Rui will stay another night while Dixon and Lucas are heading to Khartoum but we’ll probably meet up there next week for the Sudan-Benin football game. The battalion’s last day together, for the moment at least.
With the cooling of the air towards the evening the battalion (minus Lucas who was laid low with troublesome digestive complications) trekked off towards the ruined temple of Kawa, with a vague idea of where to go and no idea how long it would take. After stopping off at a shop for a bottle of cold soda each where the shopkeeper asked us to write our names and nationalities on a sheet of paper he’d titled “My Friends”, we were offered a lift by a guy in a pick-up who we’d seen in the hotel once. He drove us around 5km out of town and dropped us off on the edge of the desert and pointed the way, wished us good luck and did a u-turn back to Dongola. Another great example of the Sudanese attitude towards welcoming their visitors! The walk was slow and hot across a flat sandy plain and we were parched by the time we got to the banks of the Nile without any ruin in sight. Another great example of the Sudanese ability to give directions! I spotted what seemed like a wall off in the distance and we set off. Halfway there, what seemed like the ruin of an old house appeared in the sand – it wasn’t much to look at, but it somehow seemed far better than any of the ruins we saw in Egypt. Out here in the middle of the desert with no touts, other tourists, ticket offices or organization of any sort in sight, we felt less like sheep and more like adventurers discovering an ancient ruin for the first time. An empty Pepsi bottle nestled in the sand put paid to that feeling, but still…
The apparently previously enormous temple of Kawa
Feelin' hot, hot, hotContinuing on towards the mysterious wall, another wonderful aspect of Sudanese tourist attractions – pieces of Kushite pottery thousands of years old were scattered over the ground along with other pieces of rock and carved objects that had been used for something or other. Dixon, the group’s only geologist, looked with interest at a lot of the objects and we formed educated guesses as to what they could have been. Spear points, balls used as part of a pestle and mortar combination, handles from cups and bottles. We walked slowly, picking up anything of interest and analyzing it before leaving it in the sand ready for the next visitors to wonder over. When we finally got to the ruined temple and found that the walls and pillars had been eroded down to less than half a metre in height it didn’t really matter so much – the walk and the isolation of the place still made it a really interesting place to sit, imagine the past, and listen to the total silence interrupted only by the occasional breath of wind and the slow passing of the Nile a few hundred metres away. As the sun went down, we decided on heading back to the road while there was still a bit of light left for the 6km walk back to Dongola. This being Sudan, of course, the 6km walk never happened as a pick-up stopped in front of us and we were enthusiastically welcomed aboard, swelling the population of the truck to 18 people!
As we opened the door, we heard voices from within the room – it was Sebastian and Grant, the South Africans on bikes who’d caught us up! Not only that but they’d met a South Korean guy who’d moved to Dongola with his wife and three sons (and why not indeed?) and he welcomed us to his house where he and his wife plied us with industrial quantities of hibiscus juice, watermelon, lemonade and cake which the neighbours had baked for them – a real oasis in the desert! M and I were sat up the other end of the table from the hosts with Dixon where we were being terrorized by the kids so we didn’t really get to follow the conversation much at all but we appreciated the gesture all the same… Once again, we slept like babies, ready to be up bright and early for the bus to Karima tomorrow.
The gang at the Korea House (minus one idiot who was taking too long to emerge from the toilet...)
5th November 2009 – Day 38 – Dongola, Sudan
After more truck-bus and service-station adventures (this time with cold Pepsi) with the newly formed gang, we arrive somewhere on the outskirts of Dongola in the delightfully African position of not being able to find out where we are. People, as elsewhere in Sudan so far, are very friendly, wave and greet us but their ability to give directions and distances is far inferior to their friendliness and we start to wonder if we are going in the right direction. We are consistently waved in the same direction though, and our curious column plods on. I can only imagine what people must have been thinking behind their smiles – 4 white guys, one woman and a Chinese guy lugging their backpacks along the main road into town, greeting everyone along their path and asking for the nearest hotel. M remarks that it looks more like a low key military invasion of Dongola, and at one point the group decides to invade a small shop and get supplies (Mirinda and Pepsi). Here, the battalion set up camp and sent an advance reconnaissance party in the shape of Dixon and myself, and we continued, freed from the burden of the backpacks, down sandy streets to eventually find a cheap hotel where the owner offers to put 6 beds in one room for 12€. We head off back to pick up the rest of the battalion. Dixon’s a very enthusiastic character about most things and on this occasion, he asks a boy on a passing donkey-cart for a lift and the boy waves us on without stopping. The impact of two guys on the back of the cart is enough to tip it over and the boy falls off the front but in a show of deftness probably eliminated from the Western gene pool, he manages to take a few steps between cart and still-moving donkey and hops back onto his cart, balancing it perfectly, in one movement. He laughs and we carry on our way.
The cortege marches into town
The Lord Hotel is a novelty in many ways. Firstly, it is next to the first set of traffic lights we have seen in Sudan – it’s strange how quickly you forget that these things exist and their sudden reappearance can even cause mild excitement! The pleasures of travelling, eh… Secondly, the Lord actually has showers. Being naked before going into the shower is also a sensation that is easily forgotten, and I have some kind of sensation that something is missing. M had showered already and drowned the cockroaches which were lurking, and I flicked them into the Turkish toilet that the shower shares floor space with. Fresh and smelling good for the first time (and probably the last time) in many days, we head to the street café outside where the guys are sat with Mohammed.
Mohammed is an English literature teacher at the University of Dongola and his English is a fantastic mix of high-class Windsor and L.A. ghetto and his sometimes complex sentences are interspersed with “dude, no biggie” and “Wassup my man” and tales of appreciation of series like Only Fools and Horses. We suggest that he watches Fawlty Towers, which he hasn’t heard of but shows a great interest in. Eventually he gets up and invites us to his friend’s wedding just round the corner and we happily accept this time. No sooner have we arrived than we are brought chairs and, five minutes later, a guy in a Jalabiyya comes and drags us off to the “dance floor” where we bop around to Arab-Nubian wedding music and congratulate the bride and groom. The guys and the girls dance close to each other but separately. Seeing us guys dancing, a big group of younger guys from the wedding party come and dance with us and egg us on. M’s efforts with the girls are rather less successful and, with the exception of a small girl, the other girls seem either shy or confused, or both, and just stand and stare as M struts her stuff in front of them. Her efforts to wriggle out and join the guys are unsuccessful and she is relieved when the rest of us go to sit down. Mohammed’s a great host, answering our endless questions happily. When he leaves, he agrees to meet us tomorrow evening and take us to a small castle on an island close to Dongola. We stay on a bit longer, get dragged off to dance some more and take our leave, sleeping like babies.
After more truck-bus and service-station adventures (this time with cold Pepsi) with the newly formed gang, we arrive somewhere on the outskirts of Dongola in the delightfully African position of not being able to find out where we are. People, as elsewhere in Sudan so far, are very friendly, wave and greet us but their ability to give directions and distances is far inferior to their friendliness and we start to wonder if we are going in the right direction. We are consistently waved in the same direction though, and our curious column plods on. I can only imagine what people must have been thinking behind their smiles – 4 white guys, one woman and a Chinese guy lugging their backpacks along the main road into town, greeting everyone along their path and asking for the nearest hotel. M remarks that it looks more like a low key military invasion of Dongola, and at one point the group decides to invade a small shop and get supplies (Mirinda and Pepsi). Here, the battalion set up camp and sent an advance reconnaissance party in the shape of Dixon and myself, and we continued, freed from the burden of the backpacks, down sandy streets to eventually find a cheap hotel where the owner offers to put 6 beds in one room for 12€. We head off back to pick up the rest of the battalion. Dixon’s a very enthusiastic character about most things and on this occasion, he asks a boy on a passing donkey-cart for a lift and the boy waves us on without stopping. The impact of two guys on the back of the cart is enough to tip it over and the boy falls off the front but in a show of deftness probably eliminated from the Western gene pool, he manages to take a few steps between cart and still-moving donkey and hops back onto his cart, balancing it perfectly, in one movement. He laughs and we carry on our way.
The cortege marches into townThe Lord Hotel is a novelty in many ways. Firstly, it is next to the first set of traffic lights we have seen in Sudan – it’s strange how quickly you forget that these things exist and their sudden reappearance can even cause mild excitement! The pleasures of travelling, eh… Secondly, the Lord actually has showers. Being naked before going into the shower is also a sensation that is easily forgotten, and I have some kind of sensation that something is missing. M had showered already and drowned the cockroaches which were lurking, and I flicked them into the Turkish toilet that the shower shares floor space with. Fresh and smelling good for the first time (and probably the last time) in many days, we head to the street café outside where the guys are sat with Mohammed.
Mohammed is an English literature teacher at the University of Dongola and his English is a fantastic mix of high-class Windsor and L.A. ghetto and his sometimes complex sentences are interspersed with “dude, no biggie” and “Wassup my man” and tales of appreciation of series like Only Fools and Horses. We suggest that he watches Fawlty Towers, which he hasn’t heard of but shows a great interest in. Eventually he gets up and invites us to his friend’s wedding just round the corner and we happily accept this time. No sooner have we arrived than we are brought chairs and, five minutes later, a guy in a Jalabiyya comes and drags us off to the “dance floor” where we bop around to Arab-Nubian wedding music and congratulate the bride and groom. The guys and the girls dance close to each other but separately. Seeing us guys dancing, a big group of younger guys from the wedding party come and dance with us and egg us on. M’s efforts with the girls are rather less successful and, with the exception of a small girl, the other girls seem either shy or confused, or both, and just stand and stare as M struts her stuff in front of them. Her efforts to wriggle out and join the guys are unsuccessful and she is relieved when the rest of us go to sit down. Mohammed’s a great host, answering our endless questions happily. When he leaves, he agrees to meet us tomorrow evening and take us to a small castle on an island close to Dongola. We stay on a bit longer, get dragged off to dance some more and take our leave, sleeping like babies.
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