Day 64 - Ethiopia

Point of departure : Yabello

Point of arrival : Addis Ababa

Accommodation: with Graham Nundy (GOS company house)

Km travelled today: 568km Cum: 11 672km (gravel 0 km cum 2 855km)

Countries so far: 7/16

Where to next? Rift Valley & Omo Valley

Total number of photos taken: 38 (cum 3 049)

The goal today was to get to Addis Ababa 580km away.An early start at about 07h30 under cloudy and rainy skies with pretty good progress for the first hour but the road closed in on us after that … almost continuous settlements, potholes, pedestrians, donkeys, horses, cattle, donkey carts and carriages, goats, wheel barrows, hand drawn carts, buses… almost everything that could slow us down.

Certainly as far as the road was concerned more risk to our suspension.However, there was some compensation in the beautiful atmospheric scenery (lush green vegetation, trees and mountains) with the clouds, rain and mist.

Oh and did we mention the kids… from the blank starrers; to the smiling, waving yellowing "faranji" (foreigner); the shouting "you you you"; the fruit vendors and the stone throwing critters - happily we only saw a couple of the latter and even then, we are not sure whether they had actually attempted to throw stones or went through the motion - fortunately nothing hit us.

Overall our reception as we passed through dozen of villages has been almost excessively positive and Marina is getting the "Royal wave" down to a fine art.

After fighting our way through traffic we arrived at the Sheraton Hotel at 173h0 where we met Graham.After high tea at the Sheraton, we headed off to GOS' (Global Outdoor Systems) company house, our base in Addis Ababa.

Addis Ababa (meaning "New Flower") is the world's third highest capital (2400m).It's the capital of Ethiopia (formerly Abyssinia) and the headquarters of the African Unity.Addis is also the headquarters of the UN Regional Office for Africa.It also has the highest concentration of embassies in Africa.By Ethiopian standards it's a relatively young capital in a country where history seems to stretch back without limit into the legendary past. It was founded about a century ago by Emperor Menelik II. Addis is situated at the foot of the Entoto Mountains and therefore rambles across a few hillsides and gullies and has an abundance of eucalyptus streets. An important event in the development of Addis was the completion of the railway line from Djibouti which improved communications and trade with the outside world. Addis lies in the heart of Ethiopia with the grain-producing areas to the north, north west and east and the coffee areas to the south and west.

Day 65 - went through to Toyota this morning. A quick examination suggested the shocks were not the problem, but were told to return at 14h00 to put the car on the hoist as it was occupied at the time.Back to Toyota at 14h00 and closer inspection revealed a lower broken arm suspension bracket and fortunately Toyota had a spare. The shock absorbers were fine. So the Beast checked in overnight.

Day 67 - in the morning back to Toyota just to check that things were actually happening…not only was the work well advanced but they were even correctly measuring the body height relative to the front wheel to ensure that adjustments were correct.Went through to the Swiss Café for lunch (no don't get excited, it's run by Ethiopians and why they call it the Swiss Café beats us) but nonetheless very nice.After lunch we picked up the Beast and headed "home" to pack the car.In the evening we went to the Blue Sky Ethiopian restaurant to try the local food, specifically injera (a pancake shaped substance made from tef - a nutty tasting grain unique to Ethiopia) - but to us more like a wet face cloth.It's served with stew and we ate it with tough beef and lamb.You take a piece of injera by hand and scoop the stew with it. We also had a grilled fish which was not too bad just dry from over grilling. Marina gave up after two tastes and John ate a few more mouthfuls.Verdict… been there, tasted it, have the photo but never again - not to our liking.

This evening we met up with Joachim Fassman (who arrived from Bahir Dar).We met Joachim through our blog and, as he lived in Cape Town we invited him and Tina (his wife) to our farewell party in Cape Town. His trip was north to south, starting in Germany. Unfortunately, Joachim too had car problems. He too, has decided to travel with us down to the Omo Valley and then on to Nairobi.