Week 17

Thursday 11th August.

To the Post office please.... please?!

One of the biggest problems here is that pronunciation makes such a big difference. One time, Fiona and I were trying to ask a question about day trips to Petra and Amman in Jordan. We were lucky enough to be talking to a travel agent that spoke very good English, however we still stood there for 5 minutes or more saying 'Jordan?', and the travel agent would repeat 'Jordan??' with a confused look on her face. It was like a ping pong game; us "Jordan?", her "Jordan??", us "Jordan?", her "Jordan?????". We finally got somewhere when I threw the word 'Amman' in there and her face lit up with recognition and she said with a big relieved smile "Ahhhhh, Jordan!".

Today we decided to pack up our stuff that we wanted to send home and find the post office. Sounds like a reasonably easy task right... well, not in Africa.

We came across our first major obstacle of finding 2 taxis that knew what we were talking about, or even one taxi so we could get the other to follow behind us. This task quickly became a comedy or errors being played out charade style on the hot, busy streets of Cairo. A few taxis pulled over (and by pull over I mean suddenly brake right in the middle of the extremely busy road) but took off again as quickly as they had stopped when they realised they couldn't understand us and decided it was not worth the trouble. A few stopped and tried to figure out what we were saying before taking off again. Then finally we got one guy stop and between our flailing arm movements pointing to the boxes and imitating a carrier plane and his very limited English we had a ride to the post office- we hoped.

Me, Alex, Aileen, Marcus, Fiona, and Jan piled into the two taxis and jammed our giant boxes in wherever they would fit. We drove through the streets of Cairo for about 20 minutes. We didn't actually travel very far, the traffic is just so bad. Finally pulling over, the taxi driver pointed us down a small pedestrian alley. Fast forward the 10 extra minutes of haggling the price of the taxi, explaining to the guy that yes- we are white, but no- we're not stupid and won't let him rip us off, and we were on our way.

This is where we came across hurdle numero duo. We were all struggling with our big heavy boxes, dripping in sweat from the intense midday heat, and were caught in some kind of groundhog day nightmare. We circled this one block at least 5 times. At every opportunity we would stop and ask someone where the post office was and they would point us around the block, we would do the same on the other side of the block just to be pointed back to the first side of the block. Finally, we happened upon the post office on the next block along.

Que the third hurdle. Bloody Ramadan. Muchos respect to all that do Ramadan, but it really can be a major pain to everyone else. We finally found this post office, hot tired and getting frustrated- only to discover that it had closed a hour or two early because of Ramadan.

Deep breaths, deep breaths....

On top of that it, it was closed the next day because of mosque, and we were leaving early the day after that. We spied a few men sitting in the very back corner of the post office so Fiona and I approached them and tried to find out some more information. We were told that we could go to the express postal service which was still open and was, wait for it, on the block that we had just circled 5 times. More deep breaths. Fiona and I left everyone and the boxes in the entrance to the closed post office while we tried to find exactly where this express place was. We finally found it. It was hot, dirty, not anything like a post office as you might be imagining it. So we went back to the others and got them to follow us up to the express service.

The next problem occurred here. They wanted to inspect every little thing inside our packages. Jan jumped out of the race here as he had taped his box up so tight it was like forte knox. Then we were told that our box was ok to be sent, well, everything except for a small wooden sarcophagus with a little mummy inside. Apparently it is forbidden to send anything resembling an Egyptian relic until after next Wednesday. Really? This little wooden mummy thing was probably made in Taiwan! Exasperated, Aileen jumped out of the race here as 90% of her things were wooden or stone 'relics'. Next up, they told us that it was going to cost US$300 to send. This is where we jumped out of the race. Leaving just Marcus and Fiona, who had smaller packages and not too many 'relics' so they decided to go ahead and send the stuff home.
Our next mission was getting another taxi home, still carrying our big heavy boxes. Aileen and I left Alex and Jan on a street corner with all of the boxes while we went in search of a taxi. One pulled over and was, as usual holding up traffic, so when he wouldn't answer us when we asked how much it was going to cost we felt pressured with all the honking and committed the cardinal sin-we got in without agreeing to a price first. We continued to ask how much it was going to cost and should have known something was wrong when he just wouldn't answer us, but then again we are females so it was not such a rarity to be ignored. We picked up Alex, Jan and the boxes and continued on our way, still asking how much the ride would be. Finally when he had us all in the car and on the road again he said "50 pounds".  WHAT?! We paid 20EGP to get there and THAT was too much! We tried arguing, we tried joking, we tried everything, and when that didn't work I tried banging on the side of the car demanding that he pull over immediately. Soon everyone in the taxi was yelling, and I was banging on the outside of the car demanding that he pull over, he was ignoring everything and just kept on driving. Somewhere in there he finally said "ok, 20" with a smirk on his face, and we all exhaled, I stopped hitting the car door and we all relaxed- just another taxi ride in Egypt!  Such a hassle. Everything here is such a hassle.

Finally we were back in our hotel and we hid ourselves away in our air conditioned rooms to recover from our unsuccessful mission. I spent some time looking for places to stay on the red sea. We have decided not to continue on to Jordan for money and time reasons, but will instead see Jordan on our own time in the near future. It is a terribly sad realisation that the trip is almost over- already, but it has to end one day.
At 7pm we met Marcus, Fiona, Aileen, Jimmy, Jan, Farron, Mark, Sheri and BJ at the reception on the hotel and made our way to our 5 star dinner cruise and BJ's last night on the trip. When we boarded the Andrea we found out that they didn't have any tables ready so we waited around up on the roof for almost a hour before the shuffled everyone downstairs. It was a nice buffet style dinner, but the most noticeable thing was that no one asked us if we wanted drinks. Not very smart from a money making perspective, because we all would have bought drinks. After dinner the belly dancer entered and gave us a little show. Then the spinning man came in. He was incredible, spinning on the spot for a good 15 minutes- I don't know how he did it. Then the belly dancer came back and most of us got dragged up on stage for out turn dancing with her. It was a good night, it was nice to be out for a family dinner. We did miss Emma, Bene and Lars though.

On the way back to our hotel the drive pointed out the police and military presence growing in Tahir square. He said that they were gearing up for a protest tomorrow night, but that he doubted the army would allow one to occur.

Friday 12th August.

Demonstration in Tahir Square.

We spent the morning chatting to mum and dad on facebook and we went downstairs to say goodbye to Marcus and Fiona who were leaving for Sharm El Sheikh. Hopefully we will get to catch up with them there.

We went to find somewhere for lunch with Aileen, Jimmy, Farron, Mark, Jan, and Sheri. We sat down at the restaurant at midday and left after 6pm- many many beers and laughs later. It was such a nice day, just hanging out, drinking and laughing. When we left there we were planning on finding the TGI Friday that was nearby, but we got distracted by the demonstration gearing up in Tahir Square. Not too much longer we were standing in the middle of it, we had our faces painted with the Egyptian flag and were given little flags to wave about. Maybe not our brightest idea, but it was good fun! We managed to stay away from the really rowdy crowd, but there was two times when the crowd turned and started swarming towards us, a lot like the scene in Jurassic Park where the stampeding dinosaurs change path- heading straight for us. I saw one guy covered in blood and looking pretty beat up being helped away by two other guys. I can only presume that he was one of the people in the rowdy crowd that were throwing bottles at the military. Apart from that it was a friendly, atmospheric and exciting place to be. After a few hours (5 or 6) we decided that we had seen enough so went to find a shisha bar to relax in before retiring to bed. What a great day!

Saturday 13th August.

Sionara, Cairo.

We were scheduled to leave at 9am but Farron postponed it so that we had a chance to post stuff from Cairo. Attempt two went much better than the first and we ended up leaving Cairo by 11am.
We drove for a while and pulled over at a servo for lunch. Shortly after that we passed under the Suez Canal where there were guys with big machine guns every few meters. Farron found a beach to pull over at and have a quick dip and we went shopping in a small town along the way. We got over a kilo each of potatoes, capsicums, lady fingers,, eggplants, tomatoes, bananas, mangoes, zucchinis, 2 huge melons and a handful of limes for the equivalent of around US$10! We found a bush camp and Alex helped me with my cooking duties because my cooking buddies had left the trip. Alex made a really yummy babaganoush that we had for starters with these gigantic poppadom type things we found in the town and for main we made a minced meat, lady finger and tomato stew with rice. Alex, Jimmy and I had a movie night in the truck and slept in there rather than set up a tent.

Sunday 14th August.

3,000 steps of Repentance.

Alex and I made a massive fruit salad for breakfast and tried the banana coffee that we had bought on Zanzibar island. We left this bush camp earlier than planned for two reasons, one; because everyone was up anyway, and two; because of the random guy that had found us and was sitting with us. Farron found another place for us to have a swim and cool off, and we pulled into the town/national park of Saint Katherine just before lunch. It is a beautiful place set in the valley of these monsterous, rocky mountains- one of which we were here to climb!

We had the choice of either climbing to the summit of Mount Sinai, where according to legend is where Moses was given the 10 commandments, in either the afternoon to watch the sunset, or getting up at 2am to climb it in the dark and watch the sunset from the top. We decided to do the sunset climb so that we werent totally buggered for the next few days. I am really glad of this as well because we basically had the mountain top to ourselves, whereas the sunset group was squished up there with hundreds of other people and they were told to rush down straight after sunrise so as to not get stuck behind everyone else.
The climb to the top can be taken 2 ways. Either the slower and more gradual camel trail, or the steep '3,000 steps of repentance'. I was keen to do the camel trail, but we had left it a little late in the afternoon and didn't want to miss the sunset so we ended up taking the steps. Im pretty sure I went beyond simple repentance and actually died a few times on the way up there. It was such hard work. I have never felt that out of breath in my life. The worst bit was at the start when we had been climbing these steep uneven steps for what felt like and age, and as I stopped to try and catch my breath our guide told us that we were just about to reach the start of the 3,000 steps! We hadnt even started yet- they were just the steps to the steps! It was a very challenging climb, but one I am glad we did. There was such a great sense of acheivement when we reached the top. Or at least there was once we had began to breath again. The view was incredible, and the sunset absolutley breathtaking. It was definatley a once in a lifetime that that I will never forget.

We took the slower and more gradual 'camel trail' back down to the bottom, and didn't even have to use our head torches because the moon was so bright. Once we got to the bottom, instead of go back to camp and curl up and die- which is what i felt like doing- Mark convinced us to go to the hotel which was the only place in Saint Katherine serving beer. He promised that it wasnt very far away, and lured by the promise of beer, we all followed. I could have killed him when he said "its just up and over the other side of this hill'! However, exhaustion aside it felt great to finally get there, order a beer and stick our sore feet in the pool.

Finally getting back to our camp only an hour before the sunrise climbers were due to wake up we set uo our tent as quietly as possible and fell into a deep deep sleep.

Monday 15th August.

A little slice of Paradise.

The sunrise hikers got back at 7am and got a few hours sleep before we left for Dahab at 1pm. We bummed around camp in the morning and walked up the street to get some lunch just before we were meant to leave.

The drive to Dahab was beautiful. After so long of looking at flat sand on drive days it was really cool to be surrounded by tall, ragged, rocky mountains, which gave way to a half built (or half crumbled) resort town where the mountains meet the red sea. From the outskirts, Dahab looked like a 'town of broken dreams', but the real heart of the place was on one main stretch right on the water. Out hotel, 7th Heaven, was right on this main strip. There was a few miles of shops, restaurants, and bars overlooking the Red Sea and Saudia Arabia just on the other side of the sea. Farron announced that he would be leaving in Jordan and not staying with the truck through to Istanbul.

When we pulled into the hotel we found Emma, Benne who had lft before Cairo, and Jerome who we hadnt seen since Aswan. It was like a little family reunion. After loosing some people in the last week it was nice to get some back. We caught up with them and then made ourselves comfortable in our room.
We spent the night wandering the strip of restaurants and bars that would be our home for the next two weeks. Getting to Dahab marked the official end of our time on the truck. It didn't yet feel real that it was all over.  Alex, me, Aileen, Emma, Benne, Jimmy, Mark and Farron tried a few places during the night- one that involved fish bowls of cocktails and had a really great night celebrating the end of an era.

Tuesday 16th August.

Damn those fish bowls!

We spent the day recouperating from the fish bowl cocktails from the night before. We went out for dinner and drinks with the usual suspects and Alex, Jerome and I went for a quick fish at the lighthouse. Such a hard life...

Wednesday 17th August.

Just another day in paradise.

Alex got up early in the morning to do an introductory scuba dive with Farron. Alex decided to keep going with it and join the others in getting his dive license. Jan, who had also taken off just as we reached Cairo, reached 7th Heaven and it was really nice to see him again and catch up on his adventures while away from the truck.

We found out that getting a dive license is like a full time job for a few days. Alex had to do another dive at 4pm and had to get in some study and videos before then, so I left him to it and went to find the others to continue eating and drinking. Alex finally finished at 5pm and came and met up with us. We moved to a new restaurant for dinner and had a massive seafood platter that included the squid that Alex and Jerome had caught the night before as well as a small one that Alex had caught while we were sitting at the dinner table!

Walking down the strip of Dahab was an experience all of its own, with people trying to get your attention from every direction. Some of the favourite sayings including: "you primised you would look at my shop" (when you have never seen the person before"; "miss, you dropped something- my heart"; "looking is free"; "promise you will come back later" (NEVER promise anything). It was really fun walking down and having this friendly banter with everysingle person but it could also get tiring when all you wanted was a can of coke from the supermarket! After dinner we made our way back to the hotel so I could relax (because life was so stressful) and Alex could study for his diving licence.

Week 16

Thursday 4th August.

HotChipSoup

We were out of the hotel by 6am and drove across the Nile River to the west bank where we picked up the guys that had done their hot air balloon ride. They had absolutely loved the balloon ride and it made us even more excited for our turn the next morning.

We made our way to the Valley of the Kings and as soon as we got out of the minivan we got to experience the hassling that we were warned about when visiting Egypt. It was crazy, there were people basically people hanging off our ankles as we tried to run away, and it was only going to get worse! Also, we found out that there was strictly no photography in the Valley of the Kings and we were advised to leave our cameras in the van, otherwise we risked them being taken off us.

We gathered with our guide who gave us a quick introduction to the Valley of the Kings. He then pointed us in the direction of the first of three tombs that our tickets allowed us to see and told us that he couldn't come inside with us because he didn't have a ticket. Inside the tomb we descended down the narrow, steep passageway and found ourselves in a small enclosed room with a large, freestanding stone tomb in the middle of the stone room and there were cool hieroglyphics painted on the walls. There was an elderly man, and by elderly I mean easily 150 years old, he looked a lot like the knight that protects the goblet in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (if you haven't seen that movie yet, go forth and be enlightened! Anyway.... I presumed that this old man was there as security to make sure no one damaged the tomb in anyway and he had a few scraps of cardboard in his hand, one of which he handed to me and indicated that it was to fan myself with. How nice of him, I thought. Then he followed behind me and struck up a conversation about the paintings in his broken English. Again, I though what a nice old man he is. Then as we left to climb up the steep, narrow passageway to the comparably fresh air in the open, the old man put out his hand and asked for money. I should have seen that coming. Lesson numero uno.. NOTHING in Egypt is free.

From there we went into the second tomb, but wiser from the first tomb, I didn't get conned into giving anyone else money. When we went to enter the third tomb there was a man standing at the entrance handing out torches. I presumed, understandably I think, that if they are handing out torches it must mean that you need it to see inside the tomb. Wrong. It was very brightly lit all the way through the tomb. Instantly I knew that I was going to have to pay for the displeasure of holding that torch for five minutes. Frustrated I brought it up with a guy standing further inside the tomb. I tried to give it back to him saying that I didn't need it and didn't want it but he wouldn't take it, he just kept on pointing at the man who had handed me the torch. But I knew that the second I went back to him with the torch he would demand money for it. Okay then, plan B. I waited until someone I knew walked past us on their way back out of the tomb and asked them politely if they would please drop the torch off on their way through. That issue sorted, I got back to admiring the ancient tomb we were inside of. This tomb was a bit different to the last two, I had a long hallway covered in paintings and at the end of the hallway there was a staircase down further. At the end of the stairway we could see a few rooms separated by archways. It got dark pretty quickly so we couldn't see how deep it went, but it felt like it went on forever underground. As we were leaving the tomb the torch guy seemed to be arguing with other people, presumably about asking for money for the torches, and as he was so busy he didn't even see me leaving. And, as a by-note, the poor sucker I hand-balled my torch onto didn't have to pay for it as the torch guy was distracted when he passed too.

Back above the ground we looked into seeing the famous tombs of Tutankhamen and Ramses II but decided against it when we found out that it would be EGP100/US$17 each for each tomb. As we made our way back to the minivan we were again bombarded by people trying to sell souvenirs and had to fight our way through the crowd to get back to our van. Overall, we found the Valley of the Kings to be underwhelming and the hassling to be a bit overwhelming.

From the Valley of the Kings we were driven to HotChipSoup Temple (a.k.a. Hatshepsut Temple). Now this is more like it! The minivan was parked and, surprise surprise we had to walk through a market place before reaching the entrance. Getting through that relatively unscathed we entered the information building where there were toilets that you could pay to use and cans of soft drink you could get for the crazy price of 20 Egyptian pounds each (usually 5 pounds!). We exited on the other side of the information building and jumped into one of the little train cars that ferry people to and from the temple which was a long, hot walk away.



On the way back to the meeting point at the information building we were once again bombarded by kids trying to sell souvenirs. we were getting the hang of politely but very firmly saying "thanks but no thanks", but others around weren't as good at it, and some tourists (one who looked like Priscilla Queen of the Desert) had kids hanging off the side of the train car as we were driving still trying to sell things.
After HotChipSoup Temple we were taken to an Alabaster factory where we were given free hibiscus tea as we looked through their shop, while our driver no doubt got a commission for taking us there. There was a set of really nice colourful alabaster glasses that I really liked, but luckily for our bank account they were way too expensive.

From there we made our way back over the rive to the east side and asked the driver to drop us off at McDonald's instead of at the hotel. Everyone but Geoff and Kate got out at Maccas. The McDonald's in Luxor, by the way, is a tourist attraction all on its own because right across the road from it sits Luxor temple. From maccas we walked back to the hotel via the very long market/souk street and ended up buying another shisha pipe, one that says EGYRT instead of EGYPT on it... T.I.A.
We got back to the hotel in time for an afternoon swim and a nap and then went to a fancy Japanese restaurant in a fancy hotel in town with a few people. Yummm!

Friday 5th August.

Hot air balloon over the Nile... Don't mind if I do...

Our alarm went off at 3.30am and we were downstairs in the minivan by 4am. Me, Alex, Lars, BJ, Fiona, Emma and Benne we all pumped for our hot air balloon ride (well, as pumped as you can be at 4am). We all stood around and watched the 10 or so balloons get inflated in the field while the sun slowly started to rise. We also got to witness the very hi-tech way that our pilot tested the wind direction- by releasing a helium filled birthday balloon into the air and seeing where it went! Very technical!

We had a smooth take off and an amazing flight. We reached heights of 3000 meters and flew so low at times that we almost brushed against the palm trees. We had an amazing view of the city, of the Nile River snaking into the horizon, we could see Hotchipsoup Temple, and could see where the desert met the green of the city limits.

We were also lucky enough to glide over the Nile River, something that apparently doesn't happen very often but had now happened two days in a row. Our landing was a bit touch and go, we kept on floating up again. After about 10 minutes of up and down we finally came to a stop on the edge of a corn field on a pile of burnt out rubbish.

We got back to Rezeiky Camp by 6.30 and waited until 7am when we got picked up to do our half day east bank tour of Karnak and Luxor Temples.

Karnak Temple is dated back to 1000-2000 BC. Excavation began in the 1800s and is still continuing to this day. Every day more artifacts, temples and tombs are discovered. We could see a dig site just out the front where there were clay jugs half dug out of the ground. Only a few months ago a Roman bath was discovered on the Karnac Temple grounds, which has been dated back to 300 BC. The whole of modern day Luxor city has been built on top of ancient Luxor, and there is an Alley of Sphynxes, 2.7 kilometers long, that connects Luxor Temple to Karnac Temple.

 Karnak Temple was amazing. Breathtaking. Words can not describe. It  was exactly what I had been expecting to experience in Egypt but hadn't yet. There was one hall that was filled with ginormous pillars, hundreds of them. It was such a massive place, with gigantic room after gigantic room. Outside there was a huge pool, not for bathing or for swimming, but only for the high priest's to bless things in. What amazed me most was that no one ever got to see this magical, grand Temple. Only the royal family and the highest of the high priests ever got to go inside the Temple. Apart from that, dignitaries and high priests only ever saw the outside courts and the blessing pool on the outside during very special ceremonies. To have such a massive and magical place built and not show it off to everyone that you can doesn't seem right to me, how mysterious it must have been during the day!

Hotchipsoup added her little bit to temple as well (having her own massive temple wasn't enough for her). She had an obelisk built and put in there. It was made of one solid piece of pink granite and stood at well over 60 meters high. The engineering skills that they possessed back then really is amazing.
If I can say one thing to you it would be.... Go see Karnac Temple! Please!

We went home via pizza hut this time and had a huge afternoon nap, exhausted from our busy last few days. We woke up and had a long soak in the pool. At dinner time I went out to the Chinese restaurant again with Emma, Fiona and Marcus and we met Mark, Aileen and Jan there. Alex, Benne, Jimmy, and Lars stayed home and hung out smoking shisha pipe all night. I really love Luxor.

Saturday 6th August.

Chillin' in Luxor.

We had a relaxing day. We spent the first half of the day swimming in the pool, then spent the afternoon in our air conditioned room watching the movie channel. In the late afternoon as the sun was going down we sat around the pool area reading books and chatting. At dinner time everyone but Kate and Geoff had enjoyed a massive, delicious buffet cooked by the lovely man that owns Rezeiky camp. He looked like one of the statues that you see outside of Italian restaurants with a big smile, bushy moustache, and kind eyes. It was a really yummy dinner with all traditional Egyptian food and it was really nice to sit around a table with everyone, especially because the trip is nearing the end.

Farron arrived with our truck at about 10pm with the Oasis truck right behind him. The Oasis truck was empty except for the driver because everyone was on the fellucas and would be arriving in the morning.  The poor buggers had not had as much good luck as we had (well, they didn't have Farron- that was their main problem) and they ended up missing the ferry that we caught from Sudan and were stuck in the dirty hole of a town, Wad Halfa for a whole week. Maybe next time they will choose African Trails! Everyday we thank our lucky stars that we have Farron as our driver, and friend!

Sunday 7th August.

Into the Western Desert we go.

We woke up at 9am to clean the bomb site that was our bedroom. We switched off the air conditioning in an attempt to start to re-acclimatize to the heat. We went downstairs to join in in the truck clean. We put together a package of food that we didn't need anymore, things like 2minute noodles, tins of tuna, soup etc. for the guy that owned the shop at Rezieky camp. He said that he knows lots of poor people and that he would take the package to church on Monday and distribute it around. Alex also left him with our guitar and asked him to give it to someone who would enjoy and not otherwise be able to afford one.
We were meant to be leaving at 1pm but we were waiting for the Oasis people to arrive from their felluca trip because we were gaining 2 new family members from them. Damien and Anna were jumping off the Oasis truck and joining our us. Because they were running late from the fellucas we had some time up our sleeves and spent it skyping home. We got to speak to my parents and my sister and brother. It was so nice to see everyone's faces and to see my sisters big pregnant belly in real time, it appeared on the screen a whole minute before she did!

We ended up leaving Rezeiky Camp at 3.30pm and then stopped for petrol so were properly on the road by 4pm. We were on our way to Cairo, with two nights of bush camping in the Western Desert on the way. I thought we were going through the White Desert as well, but it turns out we will miss it. Oh well, gives me an excuse to come back to Egypt- not that I need it because I absolutely love it here!

We got to see the most amazing sunset and pulled into a quarry to make camp. Cook group made a really nice mashed potato and minced meat thing that tasted just like a shepherds pie. We set up our beds in the truck and ended up having a big slumber party because Marcus, Fiona, Lars and Aileen all slept in the truck too.

Monday 8th August.

Small town hospitality.

We were awake just after 5am from a combination of the sun already being up and from the hundreds of flies using our faces as landing pads. On top of that we hadn't had a very good night sleep due to a mixture of Lars snoring and bugs biting our faces. We ended up having breakfast and leaving 30 minutes ahead of schedule at 8am because everyone else was awake and ready.

We drove for a few hours through deserty nothingness. We made a sudden stop-over at a petrol station in the middle of nowhere because Farron had spotted what he thought might have been a fridge.... and... BINGO- there was even ice cream. We continued on, in search of an oasis to pull over for lunch in the New Valley.

Just as we were arriving at a town in the New Valley where there was meant to be a nice oasis to swim in, we were pulled over by police. They had a quick chat to Farron and we were on our way again. But then 5 minutes later just before we entered the town, the police caught up to us and pulled us over again. This time they escorted us to the police station. An office came out and asked Farron exactly what we were looking for. Farron explained that we were looking for an oasis to swim in while we ate our lunch. The police officer kindly informed us that the next town, 180kms away, was better for that and that his officers would promptly escort us out of their town. Small town hospitality- what can I say?!

So we left that town in style with a cop car in front of us that turned on the sirens every now and then. We were also being followed by a ute that was filled with what looked like 15 year old boys with big guns and battons. Now, I can't speak for anyone else, but it certainly crossed my mind that I hope they weren't leading us into the deserty nothingness to rob us for all we had. Luckily that didn't happen and they waved goodbye to us at the next police check point. We carried on further down the road for another 10 minutes of so when Farron pulled over so that he could explain to us what had just happened and for a quick pee stop and lunch break. Not long after stopping and just as we were about to enjoy our tinned tuna lunch, the cops came back. Turns out they didn't trust us not to turn around and try and sneak into their town again. Lovely little place. They ended up escorting us the whole way to the next town. As soon as they left our sides, police officers from the next town came up to us. We thought for sure that they were going to escort us out of their town as well, but much to our surprise they didn't. Farron had explained that we wanted to find an Oasis to swim in and them somewhere to camp at. For whatever reason they took us to this hotel of broken dreams, a badly run down place with an empty and mouldy pool. It probably belonged to one of the police officers cousins or something. Farron thanked them but said that we could not stay there. Instead of just letting us go our own way they took us to another place out of town. Our spirits were a little broken after a full day of being given the run around by the local police and we didn't have high expectations for this place.

We pulled up to a dusty little place that was still being constructed, it had a camel in the back and two toilets in the front. There was one small mud building that was completely empty- but there WAS a fridge plugged into a power point under a wooden umbrella and it was FULL of cold soft drink! Excellent!
There was a sandy area where we could put our tents up and there was a bizaar Oasis. Apparently if you swim in it, the magical powers would make you 10 years younger. It was a bubbling natural spring and it was the weirdest thing ever. It was so unnerving because the sand at the bottom of the pool kind of disappeared in the center. Right in the middle where the bottom disappeared there were bubbles raising to the surface of the water and the sand at the edge became like quicksand. Right in the middle was like a sand blaster as the air from the middle of the earth pushed around the sand. It was so weird. Right on the edge it felt like it was sucking you under and in the middle it pushed you back out again.

Tuesday 9th August.

The White Desert.

we had an awesome sleep because it was the most perfect temperature over night. We woke up early feeling refreshed and ready to leave at 8am. There is still 800kms to go to Cairo so we will go as far as we can, hopefully find a bush camp somewhere pretty and then get to Cairo tomorrow. We drove past the 'Sea of Sand', hundreds of kilometers of nothing but sand and sand dunes between here and Libya and beyond.

We stopped at an Oasis which was like a really hot well with a small shoulder depth bath in front. As we were swimming some guy appeared from the middle of nowhere and set up a little shop on the desert floor. He had some scarfs and I of course needed one. We ate lunch while we were stopped there and then continued on.

Not long after we entered the White Desert National Park. I was so excited- I thought we were going to miss it. It was the most magical thing! The sky was a vibrant blue colour, there was red sand in the distance and we were surrounded by white sand and the huge white rock formations. We carried on again and then stopped a further 25kms down the road at the Crystal Mountain. This was nothing special, but I did manage to collect some nice little bits of quartz to play our Bao game with. On the road again we stopped at the next oasis town that had no oasis to swim in and got some veggies to cook dinner with. We pulled over and set up another bush camp. Farron said that we might try and see the pyramids tomorrow on the way into Cairo. I can't believe it is here already! For so long it has seemed like something so far off in the distance, but here we are, getting to Cairo tomorrow!

Wednesday 10th August.

Great Pyramids of Giza.

We were up at 5am to try and push it to Cairo so that we could see the pyramids before it got too hot. We stopped for breakfast on the side of the highway at 7am. As we reached the city limits of Cairo we could see the Great Pyramids of Giza dwarfing the giant city. It was an incredible sight. Struggling through the manic city traffic we finally made it to the pyramids. Parking we made a time to meet back at the truck and walked up the big driveway like road to the entrance. We decided to pay for entry into all of the pyramids- the most expensive tickets, but while we are here we want to see as much as we can.

Entering, we were immediately confronted by hundreds of people trying to sell things. I guess this is the Egypt that most people experience and don't really like. There were men who would just appear in front of you, quickly place an Egyptian cotton hat on your head and then refuse to take it back while demanding payment. We learnt very quickly not to make eye contact with anyone or ask anyone anything! We stopped and asked a tourism police officer for directions, he pointed down the road and then put out his hand for money. A tourism police officer! I just walked away. Yeah right are we going to pay a tourist police officer for giving us- tourists- directions!

We first went into the smallest of the three pyramids. We had to crouch down and walk down this tiny, narrow, and very steep walkway. At the bottom it was so incredibly hot that we couldn't really stop to enjoy the small empty space. We then went inside the Great Pyramid of Giza. Again we had to do most of the climbing in a crouched position and it was such a steep uphill ramp that I didn't think I was going to make it. They really should put a health warning at the entrance- "Not suitable for pregnant women, people with back injuries, heart conditions, asthma, the elderly or those affected by claustrophobia".

When we finally reached the small room at the top of the giant pyramid there was only me, Alex, Jimmy, and Aileen and the guy that stands up there and takes photos of you for a huge amount of money because photos are prohibited. We collapsed on the floor and tried to catch our breath. It was so incredibly hot that we were literally swimming in sweat. When we managed to tell the guy standing there that none on us had a camera with us he stopped staring at us and started chanting. There is no other word for it, it was enchanting. Being up there by ourselves with his chanting reverberating off the giant stone walls. After we had caught our breaths we made our way back down to the ground.

We were meant to be back at the truck at 1pm and were already running late so we resigned ourselves to the fact that we would come back and see the sphynx the next day. But once we got back to the truck we found out that they had extended the meeting time to allow everyone to fit in the sphynx. Alex couldn't bear going back out into the heat and climbing back up the steep hill to the pyramids, so I went with Jimmy and Sherri. We made our way back up the steep hot hill, in through the entrance, past the pyramids and down to the sphynx. It really is a beautiful statue and it is a great pity that it was defaced for nothing more than target practice. We took a few photos and made our way back to the truck. I am so glad that I got the opportunity to see the Great Pyramids of Giza and the beautiful Sphynx, but it would have been so much more enjoyable had it not been for the oppressive heat and the constant, persistent hassling.

We got to our hotel at 4pm. It was a bit of a dump for the amount of money that we had to pay but it did have airconditioning. I jumped on the net and tried to find something better, but it all looked the same for the same price. Plus, we were in a good location, right on the famous Thahir Square with tanks parked right out the front of our hotel, so we decided to just stay there with everyone else. We had a long cold shower and met in the lobby to go out for dinner with everyone and say goodbye to Lars of Arabia, because his flight back to Norway was at 4am.

Week 15

Thursday 28th July.

Goodbye Sudan, Hello Egypt.

Everyone was awake pretty early in the morning, and by pretty early, I mean as soon as the sun rose because it was so hot. We all spent the morning sitting around, eating some food that we had brought along and drinking litres and litres of water. By the time lunch time came around however we couldn't drink the water anymore because it was too hot to drink! We had to go down the galley area in small groups and get the most unofficial looking immigration official to stamp our passports. We finally pulled into the ferry mariner in Aswan, Egypt sometime after midday. By this stage we had packed up the refugee camp and taken down the sun shade in anticipation of getting the hell off that boat as soon as we docked. But, of course, things didn't go as quickly or as smoothly as we would have liked. It turns out that somehow the authorities had discovered that there were a few stowaways on board the ferry and we sat there, in the sun for two hours while they did whatever it was they had to do. It was so hot. Well over 40 in the shade- which was limited to huddling under a lifeboat on the edge of the ferry.

Finally off the ferry at 2pm we had to make our way up a long, steep driveway with all of our bags to the immigration building. We joined the long line of people waiting in the sun and prepared ourselves for the long hot wait. Then a small miracle happened and they shuffled all the white people to the front of the line and into some sort of express lane so we were rushed through immigration and customs.  Alex got pulled aside and had his bag searched but apart from that it was a surprisingly smooth border crossing.
We had to walk down what felt like the longest train station platform on earth and at the end of that we got into the waiting, slightly airconditioned minibus. We were dropped off at our hotel in Aswan shortly after and all shown our rooms. Alex and I scored big time, getting a huge room with a big bathroom, three beds, and a balcony overlooking the Nile River and some mosques.

We dumped our bags and went straight back down to the foyer to meet up with the others. Once all assembled we went straight back into the crazy heat of the early afternoon and went for a walk. At this stage I wouldn't blame you if you were thinking that we were all crazy, and usually I would agree. However, we were on our way to McDonald's and NOTHING was going to stop us. It had been a good 5 months or more between burgers and in the heat stroke and exhaustion we were all so excited we could barely contain ourselves.

I will always wonder what those poor people working at maccas thought of us that day. We hadn't showered in nearly a week, had been on a dirty, smelly ferry for over 24 hours, and some people (Benne) were so deliriously happy when they walked into the building that they were jumping up and down and welling up with tears of happiness. We must have smelt so bad, looked so dirty and acted so weird!  It might sound silly to get so excited over McDonalds, but it was in a different universe to what we had become accostomed to over the last few months, that even those that dont really like the golden arches got just as excited by the idea of eating it!

After stuffing ourselves silly and enjoying thier super airconditioning we ventured back out onto the streets and wandered home. I had the longest and coldest shower I have ever and probably will ever have, and came out feeling almost human again. At dinner time we went back down to the restaurant in the foyer area to meet everyone for the dinner that the hotel was preparing for us. Not long after dinner we went to bed exhausted and happy.

Friday 29th July.

The start of the shisha madness.

We slept this morning, enjoying the comfort of a matress under our back and airconditioning in the room. Once up we made our way down to the hotel restaurant for our breakfast of one boiled egg, a small bread roll and a cup of tea. We chilled out for an hour or so and then met everyone in the foyer at midday to go back to McDonalds. After another Mcfeast we hit the market and went on our first (but not last) Egyptian shopping spree. We spent all afternoon wandering through the alleyways and haggling with the market stall owners. We walked away with three new shisha pipes and some other lovely souvaneirs.
We got back to the hotel just in time for dinner. After dinner we took our new goodies up to the roof of the hotel where there were seats and a small square pool about waist deep- perfect for sitting in! We tried out our new shisha pipes and watched as Alex's new obsession was born and drank beers all night long.

Saturday 30th July.

Philae Temple.

We tried to get maccas delivered but couldn't find the right number, so Aileen and I took one for the team and offered to do a food run. Thank goodness we bumped into Sherri at maccas because without her we would have had to have done two runs, it was the biggest food order I have ever seen!
We took the food back to the hotel and we all ate it up on the roof. We spent the rest of the day listening to music, smoking shisha and sitting in the pool. At 6pm, Alex and I, Emma and Benne, Fiona, Lars, Mark, Aileen, Jimmy, and BJ all got picked up to go to the sound and ligt show at Philae Temple.
It was our first 'real Egyptian' experience and it was a really nice temple. The temple was originally built on a small island, but that got flooded and submerged in 1906 when the first Aswan dam was built, but in the 70s UESCO picked it up from the bottom of the river and put it on a reconstructed island, built to look exactly like the original one.

We wondered around taking photos of the ancient hieroglyphics until the light and sound show started. The 'light' part of the shower was great, the 'sound' part of the show was incredibly tacky and sounded like something out of a Walt Dysney movie on steroids. I really enjoyed it, but just found myself blocking out the tacky sounds.

When we got back to town we went to the night market and walked through the bazaars. Alex took his shisha pipes backs because they were a little bit faulty and had them fixed up, and then we just wandered- smelling the scents, enjoying the sounds and tastes of Egypt at night time.

Sunday 31st July.

Happy 10 year anniversary!

Today we were all going to see Abu Simble Temples, and were picked up at the hotel 4am, which meant a 3.30am wake up call. Ouch. It was a three hour drive to the temple, almost back to the border of Sudan- showing how quick and painless that border crossing could be if only they would open a road! The plan was to sleep the whole way there, but I was having too much fun watching the countryside pass by that I only got an hour or so sleep.

We got to the temples at 7.30am and stodd in front of the impressivly massive stone structures while our guide filled us in on a little history and fact. The huge temple built for King Ramses the 2nd stands an impressive 20 meters high at the front. It was badly damaged in a huge eartquake some time B.C. Sitting next to that temple is a smaller one, which was built by the original hustler, King Ramses the 2nd for his favourite wife Nefteri. Thats right, I said favourite wife. This pimp-daddy of the ancient world had over 2,000 kids and at all time had well over 20 wives. However he wanted Nefteri to know that she was the most beautiful and most loved so he had this temple built to keep his missus happy.

We had only 45 minutes to look through the two temples before having to meet everyone at the front entrance to leave for Aswan. It was quick, but once inside there was not too much to see. Ramses temple had a lot of little room and hallways and beautiful statues and Nefteris smaller temple had some amazing statues inside and out. No photography allowed though, so you'll have to take my word for it, or go see it yourself! They were really impressive and beautiful and it is incredible to think that they built these huge structures by hand so long ago.

We had a quiet drive back to Aswan and tried to rest in the afternoon, tired from our early morning wake-up. In the early evening Alex and I had a shower and got all pretty to go out for a nice quiet dinner together to celebrate our 10 year anniversary. We walked along the water checking out all of the restaurants and chose a nice one with a floating platform on the nile river. We bumped into Sheri and Tony who were also there eating dinner. We ordered a yummy mixed grill and a stuffed pigeon. The pigeon would have been nice, but I don't think it had had a good feed in a few months because there was next to no meat at all.  For dessert we ordered an apple flavoured shisha and thats when the rest of the crew walked in, having also chosen that same restaurant for dinner. Great minds think alike! It was a wonderful night and a magical and memorable place to celebrate our decade together.

Monday 1st August.

It's felluca time!

We woke up early to sort all of our stuff out in time to meet in the foyer at 10am. Its Felluca Time! We sang happy birthday to Fiona and I helped Marcus get her candles and cake ready, it was a nice surprise for her.

Once Jimmy and Jan had woken up from their alcohol induced coma and we were all gathered in the foyer we grabbed our bags and made our way accross the road to the fellucca waiting for us in front of KFC (which, much to our horror was still closed- damn Ramadan).

We settled ourselves down on the deck of Elephantine, our felluca and set sail. The Felluca's deck was a flat surface covered in a mattress and pillows. The boat sat really low down in the water so you could dangle your feet in the water while sailing. There was a sun shade covering the length of the deck and there was a small area at the back and front where we could sit in the sun. It was so peaceful sailing down the Nile River with nothing but the sound of the soft wind hitting the sails. I thought I was already pretty relaxed, but I found a whole new level of relaxed-ness!

In 3 days/2 nights we had a staggering total of 45kms to sail, so we were in no rush at all. We spent the next hour or so zig-zagging down the nile until lunchtimewhen the crew pulled up at a small island in the middleof the river. They made us lunch of beans, salsa, and tomato and cheese spread with flat bread and watermelon afterwards. It must have been hard for them as it was the first day of Ramadan, so the first day of fasting. For meal time we all moved over onto the other boat which had less people on it and the crew set the food up on the deck and we all sat in a circle on the floor to eat. After lunch we went for a swim to cool off and then set sail again.

We cruised for a few more hours until we pulled up on the bank of the river just as the sun was setting. Went for another swim as the crew were getting dinner organised and then we ate, layed about, swam, played games, talked, drank and did more relaxing.

Tuesday 2nd August.

Felluca heaven....!

We woke up when our bodies told us to, had breakfast, swam, sailed, read, takled, listened to music, ate, read, slept, stopped for lunch, swam, ate, swam, sailed, drank, ate, slept, played games, read, takled, took in the beautiful surroundings, drank, read, swam..... you get the point.

At lunch time we dropped Farron off on the banks of some town we were passing because word had it our truck had arrived in Aswan and he had to unfortunatley go sort out paperwork and boreing things like that.
In the afternoon we pulled up on Donkey Island, and guess what- there was a donkey tied up right in front of where we parked. We went for a swim and enjoyed the yummy dinner prepared by the crew. After dinner the crew made a fire on the snady shores of Donkey Island and we sat around as they sang us songs. It didn't take too long, or too many drinks before we were up singing and dancing with them. It was a wonderful night. All the relaxing and swimming and eating and drinking had made me tired so I went and curled up on the deck of the felluca and fell into a deep and happy sleep.

Wednesday 3rd August.

Nikko and his horse.

We were up relativley early to set sail. Had breakfast on the move with both fellucas tied together and only a short hour or so later we were at the drop-off point. We gathered our stuff, got off the fellucas and into the waiting minivan. What a fantastic two days, I would reccommend a felluca trip to anyone travelling to Egypt.

We were driven 2.5 hours to Rezekiel Camp in Luxor. We were all provided with airconditioned room overlooking the big pool- Thanks African Trails! Before we had time to do anything we were met by the fixer who took us through a list of activities that we could do and we put our names down for a half day 'west side' tour, a half day 'east side' tour, and a US$50 hot air balloon ride!

We went to Pizzahut for lunch and then went back to our rooms to escape the heat. We spent the afternoon relaxing in our room and looking through the 300+ Arabic and 2 English television channels. At dinner time Alex decided to stay at the hotel and myself, Emma, Aileen, and Benne got a mutatu minibus taxi to a nearby Chinese restaurant. After a yummy dinner we caught a horse and carriage home with Nikko the crazy man and his very well fed horse. I was sitting up front with Nikko and he let me steer for a while- and by steer I mean close my eyes and hope the horse knew what it was doing! We drove through the narrow winding streets of the night market. I was fantastic to see, hear, smell and experience the sights of the night market. When we hit the main road though, it got a bit hairy when Nikko got his horse to gallop over speed humps!

Week 14

Thursday 21st July.

The Blue Nile Sailing Club, hell's home away from home.

Leaving the 'hills have eyes' campsite in the morning we waved goodbye to all the young shepherds perched on rocks watching us. A little way down the road we stopped at a food cart in a small town and got chicken gyros in fresh bread for only a few dollars. Yum! It is so exciting to see chicken in abundance again, for so long it has been way too expensive to buy for cook group so we have rarely eaten it.
We stopped again a little further down the road at in a small, dusty, hot town with a large fruit and vegitable market down one side of the dirt road. Alex, Emma and Aileen went shopping for food for dinner and I went in hunt of cold drinks with Marcus and Fiona. We had great success, and even stumbled upon a glass cabinet filled with baclava. Naturally I got a bit excited and bought a kilo of it, enough to feed the whole village I think.

We arrived in North Sudan's capital, Khartoum, in the early afternoon. Driving into town saw most of us hanging out the windows of the truck looking at everything in wide-eyed wonderment. It was certainly not what I was expecting. There was big, modern looking bukldings, fancy cars, huge houses- there is money here. We stopped at the Afra Centre, a big shopping mall that had a fair out the front with some rides, a cinema, bowling alley, game arcade, wedding centre, a male and female mosque, big food court with free wifi, gigantic supermarket, and all the other regular shops one would expect in a western mall. Khartoum airport is right in the middle of the city and it was weird to see huge airliners taking off right over the main road, power lines and Afra Centre. Farron gave us an hour to look around and stock up on anything we might need, most of us made our way directly to the food court. We weren't even hungry, but the excitement of seeing something so familiar and a place where it was least expected was such a novelty. I have never been to Dubai but have seen photos, and from what I have seen so far, I imagine Khartoum to look like Dubai's much older, much dirtier, but still impressive brother.

After we had all had our western fix at the Afra Centre we made our way back to the truck and drove to the Blue Nile Sailing Club, the place where we would be camping. It was mentioned in the Lonley Planet as a place that overland trucks stop, but it looked more like the place where hell stopped. It was right on the Nile, but the river was too full and flowing too fast so we couldn't swim. There was a small patch of grass or a gravel carpark where we could put our tents, there was one airconditioned room with a pool table in it but it was for members only and we weren't allowed in, there was no where to buy food, there were toilets but they were filled with shit and really gross, and there were showers but they were over the shit filled squat toilets, plus the water wasn't on anyway. I think you get the picture. As you can imagine, we wanted to find somewhere else to stay, but were far to hot to do anything about it so we sat in the gutter of the carpark in the shade for a few hours drinking cold water.

I helped Alex, Aileen and Emma prepare a pasta salad dinner, and then Farron, Leigh, Mark and us went on a mission to find a hotel. Geoff and Kate had seen a few on thier own unsuccessful mission earlier in the day for 100-150 Sudanese Pounds. They werent willing to pay that much money, but we were willing to consider it. Our little hearts were crushed when we finally reached the hotels, a good 30 minute walk away, and the prices were in US dollars NOT Sudanese pounds. Bugger Bugger Bugger. We sat in the airconditioned lobby and drooled over the hotels pool, sauna and gym while we drank a stupidly expensive can of fanta before putting our tails between our legs and going back into the hot night to trek back to the Blue Nile Sailing Club.

When we arrived there, tired, hot and pretty unimpressed we were greeted by a crowd of locals sitting at tables around the tents on the grass, playing cards under flood lights and watching something really loud on a big outdoor screen. Brilliant, this place just gets better and better right?! On top of that we were told that there had been no luck in obtaining photo permits so it was still illegal for us to take any photos. At least we were told that the water was back on so we could have a cold shower, albeit over a dirty squat toilet. We set up our tent in the carpark, as far away from the crowd as we could, in 35 degree heat at midnight and tried to fall asleep, even more convined than before that we had to find somehwhere else to stay.

Friday 22nd July.

Wild goose chase + 45 degree heat = bad idea.

We were up pretty early because the tent turned into a sauna as soon as the sun came up. We went to the Afra Centre again, to hide from the heat and take advantage of the free wifi. Things were pretty quiet, being a Friday which is prayer day so pretty much nothing else happens. Then we noticed that the shopping center got even quieter and the wifi got really fast. Benne and Jimmy arrived at 2pm, having been stuck out the front in the heat for nearly an hour, because no one was allowed to enter between midday and 2pm because of prayers. Turns out anyone already in the shopping center could stay though, because we knew nothing of this until they walked in all hot and bothered from sitting in the sun for an hour.
Downstairs there was a female mosque right next to the female toilets and instead of basins to wash hands in, there was trough like things to wash feet in because shoes have to be removed for mosque. Quite interesting to go into the toilets and find a crowd of women all washing their feet in a trough.

We spent most of our time trying to find somewhere else to stay and find a hostel that seems to be right across the road from the Blue Nile Sailing Club. Marcus, Fiona, Alex and I got a taxi back to try and track this hostel down. It was here that a 4 hour wild goose chase started. The hostel was not accross the road from the sailing club and everyone we asked about it had either never heard of it or told us a different location to the last person. Plus, the phone numbers supplied on the internet didnt work. We should have known then. Instead we grabbed a non-airconditioned minivan taxi and drove around for the next 3 hours looking for the hostel. We couldnt even find the street that the hostel was meant to be on, noone knew where it was and everyone kept on pointing us in different directions, so we were just driving in circles around and around Khartoum. To cut a long story short(er) we finally founf the place at 7pm- 4 hours after first getting in the taxi. Turns out that we had passed the place for the first time about 3.5 hours ago. We had stopped and asked the hotel next door (who's rooms were crap and US$100, plus we needed marriage certificate to stay in the same room with someone of the opposite sex) and were told that it was a gym! Turns out that we had passed it about 10 times and asked people on every corner in the area and they didnt know where it was! Unbelievable!

It would have been the perfect hostel, the rooms were airconditioned, camping was free, because there was no-one else there the owner would allow co-ed rooms, but there was one major problem. There was no water. Noooooooooo! We refrained from pulling out our hair, or stabbing ourselves in the eyeballs with blunt instruments (I realise this may sound a bit dramatic, but it was so, so, so hot and had been such a long, pointless day) and we made our way back to the sailing club. On arrival we were told that there was still no photo permits. We filled everyone in on our adventures and told them how perfect the place was bar the fact that there was no water, so no showers or flushing toilets. Farron suggested that we leave Khartoum the following afternoon in stead of staying there for three more nights, and no one had any objections. He also said that he would get the GPS coordinates for the hostel that we had finally found so that African Trails never again stopped at the Blue Nile Sailing Club. At least our day was not in vain.

Saturday 23rd July.

Surprise goodbye to not one, but two.

We were once again out of the tent by the time the sun came up and caught a taxi with Jimmy and Lars to see where the Blue and White Nile's meet, apparently something that one must see when in Khartoum. Our taxi driver pulled over on the side of a really busy road and pointed to a bridge a few hundred meters in front of us. We walked up to the bridge and the security guard with a mounted machine gun waved us through, aparently we didnt look like any big security risk... We found ourselves looking at a Y-interesction in a very dirty, rubbish filled river. We could see the two different currents meeting, but because the Nile was so high we couldnt see the different colours of the Blue and White Nile. All in all it was as unimpressive and uninteresting as it sounds.

From there we made our way to the Afra Centre to wait for the truck. We were meant to have a few hours there before leaving Khartoum. Everyone else arrived at midday and joined us in the food court. Tony had had a third day of unsuccessfully trying to get hold of photo permits for everyone and had been given the run around by everyone he asked (sound familiar....?). Janet came up to us and told us that she had booked a flight home to Scotland from Khartoum, leaving at 3pm! She had been suffering pretty badly with the heat and dehydration and had made the call that it was time to end her journey. She had started in Marakesh and her whole reason for being there was to challenge herself and see the gorillas in Uganda, and having accomplished both of those things she had decided that her health must come first and that she wanted to see her husband and children again.  Sad to see her go, especially so suddenly, but fair enough and completley understandable.

Little did we know that that would not be the last suprise of the day.

Marcus, Fiona and I did cook group shopping for dinner but only got meat because the fruit and veg in the supermarket was really old and expensive, and Alex and I splashed out on some new shirts. Then we made our way back to the truck. Once everyone was there Farron drove the very short distance to the international airport. Janet came and gave everyone a hug goodbye and then grabbed her bags and started walking into the terminal.... with Leigh! Leigh had also booked a seat on the same plane and was heading home to London. You could have knocked us over with a puff of air. We did not see that coming. Turns out that she hates goodbyes too much and pulled a hudeinie on us. I can understand that it would have been hard enough having to say goodbye to Farron, let alone everyone else. It was very bitter sweet because they were both doing what was best for them, but we were going to miss them. Poor Mark was a bit of a mess!

We carried on down the road and out of Khartoum, two persons lighter. We drove through a massive dust storm, apparently my fault because I have said many times that I really want to see a dust storm like the one on the movie 'The Mummy'. It was pretty awesome to see, but much less awesome when we stopped in a small town and Marcus, Fiona and I had to get out and buy fruit and vegitables in the middle of the dust storm!

We pulled over as the sun was getting low on the horizon, just at the arse end of the dust storm that seemed to go forever. It was a really nice location, on soft sand surrounded by rocky hills. As we bagan preparing dinner and everyone else put up thier tents two cars approached and a few official looking guys got out and spoke with Farron. We continued on with the cooking as they asked for the passenger list and cross checked it by asking us one by one what our nationality was. As we sat down for our sloppy joe's, Farron said that he had been told that we were parked on military land and had to move. Thank goodness we hadn't put up our tent yet. After dinner clean group did a quick clean as everyone else put down thier tents and then we were escorted down the road. Once we had gone a distance that seemed to satisfy them, the cars took off and we carried on down the road in search of another bush camp. Not too much later Farron found a flat peice of land next to a big telecommunication tower. It looked like we had landed on the moon, it was completley flat and bare to the horizon in every direction. It was late so we all set up our tents and went to bed.

Sunday 24th July.

Dessert, dust, water, flood...

I cant really say that we woke up this morning, because I barely slept a wink. The wind had been so strong all night long that the tent was all but collapsing in on us, and as if the noise wasnt bad enough, we had the sides of the tent slapping us in the face.

We had an easy mornings drive, only going a short distance before stopping at the Meroe pyramids. They were really little compared to what we were expecting the Giza pyramids to look like, but still really cool to see our first pyramids. There were 8 or 10 of them all up, some with hyrogliphics on the inside. Despite not having a photo permit, we decided that the chances of police asking to see our permits out there in the middle of the desert was small enough, so we all got our cameras and got snap-happy. We walked around for as long as we could bare in the heat and then made our way back to the truck.

We were going to camp behind the pyramids, but it was only 2pm, so a bit early to stop, it was too hot to set up camp, and the place where we would have put our tents was really exposed, so we kept going.
We bumped into the Nile again and stopped in a small town to get cold drinks. Carrying on a little further the plan was to find a bush camp just out of town. But then the heavens opened. It was the weirdest thing, on one side of the truck there was a dust storm, on the other side a rain storm. As we continued up the road, they met to form one hell of a storm. We struggled to get the tarps down as we were blasted with sandy water. We eventually had to turn around and head back in the direction from which we came when the snady road turned into a lake. In the middle of the dessert. I could hardly beleive my eyes.
Farron managed to find a relativley dry place that didnt look to likely to flood if it rained again and we set up camp. Cook group made bangers and mash and the heavens opened once more just as we were finishing dinner. Once the rains stopped, the wind picked up. I couldnt stand another sleepless night in a collapsing tent so we bunked down in the truck with Jimmy, Jan, Aileen, and Lars.

Monday 25th July.

Nile oasis bush camp.

Leaving camp at 9am we drove for only an hour before stopping in a large-ish town. Farron had found out that the once-weekly overnight ferry to Egypt is due to leave on the 3rd of August, not the 1st as we originally thought. Farron came up with the ingenious plan of fanging it to Wadi Halfa in time to catch the ferry due to leave on the 27th of July, rather than take a casual, slow three day drive to Wadi Halfa and then have to spend 8 days there waiting for the next ferry. This way we get to Egypt earlier, and get to spend more time in Aswan, where there is much more to do than there is in the dusty little border town, Wadi Halfa.

The only condition was that on the ferry a week earlier, the 27th of July, there was no availability left in 1st class. That meant that the people that had put thier name down for the US$75 upgrade to an airconditioned cabin would now be on the deck with the rest of us bums. If the ferry leaves on time, and there is a big 'IF' there, it is said to take anywhere between 18-40 hours to cross into Egypt. If something happens with the ferry and it doesnt depart, say due to mechanical problems, there is no other way in, so we would be stuck in Wadi Halfa for anywhere between one week and however long it takes to build a new ferry!

We stopped a few more times during the day for pee breaks and to get cold drinks when some were spotted. Everything was peaceful and normal, we were all doing what we do in the truck- playing eye-spy, reading, listning to music, sleeping, when suddenly the seemingly daily dust and rain storm event happened, but this time with furious anger. It was unlike anything else I had ever seen before, I may just have gotten to see my dust storm like the one out of the movie 'The Mumy'. Within mere moments of it first appearing, it was so thick that we couldn't see the side of the road anymore. A few moments later, it was getting hard to see the person sitting across from you- partly due to the sand, partly due to not being able to open our eyes. Then the rain started to fall even heavier and we struggled to get the tarps down, while hiding our faces under whatever we could get our hands on. The rain was like a high pressure sand blaster, it felt like a million needles puncturing our arms all at once. It hurt so bad and it was such a releif when finally we had the tarps down and could breath again- just as the storm passed. It was intense.

Farron found the most amazing place to camp, right on the Nile. We put our tents up on a flat, soft, sandy area that was surrounded by big palm trees. The first thing we did was run down the small sand dune to the rive and jump in- in what ever we were wearing at the time. It served as both a shower and a washing machine. Some clever bloke (Benne) bought a bar of soap down and passed it around. The current was so strong we couldnt swim, but had so much fun sitting in shoulder deep water, clinging onto rocks to prevent ourselves from floating away. We couldn't have dreamt of a more prefect camp. It really was prefect.

Tuesday 26th July.

Into Wadi Halfa and straight back out again.

We drove through another dust storm, but nothing as intense as the previous one. Arriving in Wadi Halfa shortly after, Farron had heard through the fixer's grape vine that the hotel we were due to camp at was full, hot, dirty and not very nice. According to the Lonley Planet, Wadi Halfa is a highlight of Sudan. Don't beleive it. In reality, it was a dusty, little, shitty border town with nothing to offer and nothing to do. Thankgoodness we don't have to waste a whole week here!

We found a bush camp just out of town between two rocky hills and spent the afternoon and evening alternating between hiding from the heat and packing our bags. We would need to pack enough stuff for a week, as the truck would be coming to Egypt on a vehicle ferry a few days after us. We also had to pack our pillows and sleeping bags just incase bedding wasn't supplied in the hotel we would be staying at in Aswan. The heat was oppressive and it took every ounce of strenght to get up and do something as active as packing a bag, but we managed.

We went to bed not too long after dinner, exhausted from the heat and tried to get to sleep- almost impossible due to.... you guessed it.... the heat!

Wednesday 27th July.

African Trails refugee camp.

By 9am we had packed up camp and given the loungeroom in the truck a quick clean out. We drove the short distance into town and sat around waiting for the fixer to arrive with our ferry tickets. We grabbed some falafel for lunch and then headed to the ferry terminal. We were there by midday, said goodbye to the truck and went inside and found a space on the floor to sit.

At 2pm boarding began. Signal the chaos. There seemed to be no order or logic at all. Everyone stampeded towards the double glass doors, one of which was yanked off its hinges. There was no airconditioning and we were crammed in like sardines as they let people through one at a time. Just as we got to the front of the 'line' someone realised that everyone else had blue stickers on thier bags except for us. Turns out customs required a blue sticker in order to board the ferry. Bugger. Squeezing out of the crowd we found the guy with the blue stickers and he quicly placed one on each of our bags, he didn't spend a second looking at us, our bags, or what we might be carrying- saftey first. Back in to the sardine squeeze we finally made it through the now broken glass doors.

Outside the building, to our dismay, was not a ferry, but instead mini buses that we then had to cram into. These mini buses drove a few hundred meters down the dirt road to the ferry terminal. Then we had to get on the ferry, as you can imagine, this was as well organised as the rest of the process.
Finally on the ferry we rushed to find a good position. We made our way straight to the top deck, the only place with enough space for all of us to put our sleeping mats down. Thankfully we were early enough to grab a god spot and set about putting the sun shade up. Soon enough we had our home assembled. We had all of our sleeping mats and pillows lined on the floor, covering and therefore reserving the whole front area of the ferry. We were strategically placed under the sun shade so that we didn't melt. Some local guys that parked next to us saw our set up, complimented us, and then set about hanging thier blankets to make thier own sun shade.

The ferry was supposed to leave at 4pm, but we took off at 6.15pm. At 7.30pm we got our free dinner of plain macaroni pasta, a piece of chicken, and baked beans on metal food trays that looked like those seen in prison movies. We also didn't fail to notice how much we resembled refugees!

We spent the rest of the night playing card games like UNO and bullshit and our Malawi Bao game. At one point towards the end of the night when I was just settling down to sleep we passed Abu Simbel all lit up. It was beautiful. And then we settled down to have a surprisingly good sleep.

Week 13

Thursday 14th July.

In the lap of luxury.

We left Bahir Dar and made our way to Gondar. The hotel we pulled into was really rank. The rooms were crap and smelt like sewerage and the toilets were so bad they were unusable, and we have seen some pretty bad toilets by this stage. Almost everyone went in search of another place to call home. We, along with Emma and Benne, Marcus and Fiona and Lars found ourselves next door to the shit hole in the luxurious Taye Hotel. It was our biggest splurge to date at US$60 a night, but we felt that we deserved a little luxury. The hotel was all marble and gold, the rooms were incrediblly big, clean, with DSTV, a balcony overlooking the quaint little city, room service (!!!), free wifi in the lobby..... I could go on, but I'll stop teasing you.

Alex was on cook group, so he knew nothing of this until I presented him with the room key and I was on clean group, but we did not waste any time getting back to our hotel afterwards. We had a drink in the lobby bar with our fellow hotel stayers and went to bed.

Friday 15th July.

A hard day's work.

We woke up just in time to get our free buffet breakfast in the hotel restaurant. The rest of the day we spent chilling on our balcony, we ordered room service for lunch and ate it as a picnic on the bed, we watched movies, had the longest hottest shower in history, and went back to the lobby restaurant for the best beef ravioli I have ever eaten.

Saturday 16th July.

Jimmy and Jan- Status: M.I.A.

I got to speak to my sister who was enjoying her baby shower, I was really sad I wasn't there, but happy the time difference worked out well and I got to call her while it was still happening. We met Sheri and Lars at breakfast and gobbled down some pancakes and maple syrup so we could meet Tony at the travel agents in town. We were going on a half day trek in the Simien Mountains in search of Galada Baboons, also known as bleeding heart baboons thanks to a bright red heart shaped peice of skin on thier neck and chest.

We jumped in the minivan and were driven 1.5 hours away to the begining of the Simien mountain range.  All in all we hiked for about 3.5 hours. the scenery was just magnificent, it really was like being on top of the world. Some of the valleys and gorges were so deep that you could stand on the edge of the cliff and still not be able to see the bottom. It was green and lush and we walked up and down and up and down narrow, steep pathways around the mountainside, at the highest point we were standing at 3,000 meters above sea level.

We saw three small groups of galada baboons, each having 3-6 baboons in each. In the right season in the Simien Mountain National Park, which was still a further 1.5 hours away from where we were, the galada baboons are known to travel in groups of hundreds. We just happy to see one! Unfortunately they were pretty far away so we didn't manage to get a photo of the red chest that makes them so unique.
We got back to our hotel at 3.30pm and grabbed some food (beed ravioli- of course) and went upstairs to have a rest. We were planning on celebrating Jimmy's birthday but they had all gone on a brewery tour and were still M.I.A.

Emma and Benne eventually came back to the hotel and we sat in the lobby with them and Marcus, Fiona, Sheri, Janet, and Lars and had a few drinks, Jimmy and Jan were never to be seen again, well, that night at least.

Sunday 17th July.

Kings and Queens of the Castle.

We slept in this morning, trying to take full advantage of the expensive luxury we had allowed ourselves. In the mid-morning we met Marcus, Fiona, Emma and Benne downstairs and headed for one of the castle's that makes Gondar famous. We opted out of getting a guide and instead just explored the castle ourselves. It was good on one hand because we were able to explore the castle at our own pace, go where we wanted to go, stop where we wanted to stop, on the other hand however, we learnt absolutley nothing about the castle, such as why it was built, when ot was built, who built it, who lived in it etc. It was a beautiful castle, made up of about 10 different buildings and many more ruins. It was on a huge green chunck of land right in the middle of the town.

After a few hours of walking around the property we went back to the hotel. Alex and I walked up to the place where everyone else was staying (Farron had moved the truck out of the shite hole to a different place the morning after we got there). The plan was to go on the same brewery tour that Emma, Benne, Jimmy, Aileen, Jan and Mark had gone on the day before. But once up there with a drink in our hands we lost all motivation. We bummed around for the rest of the afternoon.

In the evening we made our way up to Emma and Benne's room for a celebratory drink for Jimmy's birthday. We all had a great night, living like kings and queens. We had room service of pizza and pasta for dinner and had way too many tequila shots brough up as well. I cant remeber what time is was that we went (crawled maybe) back to our room, lucky we didnt have far to go!

Monday 18th July.

African medical system.

We decided to check out of Taye hotel and move up to the Frogera Hotel where everyone else was staying so that we didn't have to make the move early in the morning the following morning. We sent Alex in a tuk tuk with all of our bags to the Frogera Hotel and Emma, Benne and I went shopping in town for any extra supplies needed for Sudan. Unfortunatley there were no big supermarkets in town, or in Ethiopia for that matter, only little mini-marts. Which of course made everything more expensive. The other thing we had to be careful of was the fact that most things were not priced, and there was no barcode scanning facilities, so the shopkeepers could, and often would, just make up the prices as they went along.

I only grabbed a few things such as deoderant, shampoo, chips, dairy free chocolate sauce (score!), snikers bars and it cost over 600birr, thats more that US$36! I think they may have added on a few(hundred) birr when I wasnt paying attention. We also stopped at a pharmacy and stocked up on some broad spectrum antibiotics in case we get sick in Sudan, as we are not expecting to come across many pharmacies. I really love that you can walk into a pharmacy in Africa, say that you have had an upset stomach and would like some antibiotics, and the pharmacist asks how many you would like. Its that easy. There is no going on a waiting list for a doctors appointment, no waiting in the waiting room while the doctor runs an hour behind schedule just to sit in the chair for under 5 minutes and walk out one prescription richer and $60 poorer, THEN having to go to the pharmacy, hand in the script and wait 15 minutes while the overpaid pharmacists takes thier sweet ass time grabbing the little box of pills. It is much easier here!

Fully stocked up on food and drugs we jumped in a tuk tuk and met Alex up at the Frogera Hotel. It was a nice enough place with little bungalows for 300 birr per night. We again considered going to the brewery, but instead ended up back at the Taye Hotel, ordering beef ravioli and enjoying the luxury we had become accustomed to.

Tuesday 19th July.

Sudanese Stocktake.

We left Gondar at 11am and had a cruisy day driving and watching the scenery change again from lush greenery to red desert sand as we came down in altitude, it also got considerably warmer as we descended. There are two nights of bush camping ahead, and although I really enjoyed the luxury of Taye Hotel, I was really excited to get back to bush camping and sleep in Helsinki again (our tent). We turned down a dirt road off the main road in the early afternoon and set up camp, a mere 10kms away from the Sudanese border.

Cook group made spag bol for dinner while we sat around the fire watching an amazing lightning show on the horizon. Everyone collected any alcohol they had been storing on the truck and put it all on the prep table. Sudan is a dry country and has very sever punishments if the law is disobeyed. If you are caught with alcahol, or are found to be acting drunk in public you can look forward to spending some quality time in a Sudanese prison. Even more hardcore than that is the death penalty if you are caught with illegal drugs, or if you are found to be a homosexual. We girls also have to be careful what we wear in public, making sure that our knees and shoulders are covered up at all times, and we may even have to wear head scarfes in traditional or rural areas.

Farron said that we are all adults and can make our own decision, and it is therefore our choice if we want to try and sneak alcohol into Sudan or not, but that it will also be our own fault and responsibility if we get caught and arrested for it. Not suprisingly, no one thought that it was worth the risk and hence, we had a stocktake party. All alcahol on the table must go. Free for all.

It didn't end up as messy as I thought it would. The old say 'many hands make light work' really is true! We sat around the fire drinking the stocktake grog and roasting marshmellows that I had found a few countries ago covered in the chocolate sauce I had found in Gondar.

Wednesday 20th July.

Into North Sudan.

We had breakfast at 7am and were on the road by 8am. We made it to the Sudan border in no time as it was only 10kms down the road. We waited patiently for Ethiopia to stamp us out, a very slow process indeed, and while we waited Jimmy, Jan and I went on a mission to change everyone's leftover birr into Sudanese pounds. The two banks we could find in the border town would only change American dollars, not Ethiopian birr, strange because we were still in Ethiopia. As we exited the second bank there was a small group of men telling us that no banks there would change birr but that they would do it for us at a good rate. Having had had a bad experience with dodgy money guys at borders I felt a little hesitant, but with no other options we followed them into thier little shop in an old shipping container.

In the last week Sudan had officially split into two countries, North and South Sudan, with South Sudan gaining independacnce and becoming the newest UN country and launching its own currency. Quite an eventful week. We had also heard reports of Khartoum, the capitol of North Sudan and our next desitnation, had been bombing South Sudan, so we were all hoping for a smooth and easy few days with no fighting or retribution from South Sudan.

With our pockets full of Sudanese pounds and having been finally stamped into the country, our next stop was the Alien Registration office, we had to register twice, once here at the border and once in Khartoum. We were also not allowed to take any photos until we had obtained a tourist photography permit, which we should also be able to get from Khartoum.

Whenever we asked an Ethiopian what we could expect in Sudan, all they would say was that it was very hot and very expensive. So naturally I got very excited when we found chargrilled 1/4 chicken, yummy flat bread, chillie, salsa salad and lemon for only 8 pound each, about US$3! Maybe Sudan will not be that bad afterall!

Another positive difference was that softdrink came in plastic bottles again, which we havent seen since South Africa. Everywhere else we have been had softdrink in glass bottles which you either had to return or pay for, meaning that take away drinks were rare as we didnt want to buy the bottle. There is also a huge selection of softdrink flavours that I have never seen before, like tangerine mirinda, apple fanta, strawberry fanta etc. I guess thats what happens when softdrink and water are the only liquid trades in an entire country.

Another major difference we noticed as we drove away from the border was that people just dissapeared, in contrast to Ethiopia where there were always people around no matter where we were, in Sudan we passed a few men pointing mounted machine guns at us and waving happily, and a few herders with thier camels, but that was it.

In the early afternoon Farron found a bushcamp for us that looked like the set for the horros movie "the hills have eyes", and these hills really did have eyes we discovered as small shepherd boys and thier goats slowly began to appear from behind the boulders and they just sat there and looked at us. It was a nice place to camp tough, very scenic. There were however more camel spiders, so it was not a late night for anyone as we all opted to watch movies in the safety and comfort of our tents.

Week 12

Thursday 7th July.

Would you like an AK47 with your cereal?!

We had breakfast at 6am so that we could be on our way before the hoards of locals came to check us out. As we took our packed up tent around to the storage compartment under the truck there were already two local guys standing there, one with a large sheppherding stick and the other with an even bigger AK47 (I think- I am no gun expert). Nothing like big guns with breakfast. He just stood there with it over his shoulders and both hands hanging over the gun while we ate breakfast, all we could do was smile and hope that the safety was on, or more likley that the gun even had a safety to switch on!
The guy with the gun asked for a cigarrete and of course we quickly obliged by giving him a whole deck of smokes, he also scored himself some biscuits, some water and some lollies. Anything to keep the man with the big gun happy.

Naturally, I wanted a photo, but locals here don't seem too appreciative of being in happy snaps at the best of times, let alone with a big arse gun in thier hands. Alas, how could I let this minor detail get in the way of photographic genious in the making. I managed to get two sneaky photos by angling the camera lens in between two seats up in the truck, I got one of the guy with the gun and one of Jimmy and Benne holding it, which when asked it turns out he was more than happy to let them play with it. I think he has a future as an OHS specialist! By 6.45 the older of the two guys had grown bored with us and started to shoo us away. Of course, we once again quickly obliged.

There was only about 300kms to cover, but it would be done at the roaring pace of 40km per hour due to crappy condition of the road. Also, we were sitting at just over 500 meters above sea level and Lalibela, our destination, sits at 2500 meters above sea level, so there is quite a bit of climbing to do and the temperature should drop once again.

We drove over a monstrous mountain range that seemed to go on forever and it seems hard to beleive that we were all sitting there in jackets and sleeping bags and blankets when just the day before we were melting in a seemingly endless 40 degree desert. We stopped for a photo-op on the side of a mountain at 3,100 meters above sea level. Quite a view. We drove through mountain farming villages with barefoot children chasing after the truck screaming for pens and money.

As I have mentioned before, the concept of sustainable tourism hasn't made its way to Ethiopia yet, in most parts, tourism hasnt made it yet. In an ideal world I would have liked to stop the truck, sit down with the kids and tell them that if I give them a pen I expect them to draw me a picture with it, which I would then buy off them. In an ideal world...

Driving was real slow going, the road was not only in really bad condition, but was also really windy and hilly. As the sun was setting Farron pulled over on the side of the road with the rocky mountain dropping away on either side of us. He had decided that there was no use pushing it to make it to Lalibela tonight and too dangerous to continue driving on the road in the dark, so we set up camp and would drive the extra 11kms into town first thing in the morning. Alex was on cook group and I was on clean group and we were leaving at 6.30am the next morning, so rather than put up a tent for only a few hours, we decided to sleep in the truck. We put our pillows and sleeping bags along two of the rows of seats, Janet got the other one and Lars slept up the front on the floor. It was more comfy than I thought it was going to be, and it was warm too. There was also the added benefit of not having to pack anything up in the morning, we just sat up (eventually).

Friday 8th July.

Never fear... Janet is here.

We got to Lalibela at 7.30am. The hotel, Seven Olives, was set up on a hill with the restaurant area overlooking some of the town. The first thing we noticed was the large amount of mzungus in the town, we hadnt seen that many white people since South Africa!  It was a nice looking hotel, but very overpriced for both food and accommodation. There was a tiny strip of grass on which we could put our tents, or there were upgrades for US$34 per night. You have got to be kidding me. Never fear- Janet is here! She somehow managed to sweet talk the owner (or scare the living daylights out of him) into agreeing to a much better price of 200birr for a single or 350birr for a double. When the local payment of 100birr per person per night was deducted we were set back a whopping 150birr per night for a double, thats US$9. Thanks Janet! We grabbed some breakfast at the Seven Olives restaurant- the one and only meal we will eat there because it is so overpriced, then went to explore the town and find an internet cafe. The main streets of the town were set on a long L-shaped road with the longer bit being on a very steep incline. We found internet in an old shipping container that was set up inside with two computers. Afterwards we grabbed some lunch and then began our monasteries tour. We saw half of the monateries in Lalibela.

The monasteries were built in the ground, either carved out of stone or out of carved into the stone wall. Picture what Petra looks like and you will be close (or better yet, look at our pictures on facebook). They were pretty amazing buildings, so much work went into them. We went up and down stone steps, in and out of giant stone monasteries. We were having so much fun, joking around, getting lost in the monasteries that it almost felt like we were on school camp. At one stage, I think it was when Mark curled up in a person size hole in the wall, that our guide asked Jerome if we had any religion or spiritualty at all! Oops.
 In one of them there was a recreation/interpretation of a pathway to heaven. It was a tunnel linking one monastery to the next. It was absolute darkness inside, the walls were not flat or even, nor was the ground. We went single file and slow step by slow step. It didnt take long before we were all grabbing onto the person in front of us, just to feel a little bit of security, and so that if they whacked their head on a protruding chunck of stone, I could duck. It was meant to help you experience hell before finally reaching heaven. There was such a sense of releif when finally, you could see a small amount of light at the end of the tunnel. An even greater sense of releif when we found out we didnt have to back the same way we went in! I have no idea how long the tunnel was, or how long it took us to get through it. It felt like forever, thats all I can tell you!

Saturday 9th July.

Yummy yummy yummy I got goat in my tummy.

We woke in the morning to complete the tour of the monasteries. They were just as amazing as the ones from the day before, but were lacking the WOW factor. Maybe by that stage we were monatried out.
After the monastery and climbing the incredibaly steep road back to Seven Olives, Marcus, Fiona and I made our way back down the really really steep hill, to the very bottom where there was a gigantic market. I mean gigantic. At the end of the really steep hill there was a Y intersection. Continuing on to the left, the steep cobble stone road just continue, forever I presume. To the right, the cobble stone turned into a massive crack in the earth that served as a road with little market stalls set up along each side, and at the bottom there was a huge opening just covered in people and produce. It was overwhelming looking down onto that market. We put our hackeling jackets on and went in. Our biggest problem was that we had no idea what we were going to cook for dinner, and so we had absolutley no idea where to start, what to look for or what to buy.

We walked up and down the narrow 'aisles' made of people sitting on the ground in rows with all of thier produce. There were onion aisles, egg aisles, potato isles, chillie aisles. All the while trying to avoid the donkeys carrying produce that were marching down the aisles at breakneck speed. A few time we had to jump over the people on the floor and try not to step on thier tomatos, just so we could avoid being flattened by a herd of donkeys.  We got some veggies, eggs and a slight headache and made our way out of there. Up the street a bit we stopped at a butcher and got 2kgs of goat meat, the skin was sitting in a lump just outside the door so we knew it was fresh.

Marcus and Fiona went to see some of the monasteries and Alex and I took the long walk back up the steep cobble stoned street back to Seven Olives. We got started on preparing the meal. And it was gooood! We stewed the goat in red wine, onion, garlic, stock and herbs and had it cooking for a few hours. Alex helped up make potato roshties to go with the stew. It was so yummy, probly my camp fire meal so far, if I do say so myself.

Sunday 10th July.

We found Utopia.

We left early in the morning and made our way to the next town along. The plan was to stay there a night and then go to a utopian village the next day, but thanks to the high quality chinese road we got to drive on, we made excellent time. The town we were due to stop in looked completley uninteresting and the place we were meant to stay in no longer offered camping so Farron made the call to continue on to utopia.
This village was started by an Ethiopian man with a vision. A vision of a world where people worked honestly for thier money, never begged, where man and women were equal, where men knew how to cook and women knew how to farm, where all profits were divided equally among people and families so no one did without. As we were driving down the road to reach this village a bunch of kids came running towards us and ran alongside the truck for the whole 2kms up the driveway. They were doing the usual scream for pens and money. One little girl, probably about 5 or 6 years old ran the whole was asking for pens, with three pens hidden in her hand behind her back. We were thinking that this mans vision was maybe not all it was cracked up to be. However, as we reached the outer limits of the village, the kids slowed down and eventually dropped away. They were obviously not allowed to beg near the gates of the village.
We drove in and instantly noticed the difference. The kids in the village just stared at us, no one was yelling or asking for anything. Farron parked the truck and spoke to one of the leaders. They told him that we were welcome to camp in the village that night if we wished. We set up our tents in the area of grass around the tents and cook group started preparing dinner. Just before dinner the man who started it all came by with an interpreter to tell us about his story and answer any questions we had. It was quite interesting, but we really didnt know enough about the place at that stage to ask any questions.

The smokers made the treck to the village limits to have a cigarette because it was a non-smoking village, and there was one communal drop toilet a short walk down the path. The toilet was in a tiny straw hut that had no door, so during daylight hours we went in pairs. That still didn't stop an ancient lady accidentally walking in on me. She just froze and stared at me for a full minute, then slowly retreated. It was very awkward, but I don't blame her, in her 300 years on earth she had probably never seen such a white ass.

Monday 11th July.

The village.

We woke up to have breakfast before the village tour that Farron had organised at 8.30am. We hadn't slept very well because we kept on sliding down the tent because of the hill it was on. As we waited for the community member who would be taking us on the tour, we got out a soccor ball and started kicking it between ourselves, hoping to catch the attention of the village kids. Our genious plan worked and soon enough we had drawn a crowd of kids who stood in groups at a distance watching us play with the ball. After a short while we would kick the ball into the crowd of kids so they could kick it back and slowly they became more at ease and more involved. After not too long there was a line of us facing a crowd of them and we were kicking the ball back and forth.

It was so lovely to finally see the kids let loose a little and not be so shy or reserved. Thier little faces lit up and they were having such a good time. Kids are requird to grow up at such a young age here, kids who should be playing dress-ups with dolls are instead carrying and careing for real babies, kids who should be doing homework are more often doing farmwork. It was by far one of the nicest interactions I have experienced because it was natural, not staged, not for money, just for fun.

We didnt end up starting the village tour until afyer 9.30am and before we waved the kids goodbye, Farron asked our community tour guide if we could leave the ball for the kids as a preseant. The guide said yes, threw the ball into the crowd of kids and told them to share. It was wonderful.

We began the tour in the community kindergarten. Here we learnt that the leader had had these ideals and philosophies since he was a young boy. They were ideals of gender equality, income equality, and life equality. These ideals got him in trouble when he was younger, with his family trying to kill him a few times because they thought he was mentally ill, so he left home and travelled around Ethiopia. When he finally decided to return to his home area, he began carefully telling people about his ideas and philosophies again and found that something had changed. People were far more receptive to his way of thinking. In the early 1970s he started the first community with 66 members, which over a few years dwindled to only 9 members. Those 9 members are now all the founding elders of the community. The village we were in, as there are a few now, had over 400 people living in it. Income is shared amongst all community members evenly and there is a community factory where they spin cotton and make clothes and material to sell to tourists and to locals in the cities, all proceeds of which go into the community kitty. There is gender equality, where the men are required to know how to cook and sew as well as farm and butcher, and the women are required to know farming and butchery, for example, as well as cooking and caring for children. The kids in the village go to school, rather than working on the streets or in the farms. The community beleive that we are all the same- we are all human, and we should treat eachother as such. Never do to someone else what you wouldnt want done to yourself. Simple really, and very interesting seen put into practice.

By now you may have picked up the 'cult vibe' that the village had going on. It never felt oppressive or controlling though. They didnt push a single religion, but chose to beleive all the good parts of all of the religions. They were spiritual, but not tied to any one religion.

It was interesting to see also, how fully self-sustainable the village was. We saw the library, which houses book from kindergarten level right up to university level. We saw the kindergarten and the primary school, however the kids did go elswhere for highschool and university.  We saw the elder's dormitory, where they house and care for the elderly members of the community who could no longer care for themselves. It was a little building with numbered cots dug into the mud wall. Very basis, but seeing them interact with the elders, they were so gentle and obviously respectful. It may have been basic, but it was a giant step up from what I have seen to date, where outside the community, elders seem to be kicked out onto the street and left to fend for themselves as soon as they are no longer useful.

We then saw the workshop where the cotton is spun, weaved, dyed and sewed into blankets, clothes and bedding. We bought a dressing gown for only 150birr (US$9). Crazy considering the amount of work that goes into each peice. We also bought a little blanket for each of the twins my sister is about to have. We were asked to sign a visitors book and then the tour was over.

It was great to learn about the philosophies behind the village and then walk through and see how it all worked. I would be very interested to see where it is at in another 10 or 20 years. The leader hopes that his way of life will spread, first around Ethiopia, then around the world. I just dont think something like that could work on a large scale basis, but at least he is doing something to try and make a difference, and to make Ethiopia a better place, not just one known for famine and beggers.

Leaving the community (without ever being handed a plastic cup full of gree cool-aide) we drove back down the 2km road to the main road, and were slammed back into reality by the hoard of young kids running at us from the fields screaming for money and pens. We drove a while down the road and reached Bahir Dar in the early afternoon. Our camp is right on the shores of Lake Tanna, and we were welcomed by a group of 30-40 men bathing in the lake.

The grassy patch on which we could erect our tents were a fair walk away from the toilet block, and was also right alongside a busy public footpath. For security and comfort we chose to upgrade, and got a huge room with an ensuite for only US$10 a night. We stayed up and had drinks until they shut the bar on us. Lucky we upgraded, because I finally caught the tummy bug that was going around and was up at 4.30am spewing. Not nice.

Tuesday 12th July.

R.I.P. fishing rod.

Alex went fishing on the Blue Nile which flows into Lake Tana and caught one big white fish, but lost his good rod and reel when the local who had taken him fishing dropped it in the lake. Alex told him he had to jump in and find it, but the local couldn't swim. RIP fishing rod.

I was in bed all day feeling pretty rotten and watching a discovery documentary on Mount Everest.
Cook group was a wash-out because of the incredible storm, I have never before heard thunder that loud. I could actually feel the vibration in my body. Quite incredible. We ordered dinner from the bar, I had a few mouthfuls of pasta and then went back to bed.

Wednesday 13th July.

Bumming around in Bahir Dar.

I was feeling much better and we just bummed around all day. Alex, Aileen and Emma were on cook group and I joined them in finding a market and buying food. We were planning on seeing some of the monasteries which are situated on the islands of Lake Tana, but we heard from the people that went the day before that they were really uninteresting, and most were shut. Half of the ones that werent shut, were closed to women. So we just took it easy insead. There was another almighty storm in the afternoon.