6th September 2013

On to Ethiopia 

27^th August 2013

With properly working brakes, we packed up and left the exceptional Wilderbeest Camp.

We did not spent much time in Nairobi but what little we have seen we were leaving a rather charmless city. As we drove through to get out of town the dense smoky traffic was the worst yet. It took us over an hour and a half to get out town, not much fun.

We had a 300km drive in store so we were already a bit later than we intended. There was a modern dual carriageway for the first hundred but that disappeared to a one up one down tarmac road through all the villages.

 Counting the wheels to make sure we have enough

It was pretty chilly during the day which might come as a surprise as we were due to cross the Equator at about midday.  However, when we drove past the huge Mount Kenya we were up at 3,000metres above sea level. Sadly we did not get much of a look at Mt Kenya as it was shrouded in cloud but the country side was lovely, varying from a pleasant agricultural scene, really not so unlike Europe to broad flat plains punctuated by round hills and dark mountains.

We came to the town of Nanyuki which is on the equator. Despite descending rather sharply from over 3000M, ears popping and all that, we were still up at about 1600M above sea level. We then saw a sign for the equator but it was so unremarkable that we both thought that wasn’t it. So after enquiring we turned around and made our way back the spot where the Equator lies. It was still a bit chilly!

An important line to cross

Squeezing past the line

                                                     

The sign is not much to shout about but this is an important point to pass for us so it had to be celebrated.  As we pulled up we were immediately harassed by the obligatory ‘curio sellers’, The whole idea of water draining the other way round south of the equator is a myth. There was a guy marching up and down the road with a jug and a bowl of water to persuade us that it is true that water do drain the other way as you move north of the equator.  He managed to persuade a crowd of Chinese tourists to part with some money for this simple con. So we took some pictures to mark the occasion and moved on.

Dust, saddle sores, banditos and divine intervention!

It may sound a bit like a macaroni western but we had it all in prospect. We had been warned that security on the Moyale Rd to the Ethiopian border was a real problem. In the past the road had to be closed due to gun fights between local tribes, there had been incidents of highway robberies etc. Ping was quite freaked out by the prospect of bandits.  Not me. I was happily fantasising about how I would disarm them single handed, spank their bottoms and send them on their way, throwing their guns into the creek as we depart. (He’s watched too many cowboy films says Ping)

We even had a travelling preacher to make the scene complete.  A very nice American missionary Pastor who whilst zealous, was incredibly accepting of the beliefs of others. As we were leaving, he grabbed my hands and asked so nicely, knowing that I am not a believer, if I would mind very much if he prayed for us. It was a really nice experience. He was making sure that he did all he could to protect us and to ensure that we continue to have a fulfilling life. You know what, you cannot ask for a nicer sentiment than that so I really appreciated it.

We drove on to Isiolo where we stopped and camped for the night. We have to start early the next day as this leg of the drive has to be done in one hit; there is nowhere to stop between these places. After that, we have a similar journey and there had been some warnings of fighting in the area and of the occasional gunpoint robbery! What larks eh!

28th August 2013, second day of journey to Ethiopia

Beautiful roadscene

As we had been informed, the first 150km was a breeze nice smooth tarmac. Then as we passed out of a village, it abruptly came to an end.

End of the road

It was a mixture of rocky, bumpy, unmade road, sometimes those brutal corrugations that we have spoken of so many times.  These things eat into your soul, your bones and your vehicle. Violent bone jarring rhythmic bumps that goes on and on and on, but in some ways, the worst was the return of the red dust -with a vengeance!  Every now and then we see the road surface changes colour to red and we know what will happen. There will be violent irregularities, ruts and big holes; these will be covered by several inches of red dust, so thick that you cannot see the surprises under it. As you crash into the holes or are forced into the ruts, the van steers itself. Plumes of the dust billows up around the van you cannot see through the screen sometimes and you can see dust running in rivulets down the side windows. You have to accept the inevitable that is when you stop for the night the whole van has to be swept and cleaned and then swept and cleaned. Our hair was scarlet as was our clothing.

But hey ho, it’s all part of the adventure!

As we started out the countryside was a deep lush green as might be expected for so near the equator but very soon it turns to golden savannah land and within less than 3 hour driving we are crossing rocky desert and more beautiful mountains.

Henry's Camp

We have stopped for the night at a place called Henry’s Camp, which as a camp is quite basic, though inexpensive. However we have decided to take one of his rooms which is very nice, clean and a hot shower, oh my! Lovely! So for one night only, we will leave the cleaning as we know that we have more of the same the next day, but twice as much as we will have to drive about 300km of similar roads. This time we have the added bonus of the possibility of being robbed which I think is unlikely! There is also just a chance that we may come across inter-tribal fighting which is being reported at the moment.  We shall see.

29^th August 2013

We set off early this morning and left our very nice room in Henry’s Camp. As we set filling up with diesel, we were surprised to see soldiers with guns guarding the petrol stations, banks, buses and so on The guys in the gas station gave us stern warnings but then said it is quite safe and we won’t have any trouble. As expected the road was terrible and we were very cautious when people tried to flag us down, this happens a lot in Africa as most vehicle will take passengers. We were having no passengers today, thank you!

Our dirt road was soon diverted onto the brand new highway that is being built in sections from Nairobi. Our section was 35 km of beautiful brand new tarmac but after that we were back on the most appalling roads for a further 200km which took us an exhausting 8 hours and left our van full of red dust. It is not possible to exaggerate how much there was.

Green and pleasant land

The country side changed again from arid rocky desert to a pleasant green almost English scene It might have been quite pleasant but for the corrugated road causing lumps of my soul to fall by the wayside! Just before we arrived we discovered that someone for really no apparent reason had erected the biggest speed bump unmarked and in the middle of an unpopulated area. Without warning we hit it and the van was thrown into the air so violently that I jarred my back and was unable to move for a moment. The contents of the van were homogenized in an instant and one of the cupboards came adrift. Bugger!

These baboons are unique to this part of Ethiopia

After eight hours of this but with no terrible incidents of being held up at gunpoint, we were quite relieved to arrive at the border with Ethiopia.

We crossed the border with very little hassle changed money and went off to find somewhere to stay. The border town is a bit ‘Wild West’ and we are now back to driving on the right. We had to take a hotel room as we were so exhausted from the drive that we could not face cleaning up the van even enough to sleep in it.

We found ourselves in a sort of raffia beehive which is quite comfortable except that the toilet has no seat and does not flush, the shower had the promise of an electric heater built into the shower head. However, all you get was a cold dribble. I thought this was probably a good thing as the electrics in the whole place was terrifying; on the whole I was happier and safer to have a cold shower.

We ordered food! Not such a smart idea I felt. It was delivered to our room; pieces of unidentifiable meat, probably goat still cooking on a dinky little charcoal burner. I don’t know who did the risk assessment on that.  More importantly the meat was so tough it was impossible to eat, it was accompanied by a kind of spaghetti thing which tasted a little risky. 

Soon we have to find a camp or hotel where we can properly clean and repair the van. This will be a whole day job and I don’t think I want to stay here a moment longer than I have to. When we asked a local Ethiopian where there was a better hotel in town, we were told that we are staying at the best one!

It had been a perfect day and so to bed!

Camel train

After another day of similar roads, though not nearly as bad as the Devils Highway the day before, we arrived at a hotel that allows camping. It was so easy to find and easy to get into, with a bar and a restaurant. It looked pretty good so we set up, and borrowed the gardeners hose to rinse the piles of dust from the van. Unfortunately, the manager arrived. He like many Ethiopians spoke little English but it was apparent that he was pretty narked with us, he kept repeating ‘you pay $5 for water, you pay, pay!!!’ After a few rounds of this the penny dropped and I realised that he was majorly irritated that we had just turned up and got on with washing a commercial vehicle in his yard. We were eventually able to persuade him that we really had to shift some of the dust from the van in order to function. Once he realised this he then repeated ‘You no Pay’ several times.  Although we were on the verge of a major row, I thought that was pretty decent of him.

We had a lovely evening as we met Guy Levine (Mr Gooi – he’s called) who is building a lodge in the Bale mountains, which will soon be the most upmarket tourist resort in Ethiopia. Guy is a retired army officer who has had a long standing relationship with Africa and is hugely experienced. We spent such a nice evening with him and Alistair who is developing specialist tours for this part of Africa.

It was a remarkable coincidence that Guy said, “I know someone who retired from the army and did a similar journey!” Ping said, “Oh yeh, that will be Clive and Taniya! We have had so much information from Taniya and she had been very helpful in answering our queries regarding Carnets and routes through the Middle East”.  And so it was. Funny old world isn’t it.

In this hotel the showers available to anyone camping were pretty horrid, cold and nasty. Enter our hero, Guy Levene who offered Ping the use of his room for a shower. It was a very generous of him and very much appreciated! I don’t want to carp but I had already had mine that’s how we knew they were crap!  Thank you Guy.

The next day we had breakfast in the hotel It would have been unremarkable but for the Spanish Omelette was the simply the best I have had.

We are starting to realise a number of things. One is that it is a very long way to Addis Ababa and the other is that Ethiopians are the friendliest, helpful and welcoming people imaginable. It was such a contrast from our arrival.

30^th August 2013  

   

It was another long, hard driving day but very interesting and mostly quite pleasant. The changing scenes in this part of the world can be quite startling; from dry grassland, beautiful hills and mountains and then quite suddenly into lush tropical country with more shades of green than you can imagine; interspersing with vibrant colours of flowers and plants.  We stopped briefly in one decent sized market town which appears to be getting a lot of new modern big buildings.

I was saddened as while I waited for Ping to visit a shop, a man came to me asking in excellent English if I would like to hire his services as a translator.  He explained that he was a lawyer, but having qualified he has found very little work. It is very hard to reconcile that kind of poverty where a lifetime work, hopes and aspirations appear to be gone and you are reduce to canvassing in this way. It is not the first time I have encountered this kind of thing, but it really touched me.  The first person I told this to responded by saying ’Of course he may have just made all that up’. He may have done. This is Africa

We went to fill the van with diesel. I asked the price per litre and was told 17 Birr (this has to be one of the best names for a currency ever!) no problem there except when I had filled up after the border, the pump price was 17 Birr but the nice man said it had gone up to 19Birr per litre but the pump had not been changed. Like a donkey I believed him!!

Potholes, goats, donkeys, horses, tuk tuks and street vendors. 

They are all on the road and in my way!

Horses just stand in the road

Sleeping right in the road

The area is dominated, mostly by small scale agriculture. The drive to Addis is on a road that is dominated by a continuous string of pretty well kept villages.  All day long as we have been driving through the villages we have been greeted by all the children up to about the age of 28 calling ‘yoyoyoyo! It sounds charming and they seem to like that we wave back, but who knows what that means. The people in the villages despite their isolation appear to be generally quite prosperous in comparison to the other parts we have been in so far. Always friendly always helpful and rarely English speaking.

Friends going home

There is a sad thing all around Africa which must be a problem. I don’t know why it is and I don’t know the solution but everywhere there are vendors flogging their produce. But everywhere this happens all you will see are dozens of people selling exactly the same things whether it be row after row of chairs or hundreds of sacks of charcoal this just cannot make any entrepreneurial sense. This time I saw lots of people selling eggs by the carrier bag full, one after the other. Ping said it would take weeks to use them up before they get broken.  Then time after time after time we saw people pushing bunches of 10 pineapples in our face. They work so hard and hardly complain of their lot but such a waste overall.

One of the problems that a lot of travellers speak of is that whenever you stop in these places you instantly attract a pressing crowd. They are mostly friendly but they do press close and it does make it difficult to stop for a meal or indeed for a pee! This has meant that our journey has been pleasurable, but continuous, hardly a stop all day with 7 hours in the saddle.

We arrived at a hotel that allows camping and was recommended by another traveller. As we drove up a thunderstorm broke out so the whole place was engulfed in mud.  There are hundreds of monkeys around which really bothered my Esteemed Life Partner. The rain however even seemed to have dampened their spirits.  This is going to sound a bit like ‘Hello Mudder, Hello Farder again!’ and so it should, but it is raining, it is dark, we are tired, very tired! A nice hot shower should do the trick. No!

The muddy hotel

The kind man in the hotel gave us a key for a room so we can use the shower. He demonstrated that the ancient water heater would be ‘hot in 30 minutes’ I said, ‘oh good, half an hour’, and gave him an encouraged thumbs up. He corrected me and said ‘No thirty minutes!’  It was going to be a long night!

After half an hour I went to try it. The heater was on, but no hot water. The cold water dribbled out. I gave the shower head a friendly tap by way of, slightly illogical encouragement. Of course the whole shower head snapped off effortlessly! Oh gosh I want my Mum at times like this!!!

I got dressed and went back to see the nice man. He got the key for the next room, heater no work, water no run, shower head manky, but man from hotel irrepressibly nice.  Again, next room no shower head, water dribbles, not good. Finally we came to room 19! The lights were on, water runs, nice shower like flow. At first he couldn‘t get the heater to light up. I noticed that water was dripping down the electrical bits, just as he reached out to give the thermostat a tap. I stopped him just in time! Though I did get a look that clearly implied, ‘you may be a bunch of softees but electricity doesn’t harm Ethiopians!’ 

So on to room 18. Man from hotel kindly introduces himself as Sisay. As we entered the room, he took the ‘razor blades’ off me. I think it was an act of kindness but it may just be that any self-harming would have to be cleaned up by him. I don’t know. This time there was a good flow, nice clean shower head, electrics sort of intact, all seems well. He switched on and said, ‘30 minutes get hot’. I couldn’t stop myself and said ‘Oh good half an hour’. He fixed my gaze and said assertively ‘no, 30 minutes!’ 

45 minutes later I had a nice bracing cold shower and sent Ping for the same!  A man has to know his limitations! So dear reader, I write to you sobbing gently as the rain courses down the sides of the van I have finished slipping on the mud.  Dammit, there is a bloody monkey over there and he is laughing at me!!!!

The monkey who mocks me!

I haven’t mentioned the wedding party have I?  At this hotel, this very evening, it being Saturday there is a wedding party going on.  All the guests are standing around in the rain. It seems that something has caused them sufficient mirth that they don’t seem to mind the rain. Then I saw it, in one of the minibuses was someone in a wheel chair. She was being held hostage by three large monkeys who are lined up by the step of the van. No one goes in and no one comes out!  The solution? An 8 year old boy was sent, quite terrified to throw bottle tops  at the monkeys who took absolutely no notice.

I couldn’t watch any more.

I think it is worth saying that when we started out with this journey I had a kind of strapline of ‘Every day is a school day’!  I now think it should be, ‘You couldn’t make it up could you’?  As I trudged away in the mud a pick-up truck arrived with some kind of ceremonial pot and the goat strapped in the back braying frantically. Just for a moment I entertained the idea that he may just be the lucky one!

Finally and quite bizarrely when I went back half an hour later there was nobody from the wedding to be seen anywhere!!! Cars, people, wheelchairs, the lot, all gone!!!!!!

I have to say that as I wait for Ping to come back from the shower I am all alone, and it doesn’t feel that good. I do hope she comes back soon!

They say we’ll have some fun when it stops rainin!’

A town called Addis.

Wet traffic in Addis

We had a pleasant and uneventful drive up to Addis Ababa. The road was pretty good until we started the outskirts of Addis the driving was complete madness and dense, this went and on for miles. This city is huge and sprawling and on the face of it is quite charmless. This is really enhanced by the construction of a rapid transit system that runs right through the centre of the city. I understand that it may be completed this century. 

Oh god it is pretty dire!

It was surprising to find that having come through the whole of East Africa where we found no Iveco agents were now passing several so called Iveco ‘sub agents’ on the main road into the city. Unfortunately they only cater for heavy trucks. It’s ok though we don’t really need much, though a heater for the van would be good as that was badly damaged in the fire all those weeks ago.

We have not ventured out much in Addis so have not had a chance to discover its charms but I want to describe something that we have not seen in any other City no matter how inadequate. The fact is that in Addis Ababa there on trace of any traffic management. The roads are unsurfaced in many streets the traffic is dense. At this time there is heavy rainfall most days and this means that often streets are flooded. There is a main Square which is quite big and traffic filters in through congested gaps and then everyone tries to take the shortest route to where they want to go. No exaggeration, it is common to find three or four lanes of traffic facing each other in the opposite direction. There are traffic lights on most major junctions and 2 or 3 of them are connected.

It is really heartening however; we have seen quite a number of disabled people picking their way in all of this. They always seem to get some assistance in this mire of hazards.  There was one occasion when in the pouring rain several people pleaded to be allowed to board the bus in front of us, no response. Then a disabled man on crutches, frail and struggling, gave the slightest indication that he wanted to board the bus.  The doors popped open and a number of arms shot out and hoisted him in and the doors shut. 

Now, several other travellers have written stuff about the only real place to camp in Addis, that is Wim’s Holland House. It is said to be a great place to meet other travellers and exchange information. The campsite turned out to be horrid!  There is a great compensation in that the other half of the operation is a lovely restaurant /café/bar which is well run and really nice and a great place to socialise.

As it turned out we got the very best of all worlds.  Guy Levene who we had met a few days before and who lives in Addis, invited us to camp in his garden. With this generosity we were able to take advantage of the social side of Holland House.  We have been given such great hospitality by Guy and his staff.  Guy is  a remarkable man who is embarking on a truly remarkable project. He is also a very nice man who made our brief time in Addis, memorable.

Emails are drying up dear friends. Do please write something. Trivial nonsense is appreciated more than ever!

More news from Ethiopia very soon 

Lots of love

Noel and Ping

noelbow51@gmail.com

pingbow54@gmail.com