Little Fluffy Clouds

The passage through the Sudanese and Ethiopian borders was pretty quick (only an hour), after about 2 hours of Ethiopian driving the last very hot days in Sudan (40c) were soothed by the cooler temperatures of beautiful Ethiopia. The road to Gonder takes you up over the most stunning mountain landscapes. We saw clouds for the first time since we left home and I have to say I felt a sense of relief that it would not be so bollocking hot.

The landscape is lush too, the farmland reaches right up to the road. It was a bit of a surprise to see so much crops.  The villages we passed through had huts made from wood and thatch (Sudanese were mud and thatch)  these changed to small stone and mud houses.  Navigating the road through the villages was interesting, not only are there potential collisions  with donkeys rolling in the dust, cows standing and refusing to budge, sheep and goats darting about like tw**s,  camels loping about like bored teenagers; on one occasion  James weaved his way through fighting bulls. Not bad for an Essex boy. All of these however pale in comparison to the Ethiopian pedestrian.  Responses to there being a car on the road coming towards
them vary from 'well I aint gonna move any quicker', to what looks like a scene from the keystone cops  (old black and white movies) where they all shriek and run about then in to each other to total surprise, or sour disapproval that you should be there at all when they obviously need all of the road.

Our first stop over in Ethiopia was at Tim and Kim's village at Gorgora near lake Tana. This is a top venue set up and run as a project with the local community by Danish couple Tim and Kim. Tell you what i never thought i would be so pleased to see a clean working toilet with toilet paper . . . And after sudan we had the joy of a fully stocked bar from which we quaffed beer (for james) and red wine (for me). We spent two days here just faffing about and catching up with traveling chores (James finally having a shower and me doing the washing).

We had a trip though the village to the local church (oldest in area)  accompanied by tim and kim's dogs.   Don't think that impressed the locals too much.





 We then headed up north to Gonder. While our purpose was to see the castles in the royal enclosure in the first hour there James had treated me to a visit to the back of a shop to change money on the black market and to a brothel to get lunch (this last was a mistake but the food was good anyway).

The castles are rather fab and are steeped in truly gory history that you will have look up on Wikipedia.  The royal enclosure houses 11 castles which have a bloody history that includes the hanging of one of the queens from the battlements as  punishment for murdering the king's brother.  All quiet there now except for tourists and would be Rastas.

 

We liked Gonder. The folk were friendly and even the staff in the government owned
telecommunications  joined in the hilarity that james' passport photo induces (you have to produce this to buy a sim card).  The joke was on me though because I went back to the building the next day to return the sim card as it didn't work.  Instead of producing the receipt for the card I handed over the receipt for the pension we had stayed in telling the man that it wasn't good enough as it didn't work.  He looked relieved when James pitched up and gave him the proper receipt for the sim (which I had in my bag but didn't see through not wearing my specs). Ah that little episode made James laugh and smug for ages. Deep joy. The pension we stayed in not only had water but it was hot and I stumbled onto an unusual ceremony with the local church bloke who finished his blessing by literally throwing water into the faces of the devoted really hard.  I tried to not let them see me looking but it was well funny.
Leaving Gonder behind we went north to Debark which is where you access the massive Simieon mountains. James has been here before and he was keen for me to see the staggering beauty of the 4543 metre high peaks.  Well he is still waiting because our vehicle didn't have room for the compulsory scout you have to take with you so on we drove. . . . That night we found something rarer than hens teeth which was a bush camp with no visits from the inquisitive locals. The drive the next day through to Axsum  was er... character building. It started off through the  pass which had more hair pin bends than the Grimsel Pass x 100 and steep steeeeeeeep drops that within minutes had me a gibbering wreck. Sorry Jean my vertigo monster consumed any sense I was borne with, however my bravery genes kicked in when i was needed to film the drive for James. I look back with a mixture of pride, horror and amusement at the state of me trying to hold the video camera  and film the twists and turns over sheer drops for James while trying not to cry and throw up.

 The road became even more interesting when it turned into miles and miles and miles of construction.  The Ethiopian goverment is investing massively in road construction which means long delays for some, I have to say we were lucky and only had to stop for short periods . The delays were highly enjoyable for James who got to see some of his favourite machinery in action. CAT D8 bulldozers woo hoo!

We got to Axum and found our hotel without getting lost, playing tourists the next day we went to see the stellae and the queen of Sheba's bath and the following day peered over the church wall to look at the building which is supposed to house the Ark of the Covenant. oooooh.

We left Axum and I even did some of the driving but not on the hairpin bends that James is pretty damned good at, we bushcamped again this time in a baobab forest just north of a place called Sekota, it was a beautiful place if a little odd because of the trees.

We weren't alone for long though as the locals had spotted us and we became a good spectator sport. It was good fun though, we must have looked bloody odd to these people. Well we probably look odd to most people come to think of it. The next day we headed off to Lalibella........
 The churches at lalibella are magnificent. Lalibella is set high up in the maintains. They were built by king Lalibella who was also a priest. He is buried in a tomb in Golgotha church. Females are not allowed to go in only men and apparently by going in you are guaranteed a place in heaven.  Quite right too women have far too easy a life of it. Especially this one here.............

The amount of dedicated work that went into making the churches is impressive that and the very real devotion  the Ethiopians have in their christianity.

The rock hewn churches (yes they are carved out of solid granite) are beautiful inside too as they are decorated with the most stunning artwork.

We were super super lucky while wandering about as in one church we were allowed to sit inside while the priests held a service that included gregorian chanting. I have to say james and I came over all misty eyed.


After the spiritual beauty of Lalibella we set off the following morning for Addis Ababa. The drive was stunning and rose up to an escarpment of over 3000 metres. 

 At the top we were met by young lads selling hats who took us further up to where the baboons and the ibex hang out. James went right to the edge of the cliff I of course didn't.

 The young hat sellers were nice, all students  and all thought james was super cool which of course he is.   We arrived in Addis on James' birthday. The occasion was duly celebrated with beer then meatballs then lots of red wine with Igor and Johannes who are also staying in Wim's Holland House' primo camping spot in Addis. 

Amazingly since we last saw these two they have only had 2 accidents, Igor burnt the back of his leg on his bike exhaust and Johannes managed to ' ride into the ass of a horse'.  James would like to say a big thank  you for all his happy birthday  wishes, he had exactly the sort of birthday he likes....X

Today is christmas eve. The first one I have ever had  that has not been the usual traditional tinsel and turkey. I have to say that despite the lack of shopping stress I do miss Christmas back home. James is of course happy as a sand boy.  So all that I have time left for on this hot and sunny ethiopian afternoon is to say Happy Christmas to you all hope you have a fabulous time and especially my lovely Kate who I miss very very much.

Cheers everyone !!!!!

The Ship of Poo

TWe had met some great people and had some lovely times in Egypt but were more than ready to move on. Leaving egypt was difficult. Since the beginning of the journey we have been  delayed many times. This time the departure that would have taken us to sudan was blocked by a combination of corrupt officials, cultural laziness and a decrepit transport system that also worked against the foreign traveler. Especially the english foreign traveler. In the end we were delayed in Aswan for 2 weeks and only managed to get tickets for the ferry to Sudan because a group of us started calling our embassies. We spent our time hassling the ferry manager, the ticky Mr: Salah, and hung out with some lovely folk on their way north, Mary and Brett and the two Richards, this is us on a cruise on the Nile to Kitcheners Island.

We were due to leave Aswan on mon 28th . Milo would sail on the barge on the 29th. The ferry crossing was supposed to take 18 hours, milo's barge should take 36 hours. All in all we should be reunited in Sudan and be on our way by thursday. . . . . .
We had only seen photo's of the ferry on the tricky mr. salah's (nile ferries ticket manager) website, the reality was for me (dee) like one of those moments in a horror film where everything  is viewed down a
dark tunnel.  The ferry is known as the ship of poo.  The group we were travelling with
Roberto and Memmo (2 italian social  entrepeneurs), Igor and Johannes (2 german bikers), Julian and Victoria (2 german adventurers) and Mick (an australian dragoman driver that had been
separated from his passengers due to all the delays).
 Before leaving the UK I had read what I now believe to be some nutter's blog, that the ferry was a real opportunity to ´"engage with the sudanese people and if you had the chance you should
sleep on deck . . . Chat . . . Look at the stars"  yeah right. Getting on to the ferry was like being in the january sales from hell. Cramming on to the tiny walkway the sudanese carried boxes with tv's, fridges and bags of cement.

The ship was divided up into first and  second class as we hadn't been able to get a cabin we were deemed second class but were allowed to sit upstairs in the 'dining' room. Good job as the smell from down stairs was stomach churning. The dining room filled up with people who proceeded to eat smoke cheap fags shout. They were friendly and after james told then i was ill they offered up a corner table for me to slouch on. We had been on the boat 4 hours when finally it started the 18 hour trip to wadi halfi, one of the other over landers had got a double cabin, he didn't want me to share as he didn't want to catch what i had but he did let me put my bag in the spare bunk. James was a star, he told the captain i was ill and managed to get me a bit of space on the deck to sleep. So wrapped in my sleeping bag i lay on the deck and about every 2 hours made a rather tortuous journey down into the bottom of the boat to the toilet.


I dont think i can find the words to describe the toilet. It was a stand up affair with a tap in the bit you stood in. The tap was broken so your feet and trousers got soaked with stuff from ladies who had missed the poo hole. I had terrible shits and over the 18 hour journey i got pretty weak so my aim got worse. Lets just say i owe a lot to tesco's wet wipes.

 Arriving in wadi halfa  we had the same joy of getting off the ferry as we did getting on.   A short ride in a dodgy landrover later and we were in the 'town' after a bit of a look round we managed to get a

room with our italian friends roberto and memmo.

  We were stuck in wadi halfa for a week waiting for Milo to show up, over the week our behaviour amused our Italian room mates especially when we decided to put our tent up in the room to keep the mossies off.

   Eventually we got milo back and we set offfollowing the old railway tracks through the deserts of Sudan.
This was just the best ever. The drive was spleniferous, James was supersonic getting us over serious sand pistes. By the end we were covered in so much dust we looked like aboriginies. We wild camped in the most beatiful place, no one else around for 100´s of k´s.

We did this right through the desert, ending up camping by the Merow pyrimids and next to the Lion Temples before heading into Khartoum.

We spent the first night in the rather dodgy Blue Nile Sailing Club campsite but then caught up with our German friends and moved to the grandly titled National Residence Campsite. Yesterday we went watch the sufi ceremony at the Mahdi´s tomb, full on singing and whirling dervishes.

It was bloody great.
Sudan has been a wonderful country, the people are amazingly friendly and are a relief after the hastle of Egypt. Tomorrow we start our journey from here and head towards Ethiopia, we should be there by Wednesday.

Much love to you all but mostly to Fish XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The Pig of Happiness

"May his joyful smile remind us how much there is to be happy about he
is so happy about".

This quote is from the renown philosopher Edward Monkton ( provided to us by our good friends Sue and Anthony in a chocolate bar) and is relevant as far as we are concerned with regard  to health and
transport.... We had arrived in Luxor and suitably full of our new found ability to not get lost the very next day drove off to the Valley of the Kings! I have to admit to having some misgivings about having graves on the sightseeing itinerary but acquiesced to James' new found interest in all things dug up. We were super smug at
arriving early and being able to park in the shade. The 3 tombs chosen to visit were incredible, the biggest of the three had a golden domed ceiling. Nobody is allowed to take pictures in here so here is one of
me wearing the super duper pinny Kate bought me in the car park.

There are many hustlers in these tourist places and after a while one finds ways to rebuff them. But they insistent on starting a conversation as often this results in a 'sale'. The item for sale this time was something new.  The hustler began by telling James he was a very lucky man to have such a beautiful wife. Yes yes says James I am so lucky. ' I will give you 50 chickens for your wife'. 'Are they frozen chickens or are they ready for the oven?' 'They are ready sir'. 'That is a good deal'. 'Yes sir I have big problem, I have no wife, I have
not enough money to get wife, I am not allowed to have sex sir until Ian married, it is terrible sir what am I to do?' 'Well you must take matters into your own hands!'
This man followed us back to our car still offering the chickens and telling James what a lucky man he is till we drove off.  Now I dont know whether visiting the tombs was unlucky or whether the sex addled Egyptian cursed James' good fortune because an hour later we had big car trouble (this has resulted in a new cylinder head with a functioning camshaft in it). Having car trouble actually brings us to the health reason for the quote at the beginning of this page, and how we should think of many reasons to be happy we have good health ... After a day of searching we found a good mechanic who managed to source the only cylinder head for this type of engine in the whole of Egypt during their week long Ede festival when everything stops. James spent the first of three days at the mechanic's workshop. We were both invited to dinner and it is here I met the mechanic's niece Frafa. Frafa is 11.

Being the inquisitive sort I asked why her foot was bandaged, this led to a series of events that included a visit with the child to her doctor at the local hospital and a plea to friends to advise me on a course of action that meant buying antibiotics and wound dressings. So to Fee, Peggy,  Cia, Jaks, Sarah and her brother, Kim and Giles thank you so much in helping me to help a little girl who's foot was so infected that septicemia and osteomyelitis were likely. Over a period of 4 days with your help we bought medicines and dressings, I taught her mother and grandmother how to do a 'clean' dressing and we persuaded them to take her to a better doctor out of Luxor. Over this time we got to know the family pretty well. They are wonderful kind people, they fed us and made us drink endless cups of very sweet mint tea.

Here are most of them, our friend Mr Ayad the mechanic is not in the picture was as usual fixing a car.


On the last day we visited our Luxor adopted family the Grandmother told us her feet were
sore, like James' they had gone all cracked and dried out! They needed
super glue! James glues his feet all the time so we knew about this,10 mins later grannies feet were glued up just like James'. What a lucky lady I hear you say.
While in Luxor, in between visits to the mechanic and the pharmacy we did manage a visit to the temples at Karnak, these were fantastic and James and I have both voted them our favourite.

And here is a view from our splendid hotel the Cleopatra..a highly recommended place who's staff really were incredibly helpful in getting us back on the road.

We finally left Luxor and headed to Aswan and that is where we are writing this from. The place is good, we have been to the big mosque here and walked along the corniche to the park.

Our hotel is er...choice...but after a little bit of complaining not only do we have posh clean sheets and hot water but a whole new room!

We have been to the ticket office today to see about buying our tickets for Sudan, but apparently the boat is still in Sudan possibly delayed because it might be ferrying cattle to Abu Simbel en route to Aswan. Fair enough. So tomorrow we go back to the ticket office (outside which this morning had a super dodgy geezer sniffing glue, two Sudanese gentlemen going home and a third who's phone ring tone was the the theme to the Titanic), and speak to the nice manager there, fingers crossed we will be able to travel on Monday to Sudan.
If we are lucky and get tickets then the next posting will be from Khartoum, so we wish you all well......Salam.

Oasis in the Western desert

We arrived at Baharia tired after a long drive from Alexandria, the journey was interesting for a number of reasons...firstly we had to get out of Alexandria via the motorway. The motorway has no rules, you not only have people cramming on the lanes you also have drivers (usually motorbikes) going the wrong ( yes driving at you) way as a short cut to wherever they are going. We do not have very good maps so were relying on directions from people who could understand what we were going on about. It wasn't long before James had had enlisted the help of a driver (who he asked directions from through the window while we were driving) who very kindly offered to take us to the turn off we needed that would lead across the first part of the Western desert to Baharia Oasis. This culminated in James doing a spectacular drive across 4 lanes of traffic that would have lost him his license back home, to get to a cross roads and the turning for the Western desert road. The drive was great, fantastic landscape and hardly any other vehicles, it was hot though about 30 degrees in the shade and James persuaded against the air con as we 'had to acclimatise for Sudan'. By the time we arrived in Baharia (6 hours later) you could say that I was not at my best, part cooked in my own sweat and tired and we could not find the bedouin camp that we hoped to stay in. To be honest I was all for tryng to find anywhere just to get out of the heat but James managed to track down the manager of the camp who asked us to wait and he would find us...oh and could we 'give him and some of his stuff a lift back to the camp?'. The car is crammed but James said yes of course then realising this might be a challenge went off to get me a cold drink before I turned into a puddle. A very bad tempered puddle. Amazing what a cold can of pop and a wonderfully lovely bedouin man can do for your mood.

The manager turned out to be Mahmoud (big lad isn't he) , who was just so nice that not only did my 'irrits' disappear but I quickly found myself offering to stuff myself in the small space between the seat and the roof that required me to utilise my years of yoga practice.
He invited us into his house while he collected his 'stuff' and got his younger brother to get us some of the fresh dates they had been harvesting for market.

I had never eaten these before and after I had I wanted to marry Mahmoud (so did James). Then we piled into the car and drove up to 'Nature Camp' which is on the very edges of the Baharia oasis and the desert. I am so glad James persisted in his search for this place as it turned out to be by far the most beautiful place we had stayed in during our whole stay. Not only was the camp stunning but the food was the best and all of the staff were wonderfully kind and helpful.

 Before dinner we went for a short walk to the hot springs (James thought this might be a good idea in the moonlight later but I declined after sweating like a navvies armpit all day). The next day included singing 'Happy Birthday' to lovely Kate, afterwards I got appropriately tearful as my baby is now 20! and headed into Baharia village to visit the 'Golden mummies' (so named because of the golden death masks they wear) and the Tombs via dodgy ladders, both were worth the trouble.

Then were then back on the road, this time to the black and white deserts to camp.....and feeling somewhat restored and rested I thought it was time I had a go at driving.

Of course I was brilliant. I drove for about an hour along a fantastic and almost carless road. Milo (our car) is a little slower on the
brakes than I am used to but it was pretty good to have my first experience of driving him out here. We drove through the black and then into the White desert, the landscape becoming more beautiful and surreal as we went on.

Of course we didn't know where the tracks were for us to follow into the desert but we didn't let that stop us......like I say we shouldn't be allowed out. But the desert fairies were looking out for us as we got talking to bedouin tour group who said for us to follow them. So we did. James did a bit of sand dune surfing with Milo.....

and we charged around the desert with the bedouin and a bunch of Chinese tourists. This was about dusk, and the kick back from sand and dust was considerable, the bedouin dudes drove fast and were off the tracks and out into the sand dunes....so of course we got lost......luckily just as we were going 'Oh dear' another 4x4 turned up and led us to where the bedouin were. They were lovely blokes, really friendly, offering for us to share their food and laughing at James for not driving as fast as them.

The night in the desert was magical, big sky, big stars, big moon, big happiness.

The chinese touroids were loud, friendly, sang karoke (bit odd) and took photos.

The next morning we said goodbye to our new bedouin friends (who now want to marry Kate after seeing a picture of her) and headed on into the desert to find another place to sleep. After driving for a while and not seeing any tracks at all to get back into the desert, James stopped to ask stationed ambulancemen where would be a good place to go, they were explicit that it was unsafe so we headed on to the next oasis (Al Farghia) .

We spotted a tea shack at one of the roadside villages so we headed on in. The men (no women here they are all hidden) were friendly. They were either playing dominoes or smoking shisha, the shopkeeper asked lots of questions and even though I am a very great doctor he didn't get the gist of what we were saying about what our professions are. What ensued became weird. He asked for my photo and given I have been allowed to take many photos of joe public I said yes. About 6 photos later I began to feel pretty daft, then he began to ask health related questions which I thought were about his wife. It sounded like she had bad morning sickness then he went on to act out that he was trying to become a father but not having any success. He showed me that he was giving his wife asprin and he was taking tremadol to 'make strong'. 'No no no do not do this' I said trying to act out someone in liver failure (the wife) and someone unconscious and mad at the same time (the shopkeeper). 'what what' he said pointing to a piece of paper and a pen. Presumably he wanted a prescription so I looked around his shack desperately trying to see something that might help the language barrier. Now you have to appreciate there wasn't much for sale here. In the end I wrote next to a big drawing of a clock, jam ( it was either that or pop) and being a hippy prescribed ginger lemon balm and lavender 3 times a day. James had been sitting about 3 feet away from me while all this played out and missed the lot. In the end I had to give him the evil eye that it was time to leave and off we drove. Bit of a dueling banjo moment that.

When we arrived in El Farghia Oasis the checkpoint police decided as they had nothing better to do would escort us to our hotel.we didn't actually have anything arranged but you have to name a destination as you enter. The hotel I told them we were staying at (taken from the lonely planet guide) turned out to be €100 night! So our escorts kindly offered to show us the way to a bedouin camp that was more in our price range. Off we went but this time our escort stopped at the checkpoint and gave us directions. 15 mins later we were back at the checkpoint asking different police the way. They are all wanting to help here so the checkpoint police began stopping traffic asking if anyone spoke English. At this two guys said they knew where the hotel was and told us to follow them back into the town. Ah obviously the first police were stupid and told us the wrong way. We ended up at a hotel that even James refused to stay in. I didn't actually see this place from the inside but the outside was not good. As I sat in the car hoping that James wouldn't come back out and say we were staying there the first lot of army/tourist police found us. This time my acting skills were used to demonstrate we are stupid and shouldn't be allowed out and pointed to where James had just gone. They went in and came out with him (oh the shame) and wearily escorted us back to the checkpoint. We waved at our checkpoint army/police friends and this time followed the instructions properly. Would you believe it it was only 5 min further down the road? This made James rather smug as he had said we should keep looking and I said we should go back. The camp turned out to be closed due to the holiday but the hungover manager said we could camp in the grounds. This pleased James no end. I however was a little less sure (especially as tremadol man had thought I was fair game). The camp owner turned up and asked for payment and James went off and did some tough negotiating. Like a lion he returned with the news that he had bargained the price down from £8 to £6 and we could have use of a bathroom. Still unconvinced I decided
to sleep fully clothed and told James if I heard any funny business I would move so fast that I would take the tent with me into the car. James looked disappointedly at me saying 'Don't worry I will protect you' . For a whole hour I lay awake working out how to defend us (James was of course protecting me by snoring really loudly). Then my stamina deserted me and I fell asleep. The next morning we had breakfast and left the camp, locking the gates behind us and started down the road to Luxor.

The road to Luxor was splendid. I drove for about 60 k past mountains and sand dunes that changed in colour and texture from mustard yellow dust to pink to what looked like the topping off an apple crumble. The sky was big and blue turning to violet where it met the land.

Occasionally we would see birds, other life forms were restricted to the boarder guards who frequently asked us if we would like to take tea with them. The road was occasionally covered in sand, sometimes it became a rutted stony track. I learned how to drive Milo without breaking hard to slow and ease into lower gears. We arrived in Luxor t the side of the Nile, and found our hotel without getting lost even a bit! 

'free curiosity has greater power to stimulate learning than rigorous coercion’ .