Day 79 to 80- 17th to 18th January -Simien Mountains

Point of departure : Axum

Point of arrival : Simien Mountains

Accommodation: rooftop tent @ Sankaber camp site, Simien Mountains N.Park

Km travelled today: 293km Cum: 15 223km (gravel 267km cum 4 482km)

Countries so far: 7/16

Where to next? Gondar

Total number of photos taken: 63 (cum 3 612)

Happy birthday Ethan Fischer!

A 06h00 start to get us through to Debark and on to the Simien Mountains National Park. It was dark for the first hour but we were relaxed to travel slowly with a view to protecting the tyres more than we had done previously. Even in this early hour there were masses of people on the roads both in Axum, approaching Axum and in some of the smaller villages along the road outside of Axum… they were quite eerie in their white shawls in the early morning light, like ants coming out of their burrows in response to the calls to prayer.

Of interest along the way were the relics of the Ethiopian/Eritrean war (1999/2000) … tanks and armoured vehicles still left lying beside the road.We stopped for a couple of photographs but any thoughts of specially composed pictures went out the window as the hordes of kids arrived. They are a pest! Note of interest is that the Eritrean border is 124km north of Axum, and we drove pretty close to it on the road to Debark.

The early part of the route was pretty ordinary Ethiopian terrible roads/deviations but once we got closer to the Simien mountains our attention was distracted from the terrible roads to the spectacular mountain passes and the scenery for 150km.

The road surface in the mountain passes was mainly standard Ethiopian gravel and even quite good in places but the twists and turns; the more than 180 degree hairpins, one after another; the climbs and descents often several hundred metres in a few kilometres; drop offs of several 100 metres; no barriers and no warning signs, made for very challenging driving. Even Marina's vertigo was put to the test on several occasions.

Arrival in Debark and straight to the Simien Mountains National Park office to pay our entry fee and pick up our scout (who does not speak a word of English). Not sure what his role really is because there is no security risk - protective employment we guess.But at this stage we were just glad to be in the park, while we had no real expectations of dramatic game viewing, we were pleased to see Gelada baboons on the way in (endemic to the Simien Mountains), including a running battle between a few males.We decided to stay in the first camp site we came across (Sankaber) and set up camp in quite a private spot with a panoramic view of the mountains. A chance to relax and chill (to some degree figuratively and literally… it is a lot colder here than anything we experienced on the trip so far and out came our binnies, scarves, gloves and fleece jackets). As the darkness fell, so our warm down duvet called - we were in our tent by 18H45.

The Simien Mountains are one of Africa's largest mountain ranges with at least twelve of the peaks exceeding the 4 000m mark. The highest is Ras Dashen - the highest point in Ethiopia. The entire range was listed as a World Heritage Site in 1979.

Day 80 - a kind of relax and regroup day especially with the problems experienced with tyres and fairly random organisation of the Beast to accommodate the scout. On checking the tyres we found that the one fixed in Axum still had a slow puncture (there just seems no end). So we decided to change it with a view to fixing it when we got to Gondar (where DHL had a reamer waiting for us from Graham in Addis Ababa). In addition, we repacked the carrier, did laundry and other cleaning around and inside the Beast (it is covered in dust). It was also a chance to have a more leisurely breakfast, relax a little and enjoy the scenery. We even had time for afternoon tea and pancakes with strawberry jam and syrup.

Being here reminded us so much of Kilimanjaro - the altitude (we are at 3257m above sea level), the cool crisp air, the peace and quiet and the disgusting and smelly long drop. The minute the sun goes down it really gets cold (around 4 degrees with the wind factor) so it was once again early to bed in preparation for an early start to Gondar tomorrow.