Our journey to Addis was 200k and was to take us 2 days. Our first leg was to take us to the Blue Nile Gorge where we had been told the road was closed from 12.00 until 5 p.m. for repairs. We arrived at the road block at 3.30 and we were lucky that the road opened at 4 p.m. instead of 5. The road down into the gorge dropped 1000 ft which was rocky and stony for 20k down to the bottom with lots of waggons and buses. Vehicles were allowed over the bridge one at a time so we had quite a wait at the bottom until it was out turn. On the 1000 ft climb back up we caught up with waggons and double tankers that had been on the road since before it was closed at noon. The ascent was so steep we had to go into 4WD low and it took us 4 hours to do the 40k from start to end of the gorge. We had to overtake tankers struggling up the hill and there was just a sheer drop to the side, it was a really hard climb.

Once at the top it was getting dark and we had to find somewhere to stay for the night. Camping was not an option as we would have been surrounded in no time at all. Peter stopped at a mud hut to ask if we could park on his land but I could see about 40 people running across the fields to see what we were doing so we cancelled that option and moved on. We soon came across a small town and stopped to loockk for a hotel with a compund. We were soon surrounded with curious onlookers peering int he windows but luckily found a small hotel who would let us camp in his compund. Luckily for us he also had a small bar but we had to ask him to turn off the deafening African music at 8.30 as it was driving us mad. In the morning we washed our pots with only a small crowd of about 5 watching and were soon on the road again.

The drive to Addis was spectacular dropping down to still at a high 7000 ft. We arrived on a busy Saturday afternoon and as I couldn't locate where we were on the map Peter started shouting. An argument soon ensued between us and we decided to calm ourselves down with a capuccino at the Sheraton Hotel. The Sheraton is descbibed in our Lonely Planet as one of the most elite hotels in Africa and it was truly impressive. It was fully adorned fro Christmas with huge trees and santas climbing every lampost. We were really impressed and decided to check out the tariff in their business centre on the Expedia website. We were pleasantly surprised and although it was horrendously expensive by Ethiopian standards it was not too bad by U.K. prices so we booked for 3 nights.

We have had a great stay here and have managed to bring our website up to date with blogs and pictures as we have struggled tremendously in Sudan and in Ethiopia. It is good to wash off the dirt and gime in a hot clean shower and not look too much like streat urchins anymore. After a disastrous trip out by taxi last night looking for a restaurant we couldn't find we ate in the Indian restaurant in the hotel which although cheap at £25 for 4 beers and a meal we could have eaten and camped for 4 days at Ethiopian prices. Curiously though it only cost Peter £3 and me £7 to get our hair cut at the Hilton Hotel across the road.

Addis is not my favourate place and a trip in a taxi is a risk to one's life and one's nose as most of the taxis are death traps and the drivers have a serious BO.O. problem. It has been nice have a bit of R&R again here and it will be hard getting on the road again but I am looking forward to getting out the city.

We don't think we will see the bikers here and as for Micheal and Stephanie we are not sure whether their 40 year old van would have made it along the gorge road. We needed 4WD and they only had 2 WD also their engine mountings were broken. They don't even have a phone with them so we can't ring them to cheeck.