Being so close to one of Africa's most picturesque Mountain ranges saw us go for an overnight trek to the Simien Mountains. Headed off at 7am on Monday morning and started trekking at about 1pm for approximately 5 hours. 3 of our group just took the bus straight to the campsite as they were in the throes of vomiting and diarrhea. We saw loads of Gelaba which are the baboons that are native to this region. They are vegetarian and so did not mind one little bit when we got to within a metre of them. They were picking at each other, digging up grass and generally play fighting amongst themselves. The males were really big and the females had red chests with nipples that sat right next to each other in the middle and hung quite long. Highlight of the trip so far was getting to see a number of groups in their natural habitat and being able to walk freely amongst them.

Had an amazing dinner of sheep (which was on the roof of our bus alive until just before dinner time), vegetable soup, spinach, carrots, potatoe and fried banana's. None of us were prepared for how cold it was and we were required to wear all the clothes that we had taken with us to attempt to ward off frost bite. Had a fire tonight which meant that we were able to defrost before hitting bed.

Tents were cold and to be honest, I was frozen in my not made for below 5` sleeping bag. Put all my clothes on and tried to snuggle into my sleeping bag. This was the coldest most uncomfortable night since the trip commenced. My stomach gurgled and ached and I spent the night focussing on not vomiting! At 6am I had to bite the bullet and go to the toilet. Toilets were holes in the ground in a small shed down a small path. The toilets stunk which I have really been struggling with. Half way down the path a quick detour off the path to vomit and then back on track to the loo. There was one with 2 open sides so decided it was my hole of choice as the smell was the least offensive with the open sides. Decided that the 5 hour trek this morning was outside of my abilities and so went on the bus to meet up with the group along the way. Lunch was a mouthful of bread and I was done. Stomach has thankfully settled as the day has worn on and have been able to hold down water and a rehydration sachet so hopefully tomorrow will be back to normal. Going to just have plain rice for dinner if I have anything at all.

Driving to and from Gondar to the mountains it was really interesting to see that there are lots of crops - mainly barley at this time of year. I saw a number of farmers ploughing their fields which meant they had 2 horses or bullocks and a single plough, think it is a tyme, to plough their fields. The fields looked like they were divided like a cane farm in smaller sections which I guess allows them time to harvest in sections and not have to do everything once. Did not see any harvesters so can only assume that they potentially harvest by hand also. Had some roasted barley seeds before dinner which were delicious.