From Addis to the border We knew the next few days were going to be tiring. We had a two day drive to the border between Ethiopia and Kenya and then two more days of very tiring driving after that. First of course we had to get out of Addis. We were just in time to experiennce the delights of peak hour traffic there. A three lane road was really built for five lanes, wasn't it?? With traffic coming from all sides it was a challenge to stay together in...

Addis Ababa We left Bahir Dar after a final night there for Addis Ababa. We weren't sure how many nights we were spending there as by now the group had accumulated quite a lot of flat tyres that needed repair before we hit the roads of northern Kenya. Theimo was to try and get them done on thhe first day, but as it was a Sunday, we were prepared for an extra day. We wanted o go to the National Museum to see Lucy, the oldest hominid remains so far found,...

Lalibela - there and back again Lalibela is one of the biggies of Ethiopia and we had been looking forward to it. We drove 60 km back towards Gonder on the tar, then turned off to the east onto a dirt road. The Ethiopians have decided to rebuild the road to their biggest attraction, but have decided to do all 200 km in one hit. So instead of finishing a small section and moving on, the entire stretch is a complete mess, with every kilometre at some...

Bahir Dar From Gonder we travelled to Bahir Dar on the southern shore of Lake Tana. Our campsite was in a hotel right on the shore of the lake, affording us beautiful sunsets and sunrises. The "biggies" in Bahir Dar are the lake itself which is the source of the Blue Nile, the monastries situated on islands in the lake and the Blue Nile Falls. For the Blue Nile Falls we bundled into he newest minivan we have yet encountered, and set off on ...

Gonder Gonder was once the capital of an Ethiopian kingdom and is renowned as the Camelot of Africa. Its prime attraction is its Royal Enclosure with a series of castles built by successive kings. Our hotel, the Terara, occupied a fantastic position on a hill just above the Enclosure. The hotel was built by the Italians when they were here in the late 1930s. It looks like a Tuscan villa, and since it appears nothing has been done to it in the intervenin...