Ethiopia, what a beautiful country

At a push we managed to get to and through the border, but as darkness fell and not having good knowledge of driving conditions in Ethiopia, we decided to stay at the border town of Matemba, in a secure compound. We were all sceptical at first, but when the first beers came round and the tents were up, all was good, remember that there was no alcohol throughout the whole of Sudan.

Going back a bit, This trip started off Delilah and myself travelling through Europe and meeting up with Andre at the ferry in Venice, we then met up with some more over-landers, on bikes and Landrovers on the ferry to Egypt. We travelled with the bikers to Cairo and then were on our own again for a bit before hooking up with Peter sporadically until we reached the dreaded ferry to Wady Halfa, where we have been travelling together ever since. We Also met up with a guy from Russia, doing the trip on his own on a rather overloaded 1200GS adventure. He too has stuck with us till now as he has been having some off-road 'issues', one of which caused a loss of his front brakes in Sudan, which should hopefully be repaired in Addis Ababa, when we get there on Monday.

Our first 200 miles in Ethiopia exploded in the amazing scenery you only hear of in novels or see in movies, what a pleasure to ride, even with the now treadless tyre on the front of my bike. We soon reached Gondar after passing through a mountain pass having climbed to 2260 meters above sea level, amazingly the same height as the pass we did in Austria and just as beautiful. Now I see how people travelling on long trips manage to tie the 2 continents together.

Gondar is a rather quaint town, which apparently used to be the capital of Ethiopia, not much to do but lovely people. We did manage to arrange a trip part way up the Simien mountains national park, which saw us walking along the paths for about an hour, hoping to see some wildlife. We did get the feeling that the guy that arranged the trip pocketed most of the money though and did not pass out equally to the guides that were with us, which was quite disappointing and left a horrible taste in our mouths. 

Last night we spent the night camping on a hotels grounds just off Lake Tana. I must say I was hoping that it was going to be a blue lake, fitting in the the amazing scenery leading up to it, but unfortunately we were faced with a cream coloured one, which actually, as I noticed this morning, has a pretty romantic fit in its own way. We decided this morning, to rent some transport to take us to Lalibela, an area known for its rock hewn churches. Some of the buildings have been carved out completely, allowing them to stand-alone from the mountain from which they had been carved (more to follow about this in the next blog). We actually chose the transport as we would have had to drive north again for 6hrs to reach the city, it just did not seem the right thing to do.......

Some more pics to enjoy........

World heritage castle in Gondar

A break to enjoy the scenery

1 Bir please