Full days drive today, from Axum to Debark, the Gateway to the Simien Mountains. We arrived quite late and checked straight into our hotel. We went out for dinner at another hotel and I had spaghetti, yet again. I had one of the best nights sleep I've had on the entire trip, the beds actually had real spring mattresses. I woke up thinking I was at home and I was so comfortable I could have been, accept for the absence of Ben. The next morning we marched off dow...

I woke up in Axum this morning and went to see the sights. The first stop was the Queen of Sheeba's bath, with was really just a big water reservoir. Then we went to see a tri-lingual text which is written in Ge'ez, Sabaean and ancient Greek. The stone is kept in and old shed and guarded by a farmer, which I thought was quite strange. The stone unlocked the key to deciphering Sabeaen. I was fascinated and tried to recognise some of the Greek words. We went back ...

Today we drove to the city of Mekele. We stopped at two churches again along the way, getting ripped off both times, as the price had doubled since the last group had gone through three months ago. The first church, most of us refused to go into on principle, but Sarah just paid for most of us to go into the second one. The second one was the nicer of the two, I only went in this one. I'm really getting sick of the locals ripping us off here. We left the churche...

I think my body clock is permanently set for 6am, so there was no sleep in this morning. I walked to the Seven Olives restaurant and had breakfast overlooking the amazing view of Lalibela. After breakfast I went for a walk back down the horrendous hill towards the churches and ran straight into an Ethiopian wedding. I followed the parade up the street for a while and then went off in the other direction. Just about everything was closed, so I walked along enjoyin...

Today we had a guided tour of 10 out of 11 churches in Lalibela.The churches were amazing cut straight out of the rock. The best one was the church of St. George, which is carved into the shape of a cross. We were allowed into the churches and had someone following us around carrying our shoes all day. We went through this tunnel, which wasn't lit at all.We were not allowed flash lights and it was pitch black. It was supposed to be like a leap of faith, you go t...