Firstly many thanks to everyone for your Christmas and New Year messages, and secondly an apology for taking so long to update the website, but it's a bit difficult trying to keep up to date from the front line!!! Yes, unfortunately we managed to find ourselves slap bang in the middle of the rioting and shooting in Nairobi at New Year and have been unable to send any messages. You can read all the excitement from our Nairobi blog!!

We managed to drag outselves away from the Sheraton and set off back on the road and decided to try and reach Kenya for Christmas as they don't celebrate Christmas in Ethipia until January. We headed south out of Addis passing three serious road accidents on the way, which is an every day occurence here. Our stop for the night was at Lake Lagano where we camped right by the side of the lake and it was a lovely peaceful sport far away from the normal hussle and bustle and masses of people and mythering kids that is Ethiopia. The resort we camped at is used by more affluent Ethiopians as a holiday destination and was a delightful little place which actually had an amazing restaurant.

Next day we travelledfurther south to Awasa prched on the side of Lake Awasa. The waters of the lake are teeming with tilapia, catfish and barbus and fresh lake fish is avlways available on local menus. We headed straight for Adenum campsite which is well known amogst overlanders and according to the Loney Planet is potentially the nicest campsite in Ethiopia. It is run by Jana a German woman and her Ethipian husband. It was a lovely place with a couple of guest rooms for rent set around beautiful gardens. Jan is renowned for making delicious 3 course dinners for her guests and did us proud that night as we ate with 2 guys from South Africa doing the same trip as us but in the opposite direction. We exchanged horror stories of the road conditions we had endured and chatted about the journey and places we had visited.

In the morning before we left Awasa we wend down to what is known as the harbour but is actually just an area where the fishing boats pull in. There were lots of old fishing boats and the crews were gutting and selling their morning's catch. Flying all around were pelicans and huge storks trying to pick up some scraps together with baboons swinging from the trees. Two small boys aged 7 and 5 latched on to us and took delight in throwing scraps for the birds so we could take phots. The poor little mites clothes were just rags but they never pestered for money. As we left I made the fatal mistake of giving them a few coppers for their trouble. We were literally mobbed by loads of other urchins and had to run for the van to escape the frenzy of me,me, me, money, money,pen, pen!!