Kigali To Fort Portal
2nd April 2010
And....they're off. 07:00 on Monday morning we picked up our bags, headed out of the house and down to a taxi. Our walk took us past
the church where we had so many good times, and the cat wasn’t around, so it was a sad short walk. But we were also very excited to
be beginning this three month trip north.
Two buses, a painless border crossing and two taxis later and we were in Fort Portal. This is only just in to Uganda, so, after one week
on the road, we haven’t really covered very much! There are very few differences between the part of Uganda we have seen and
Rwanda. Rwanda has more agriculture per square inch, and more people, and Uganda has more open plains and is wealthier (there are more brick houses and less mud ones).
We spent the first night in a pretty little guest house called 'Rwenzori View’. It didn’t live up to its name, as there was no view of the Rwenzori mountains (they were very close, but the high bamboo and mango trees that surrounded this place obscured the view a little.
The hospitality of the very flamboyant British owner made up for the lack of view, though, and it turned out to be a very sociable place.
All the meals are held at a big round table, so every guest gets to know each other. We found ourselves sitting next to a nice Irish chap who was on his way down through Africa, and we were able to pick his brains about a number of places to go.
The following morning we went by shared taxi (a Toyota Corolla with seven people, two children and a chicken inside) to a very basic campsite in the countryside, near Lake Nkuruba. For 16,000 Ugandan Shillings (about 5 pounds sterling) each we got a twin-bed mud-brick cottage with a pretty thatched roof. The facilities were basic, no electricity, one light in the campground which was solar powered,and no shower (baths consisted of jumping in the lake, and Graham’s craving a shave, after three days here his face looks like a cat had parked on it)! The meals were basic but good (meat or beans and sweet potato or posho), but had to be ordered five or six hours in advance.
The big draw of this place is the surrounding hills and countryside. Banana plantations up the steep side of the hills, some excellent
hiking – we went on a 24km hike to a pretty waterfall and around five different crater lakes, and a shorter stroll to Uganda’s third
biggest market (hmm...the Rwandans beat them hands-down as far as markets are concerned, it was very colourful, though)! We got a
nice lunch at the market of freshly cooked bhajis and fresh Jack Fruit (all for 20p for two people)!
The best thing about this place is that you don’t need to leave the grounds to have a wildlife experience. With Black and White Colobus monkeys, ignoring the few tourists, playing in the trees, running along the ground, messing around with the vervet monkeys, and the Red Colobus monkeys, too, all highly entertaining! You need to watch out when you walk under the trees here, though, as the monkeys don’t have a designated toilet area – there were a few near misses –I’m sure they were aiming for us at one point! The bird life is good, too, with Hornbills and Giant Kingfishers also watching the monkeys.
This morning we headed back to Fort Portal town by boda boda (motorbike taxi) and are looking forward to a good shower! Tomorrow we go to Kampala.
Murchison Falls
11 April 2010
After our trek in to the wilds, we headed in to the big smoke. It was quite an uneventful journey on a big bus from Fort Portal over to
Kampala. The only events of note were the bumps in the road. The bus driver seemed to forget that his vehicle had a rear end and,
after slowly and carefully guiding the front end over the bump, he put his foot hard on the accelerator – leaving Sarah and I, who were
sitting in the back of the bus with bruises as our heads hit the luggage rack and bruises as we crashed down in to our seats again!
Which was nice. A couple of passengers shouted at him and he remembered. For a while!
Kampala gave us the luxury of cinemas (we decided three visits were just about enough for now), shops (although neither our luggage nor our budget allowed us to actually buy anything), it was fun walking around the extremely busy, noisy, colourful streets full of street stalls and people all seeming in a hurry to get somewhere. We also re-learned the art of riding in matatus, too!
We had a great day out to a place near Kampala called Jinja. This is, allegedly (as long as you don't ask the Rwandan or Burundian folk)
the source of the Nile. There isn’t much of a source to see – but the river is pretty at this point as it flows quickly out of Lake Victoria.
We also went to the Nile Brewery, the Bujugali Falls (a long series of rapids, a favourite with white water rafters and to the locals who
swim over them with nothing more than a jerry can to keep the afloat) and we saw where Gandhi’s ashes were scattered. An
interesting place.
Health wise, we are fine. Our bumps have healed from the bus, but we were both bitten by insects and came up in large painful weals!
Graham’s are taking ages to heal and look rather horrid, although they are slowly getting smaller. Not sure what the buggers were, but they weren’t mosquitoes! The joys of exploring in the tropics, I guess! Talking about exploring, we have had one major hiccup. We
thought that we could buy Ethiopian visas from the Embassy here in Kampala. Ethiopian visas can’t be got on arrival at the land border we were heading for, but can be got on arrival at the airport. Apparently they only issue them in Kampala to Ugandan citizens! So, faced with the choice of either travelling to Nairobi, or flying part of our journey, we booked two tickets to fly to Addis on Monday. Oh well, we have been to Kenya many times, so we don’t feel too bad about it.
We went for a walk around Entebbe Wildlife Center – once I’d convinced Sarah it wasn’t a zoo. It is actually a rescue center and
education center and has some great animals in (including a Shoebill Stork)! The animals are well cared for and the center is also used to educate folks about the plight of the animals in the wild.
We met Laurie and Kirstin at Entebbe airport and picked up a hire car with a driver, and then headed off on the four hour car journey to Murchison Falls National Park. This is a very popular Ugandan attraction, and is a park with lots of wild animals in (all the big 5 apart from Rhino), great bird life and beautiful scenery – including the falls which are where the Nile comes to a small narrow gorge and is forced to thunder over the rocks. We took a game drive and saw Elephants, Giraffes, a Leopard, a Lion and lots of different types of buck (Waterbuck, Hartebeest, Oribi and Ugandan Cob), along with all sorts of birds (Kingfishers, Fish Eagles, Cranes), and we went on two boat drives – one to the base of the falls and one to look for the elusive Shoebill Stork (which proved to be very elusive – and we later found out there were only ten in the whole park, which is the best place in Africa to see one) so that made us feel better about not seeing any)!
Tomorrow marks the end of our time in East Africa for a while, and the start of our overlanding north (well, after a bit of a cheat as we
fly to Addis). We are both quite excited – and eager to get out of the land of mosquitoes and tse-tse flies, having been bitten to pieces
in the park!!
Lailbela, Ethiopia
18th April 2010
Our 'cheating' plane trip on Emirates from Entebbe was stress free . We got a taxi from the quiet airport and we found ourselves at a
grand old building with high wooden paneled ceilings, fine art work on the walls and a lounge full of travelers watching BBC World. This
was the Taitu hotel, built by the Empress Taitu herself in 1907. 240 birr (about ten pounds) bought us a huge double room for the night
(although no attached bathroom). So, after lugging our bags to the top floor of the place, we relaxed in the room for a while, enjoying
being cold for a change (I’m sure that novelty will wear off soon), and enjoying not having a mozzie net, before heading downstairs to the restaurant for injeera (flat moist pancake like bread). Graham is happy to be getting lots of meat to go with his injeera but as it’s not a fasting period Sarah is finding it difficult to find veg to go with her s! We are also enjoying the coffee ( but boy is it strong – not to be taken on an empty stomach as Sarah found out the first day!) and roasted barley.
Addis is different to Kampala in the respect that the people in Kampala build their houses at the top of the hills so that they can enjoy the cool air and keep an eye on the city. Folks in Addis, although surrounded by mountains, build their houses in the valleys – leaving the mountains empty! Other than that difference, the surface appearance is quite similar – lots of cars and traffic, small shacks selling all you could imagine, the dust, the noise and the smell of a big city. Under the surface, the two places are quite different.
In Ethiopia, people are very proud of their religious heritage, seeing themselves as not only the founders of the human race itself (with
Lucy having been found here), but also as one of the earliest, and most unchanged Christian groups on earth.
The first place we headed for was St George’s church, in the heart of the city. This is a circular church and had people walking around it
dressed in anything from traditional clothes (prayer walking stick, fez, tunic etc) to jeans and T-Shirts. They were stopping at each
window, which contained a picture of Jesus, or Mary, or St George, and bowing and kissing the wall, before continuing their circuit of the building. We had a tour of this place and the attached museum and learnt a little about the expression of faith here. It is a fascinating blend of Judaism with every church having a ‘Holy of Holies’ entered only by the high priest, andCatholicism with the veneration of Mary and the Saints.
The visit to the church was the only bit of sightseeing we did all day, the rest of the day was taken up with various admin tasks like
going to the Sudanese Embassy to ask about visas (it seems that the system has changed and they can be made ready in 24 hours, so we have held off from applying until a bit later in our trip) We also went to Ethiopian Airlines and found out that it would save us a lot of days, a very numb bottom and not be too expensive to do some of our internal travelling by air, so we booked flights to Lalibella and Aksum (but we will still be travelling to Sudan overland from Addis).
We also headed to a clinic to get Graham’s bites checked out. I had been to one in Entebbe, but the pills the doctor gave me there
didn’t seem to be helping very much. The doctor in Addis seemed to know what he was doing, and I am now the proud consumer of
anti-inflammatory tablets, antibiotics, painkillers, and anti-bacterial cream! Let’s see if this does the trick!
(In case you are interested, here is a description of what my ‘bites’ are doing – parental units please avert your eyes as you read this,
and don’t read this if you are about to have food of some form or other:
In Fort Portal I was bitten by an insect. Goodness knows what. The resulting lump looked like a mozzie bite, but continued to grow and
grow. On one arm I have two bites, on each side, and they swelled up to such a point that my arm was one big lump. They then
developed white heads, which burst open leaving a neat hole in the center of each one about 5mm across and about 5mm deep. In the
middle of the hole is a white thing that looks just like a worm, and even pulsates and moves back and forwards like a worm. The bites
bleed, weep and generally ooze noxious substances 24/7 and hurt like someone is holding a lit match to my skin. The swelling has gone down a lot, but the pain and the ‘worm’ are still there. I’ve been assured by two doctors and a nurse that there is no worm, just infected skin!
After just one full day in Addis we took a flight to Lalibella. This is a 55 minute flight, and the plane flies over mountain ranges nearly all
the way. Looks very beautiful but can see why land travel takes so long! Lalibella airport is small, and we met a friendly hotel tout who sold us a room in a nice hotel for 140birr ($10), and a tour with him to see some of the churches this area is so famous for. There are 11 churches carved into the rock here. It is odd, as you can’t see many of them from ground level, they are all like the troglodyte
houses in Tunisia and some of them you don’t actually see until you are about to fall in to them! The whole area is very rural, with
shepherds and priests in their white robes, donkeys carrying loads up and down the hills and goats and sheep being herded down the
main street towards their farms. The town is surrounded by dry, brown, huge, table-top mountains. The weather is cool, but not cold, and the air is thin as we are already quite high up here.
Each of the churches is pretty similar in form. They were built into the ground, from the top down, with the builders digging a massive
square trench (about 20m deep) and then carving a church into the monolith that was left in the middle of the trench. They are all quite
similar in design inside, too, with a holy of holies, and lots of symbolism in the rock carving (pillars carved in to crosses, four pillars (one for each gospel writer), angel eyes carved in to the columns etc).
Tomorrow we are off in to the mountains for two nights of trekking and sleeping in local villages. More about that in the next blog!
Aksum, Ethiopia
20th April 2010
The last blog finished with us in Lalibela, after having had two enjoyable days looking around the rock-hewn churches. We then headed off on a community development tourism project in the highlands (2 500 m – 3 200m) which seeks to bring tourism revenue to local farming communities. Several different communities provide food, donkeys to transport bags, local guides and places to stay. (Check out their web site if you are heading this way: www.community-tourism-ethiopia.com ).
The good thing about the trek, for us, was that it was very flat as it was across the top of a huge table-top mountain! We had a three
hour car ride before we got to the departure point, along a dusty gravelly road, past a very barren landscape of dry hills and then up
onto the mountain plateau which was much greener although still very rocky!
The days of the trek followed the same pattern. After breakfast (usually local honey and homemade bread) we would walk for about three hours through open pasture land, past small farming communities and amongst flocks of sheep, herds of cattle and lots of horses and donkeys. It was all very beautiful. We would then get to a lunch spot, where the locals would prepare lunch, bringing tables, vegetables, coffee and injera from the local villages to the site. We got invited in to the kitchen to watch them roasting the coffee beans and making the injera (prepared like a huge pancake). After lunch, we would walk for another 3-4 hours before reaching our base for the night.
The first base was perhaps the most stunning view point we have been to. At 3,200m up, it was a set of tourkals (rondavals) built on
an outcrop of rock at the top of a mountain. The sheer drop over the edge gave way to the most amazing landscape of smaller
mountains and hills, dry brown land and dry river beds. A very inspiring place! The toilet entrance was a couple of feet away from the sheer drop, there was only a half-level door on it, so it was easy to just sit, admire the view and forget what you went in there for!
Each day we were accompanied by our main guide, two local guides, and Mola (the donkey which carried our rucksack). We were also usually accompanied by a handful of local kids who were either returning from school (we met one girl who walked three hours to, and three hours back from school every day), or should have been rounding up their sheep or goats and had got distracted by us!
The trek was fantastic. One other thing that happened on the trek was quite interesting. This is the continuation of Graham's 'bites’
tale so if you are squeamish or about to eat, you might want to skip the next paragraph....
Well it turned out that 2 doctors and 1 nurse were wrong! There were three larvae in Graham’s bites. Here’s Graham’s account of what happened...When we reached the first base the pain from them had increased quite dramatically, and I had great trouble in relaxing and removing the plasters that had covered the infected areas. So, I prayed like crazy over them. As I did so, I felt it was right to get a bit aggressive with the one on my stomach. I had an overwhelming compulsion that the white area in the bite had to come out. I still wasn’t sure what it was, but I grabbed Sarah’s tweezers and pulled at it. I found that the more I prayed, the less intense the pain was.
As I pulled with the tweezers, I was amazed when a one centimeter long, half a centimeter thick, white maggot-like worm/larva thing
popped out! The relief from the pain in this area was amazing. Sarah and I then attacked the other two bites, the second larva came popping out after a bit of a struggle between it and us. Again, a great relief from pain. The third larva was not so successful and, whilst
I managed to kill the thing, I only got half of it out. Two days later after visiting a pharmacist in Aksum the last half of a larva came out
with a gentle squeeze. All three holes are at last healing! At the hotel in Aksum we had a brain wave and searched on google for
‘mango fly’, which we remembered reading about somewhere. This, according to the write up we found and the pictures on google
images, matched completely. We are convinced now that I had three Mango Fly, or ‘Tumbu Fly’ larvae in me. Thank goodness they are out. I’ll stop going on about them now (but I’ll happily show photos and scars to anyone interested that I meet)!!
On Monday we took a flight (40 minutes) to Aksum. This, apparently, is where the Ark of the Covenant (of the Old Testament fame) is housed – although nobody is allowed to actually see it, apart from one specially appointed priest whose sole purpose in life is to pray over the Ark. Graham took a tour around the church compound and museum where this mysterious object is housed. Sarah was not allowed in as she is female. Apparently Mary is the only lady who can be seen in the vicinity of the church!
Aksum is a sleepy little town with wide, red acacia lined streets, small coffee houses and some interesting historical ruins -apart from the Ark, there is a collection of ancient monuments and sites. The most eye catching being the huge 4th-6th century AD stelae which mark the tombs of the nobility of the day as well as old palaces, the Queen of Sheba’s bathing area etc. Aksum was apparently a very important place at the beginning of the Christian era and the Aksumite kingdom was one of the great civilizations in Sub-Sahara Africa.
We have spent 2 pleasant days strolling around town looking at some of these sights – although slightly frustrated at the town’s
incapability of selling us a map so we can find the sites! (Wherever we asked we were offered a taxi/tour guide instead!)
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
27th April 2010
After returning to Addis from Aksum, that marked the end of our flights for this trip (if all goes according to plan). We spent one night in a small hotel in Addis and, early the next morning, we got on to a minibus heading to Harar.
The bus journey was long (9 hours), but interesting. The scenery varied from mountain tops, with spectacular vistas and winding
mountain roads, to flat, straight, and dry roads. There were quite a few accidents on the road, and it wasn't hard to see why. All along
the route there were herds of cattle, goats, sheep, donkeys, young kids, camels, chickens and the occasional horse all of which seemed to be oblivious to the traffic that was roaring down the road. Often the bus we were on had to swerve to miss one of these that had just decided that then would be a good time to get to the other side. We were fortunate as we did this road in the day time, but many buses also go up and down it in the night.
The people on the bus were very friendly. They bought a local herb from the sellers on the road. This is a leafy plant called Chat and
you are meant to either chew the young leaves and twigs, or pummel it and make it in to a tea to drink. It is mildly narcotic and we have heard different stories about its effects – some people say it helps you to relax, and others say it gets you high and keeps you
alert. We were offered some by one of the passengers, and took a small sample each. It has a very bitter taste, a bit like chewing the
grass on your lawn, and it didn’t seem to have any effect on either of us. So we declined the next kind offer from another passenger!
We stopped for breakfast/lunch at a busy café in a dusty, goat-filled town. The locals tucked into beer and raw meat (which they shave
off the carcass of a goat right before your eyes) with injera. We passed and had bread and water which we had purchased earlier.
Harar itself is a predominantly Muslim town(with around 90 mosques within the 1 Km2)with an old 15th century walled city. The wall is still intact and a couple of the six gates are still standing. It wasn’t a great medina, compared to the ones we have been fortunate enough to see in Morocco, Tunisia and other places, but it was fascinating seeing another side of Ethiopian life and culture. It was fun getting lost in the small, winding side-alleys. These provided an insight in to village life, and provided a great escape route to get away from the annoying touts and tour guides who were eager to hassle you on every corner in order to get a few birr. A sad, yet ever present side of Ethiopian life is the begging. Not annoying in itself, but annoying through the cumulative effect of not being able to go ten paces without someone asking you for money!
One of the interesting things they do in Harar is a tradition that started in the 1960s. Around Harar there are a lot of Hyenas. One year, when there was a drought and the crops were failing, a holy man fed a group of them with a special porridge. Soon after this, the rains came. Now, every year on the 9th June, the same family feeds the Hyenas that come to a clearing near their home. Each evening, in order to ensure the Hyenas keep coming for food, the family feeds the Hyenas – sometimes from their mouth – with meat. They also earn a few birr from the tourists who want to come and watch such a spectacle (like us)! It made for an interesting evening’s entertainment. The fact that our taxi broke down at the site meant we had an extra long viewing of the 11 Hyenas.
Once back in Addis we finally had the chance to do more than admin here. We went to two of the museums in town. The first one, the Ethnological Museum, was very interesting and reminded us just how diverse this country is. There are so many different people
groups, each with their own particular culture and language. It also made us wish we had a bit more time here so that we could head
south and explore such things as the areas where the lip-plate people are. The second museum we went to, the National Museum, was interesting from a historical point of view, having the bones of Lucy (3.5m years old), Salem (a 3 year old boy who lived 3m years ago), and the 160,000 year old skull of a homo sapien (the oldest yet found). It led to Sarah and I having an interesting discussion about where Adam and Eve fitted in, whether they were actually Homo Sapien or Homo Erectus, and whether the skull we saw could even have been Adam’s skull!!
We also found a great little restaurant for some local food. It was an old, round building with wooden beams on the ceiling. We sat on
typical Ethiopian chairs, at a typical Ethiopian table, and drank the traditional Ethiopian drink called Tej. This is a locally brewed wine
made from honey. A very sweet, very potent drink that you drink from the kind of flask you might find in a Chemistry lab in a school.
See the photo! For few birr you get an entire bottle of the stuff. We couldn’t drink it all, so we emptied out one of our water bottles and
took the rest home to enjoy in the evening.
Other than going to the Cathedral in town to see where Hailee Selassie is buried, stocking up on supplies, and getting our Sudanese visas sorted out, Addis provided a bit of a breather before heading north for more adventures....stay tuned!
Gondor, Ethiopia
4th May 2010
So, the road took us north, finally! Seems like we have been going every way but up towardsour final destination recently, but now we
are really making progress!
We took a luxury bus to Bahir Dar - which didn't feel like a bus, but more like an airplane, and felt like it was from anywhere but
Africa!! Sky bus - we recommend it! The scenery was dramatic, with the road taking us down the Blue Nile Gorge - a spectacular view
from the top of one mountain across to others in the distance, with a deep gash in the land through which a dry looking nile river was
flowing. The Gelada Baboons, with the bleeding red hearts added to the beauty of it all!
Bahir Dar's highlights are the monasteries which are dotted around Lake Tana on small islands, once occupied from hermits trying to
escape the crush of what was then modern life (and would have seemed quite peaceful to us, probably, in comparison)! We took a boat out for half a day, after having beaten off about a hundred touts and finally found a decent price for a tour. We shared our boat with some lovely Ethiopian tourists who were actually quite knowledgable about what we were seeing and were able, in broken English, to give us some kind of commentary. A pleasant morning, although the monasteries were not spectacular, they were peaceful and pretty. The bird life on the islands was great, too.
We also saw the source of the nile. Well, another one of them at least. We negotiated with a tuk-tuk driver and he took us out in to the countryside and dropped us on a country lane. It turned out we were a couple of km from where we actually wanted to be, but once we had asked a local and got our bearings, we had a pleasant walk under the red acacia trees, up a hill from where we had a great view of the source (where the nile leaves Lake Tana).
After having had enough of coffee shops and monasteries, we decided to get the boat across Lake Tana to gorgora. It would have been a great, two-day trip stopping at little villages on the way. The trip was recommended in the Bradt Guide, so we thought it must be OK.
We booked tickets, paid our money, got up early and headed to the departure point. The boat was already seething with people - the
only room left being standing on the outside of the boat's railings, hanging on to the roof. Sarah and I can both swim, but we felt that
eighteen hours standing on a boat like that was a step just too far (I know, cowards eh?)! We'll send photos when we can and you can
decide if you would have got on the boat yourself!
So, after standing and watching the boat for a while, we found ourselves standing next to a man who could speak English and we
explained our predicament. He took us to the ferry office and we got a full refund on the ticket!! In Africa!!!
Later we went to the bus and three hours later we were in Gondar - another step north! This is an interesting place with old 16th
century castles, coffee shops and old churches (of course)! It felt more like some dusty corner of Italy or an old part of Europe than
Africa (well, the castles did, but the town itself, with its three days without electricity, reminds you that you are still in Africa).
We saw Ethiopia's best church (in our opinion). It is still in its original condition, without renovations - lots of churches here have had their art work done over in a gloss finish! The ceiling is covered in the heads and wings of angels, staring down at you in the small
church hall. The walls are covered in pictures of saints and bible scenes. All the figures, of course, have huge eyes - a feature of
Ethiopian church art. Another photo will follow...sometime!
Now we are debating whether to head a little bit south to Gorgora to see some more old stuff, or to head in to Sudan tomorrow...we will et you know in the next blog (which will be from Khartoum).
Khartoum, Sudan
11th May 2010
So from Gonder we decided to head back to the shore of lake Tana to a small village called Gorgora, before we headed into Sudan.
Gorgora turned out to be an even smaller more rural village than we'd anticipated! It used to be quite an important port – but has
certainly seen grander days!!! It was great to be off the tourist trail and we were able to sit on the lake shore watching the birds without anyone hassling us. The other great thing in Gorgora was a small church with beautiful paintings dating from the 13th century. Definitely one of the best churches we saw in Ethiopia and well worth a visit.
After this we headed into Sudan – it was a long day’s travel starting at 5:30am and getting into a hotel in Khartoum at midnight.
However we had a three hour break at the border which was an interesting place to be stuck waiting for a bus! We cleared immigration on the Ethiopian side easily enough once we got rid of the 'helpful’ (NOT!) touts and walked over the bridge. The Sudanese side was very confusing with nothing labeled. The touts on the Sudanese side were helpful showing us where to go (for immigration, customs, security, money changing, bus tickets and toilets) and none of them ever asked for any money for their help – quite a refreshing change from Ethiopia.
The landscape in Sudan got drier and drier as we progressed. The journey took forever as we had to keep stopping while a series of
policemen checked our passports again and again! Arriving in Khartoum we found a taxi to take us (along with 2 Swedes we met on the bus) to our chosen hotel. This was the first of the many taxis we have taken in Khartoum who had absolutely no idea of where he was going. They seem not to know any road names and get around by stopping every few minutes to ask a passer-by. We are constantly pulling out our map and directing the drivers ourselves! It is interesting that the drivers know our area’s name by the word ‘Dahab’ (gold) and not by the name of the huge Mosque next to our hotel!
Khartoum is interesting – our hotel is right in the centre and surrounded by small shops selling everything, cheap eateries (the staples being falafel, beans and shwarma), mosques, ladies selling tea and coffee from small roadside tables and lots of litter!
We spent the first day doing admin – all foreigners have to register within 3 days but they don’t make it easy! We first had to find the
office whose sign was so covered in dirt we couldn’t read the English, then communicate with officials that didn’t speak English , then return to the hotel for a letter from them which we didn’t know we needed. After paying another US$50 each (the visa had cost us $100 already) we went to get the photo permit from the ministry of tourism– another office, this one with no English sign!
The next 3 days were spent shopping in the souk, walking along the Nile and visiting museums - the history museum was full of statues
of Pharaohs and hieroglyphics dating from about 3000 BC – wetting our appetite for visiting the pyramids further north; the
Ethnological museum had some very interesting pieces showing the lifestyle of the different people groups in the country; and the
Mhadi’s house museum explained the history of the General Gordon and Kitchener invading at the turn of the last century.
The most notable thing about Khartoum, compared with the rest of the countries we’ve travelled through, is the heat – 43 C during the
day and 25C at night. The first day we both got very hot and dehydrated but we seem to be getting used to it now and coping better.
The real test however comes next week as we head out of Khartoum and out into the desert without the luxuries of air-conditioning and ice cold drinks! Wish us luck......
Wadi Haifa, Sudan
19 May 2010
It doesn't take long after leaving Khartoum before you are in the desert. Which is just as well as our first bus trip north only took four
hours. OK, it should have taken two, but we forgot to get off the bus at the right point (a collection of Meroitic Pyramids). We passed
desert scenes of varying description – black pebbly sand, typical golden sand dunes, small villages with mud houses in walled
compounds, lots of mining and industry and ended up in a little junction town called Atbara. Dry, dusty, hot and a little like an
overgrown bus park with a market brimming over with fresh fruit and veg – in seeming contrast with the scenery we could see around.
We knew the Nile was nearby but didn’t get to see the fertile farming area here (we did in Dongola though – read on)!
A feature of staying in Sudan is that in every town you stop in you have to go to the police station and register, the police then give you a form which allows you to stay for your required number of nights. You give this to the hotel and they are then able to check you in for your stay. This process sounds easy enough, but the first challenge is to actually find the police station. Some hotel owners know where it is, very few locals know, and even some policemen are unsure! There is often no sign (not even in Arabic!) and in one of the places we stayed we had to convince the police that, yes, we did actually need to register, in another we needed to wake up the
registering officer who has had so few visitors in the last few days he had moved his bed into the back of the office.
The following day, after having registered we decided to try to backtrack and see the collection of pyramids our bus had gone sailing past. We got on a bus and waited for it to fill....... Four hours later we realized that our plans to get to the pyramids early to avoid the 45C heat of the day had been a little optimistic. Five hours after boarding the bus, it started to move getting us to the pyramids at
noon!
We did finally arrive at the site and our efforts had been worthwhile as these were a great little collection of 2,500 year old structures.
Some of which had been reconstructed, and there were some great hieroglyphics, too. The best thing about the experience was that we had the whole area to ourselves! Not another person around! A guy offering camel rides and a guy selling souvenirs had tried to get us to spend our money at the entrance to the site, but they left us alone as we went in to the fenced off area. It was easy enough to hitch a ride back to Atbara once we had finished looking around, too (so we didn’t have to sleep in the desert after all).
Our next stop on the road to Wadi Haifa was Karima. This place was much smaller than Atbara, and the accommodation was certainly
more basic. The structure of a cheap hotel in Sudan is that they are generally built around courtyards, the courtyards have beds out in
the open air and men (only) are allowed to sleep on these for a very small fee. Most also have double rooms, or small 4-bed dorms.
There are always shared squat toilets and showers. The prices, we were coming to realize, were higher than we expected. Still, the food and drink in Sudan is cheap enough and this makes up for things.
We got up early the morning after arriving in Karima and wandered over to a nearby site where there is a mountain that was sacred to
the ancient Egyptians (Jebel Barkal), there is a temple (to a God called Mut) and a small collection of pyramids. We wandered around the site, again entirely on our own, and ended up at the museum which housed statues and figures taken from the temple and pyramids. There were 3,000 year old lion figures, statues of Pharaohs and even the remains of a Christian boy who had been buried some 2,000 years earlier!
Later that day we got a taxi to another area of pyramids – including the one housing the remains of Pharaoh Tirhakah (mentioned in
Isaiah 37:9) who is sometimes called the black Pharaoh. This area contains some of the biggest pyramids in Sudan – but truth be told
they are not as impressive as Egyptian pyramids – but the great draw, once again, is that you have them to yourself (besides a ticket
seller who managed to find us wandering around)!After a couple of nights in Karima we jumped back on a bus, which took us across another of the newly constructed tar roads that cuts across the desert, and we ended up in a bigger town called Dongola. After dropping our bags we headed down to the police station to
register. In true Sudanese style the people there were incredibly warm and friendly. After all the relevant forms had been dealt with,
we were marched to a plush office at the back of the building where we were introduced to Yasin, the Head of Security for the area. He gave us a bottle of water and a cup of tea and we chatted about Sudan and our other travels. Then he offered to come and collect us from our hotel later that day and to show us around the market and take us for fish in a local restaurant. The short tour of the town he took us on involved going in to the fields and looking at the date and mango trees and seeing the area where water is pumped from the Nile in to irrigation channels around the farmer’s fields. He also paid for the fish supper out of his own pocket (unless he gets an 'alien entertainment budget’ from his office)! The next day he tried to show us the nearby camel area (where the camel’s papers are checked before they start their 40 day walk to the camel market near Cairo). Well, he succeeded in that but sadly there were no camels! A great guy and an example of Sudanese hospitality!
The next day we got a bus to Wadi Halfa, which is where the boat to Egypt (Aswan) across Lake Nasser leaves from. Not much else
happens in Wadi Halfa. It is an extremely dry, dusty, shabby place which would not give a good first impression of Sudan. We stayed at what we both agreed was the grittiest little hotel we’d probably ever been to. It involved two beds with a mattress and a pillow on,
outside in a courtyard. The wind was up so we slept in a dust storm, and the people sharing the courtyard were noisy and insisted on
playing their Arabic news program on their radio at top, scratchy volume just as we were about to sleep. Actually, the night wasn’t that bad once the wind had died down and the air had cooled and the people had gone to sleep. They did start making a racket at 04:30 the next morning again, though!!
Today we are on the boat heading across the water to Egypt. Sudan is known for its red tape, and before we got on the boat we had to
go and register again at the police station, get our boat tickets stamped, hand over our passports to the authorities, wait for a form etc etc...it was all very confusing. But we managed with a little help from a ‘fixer’ who was helping a big overland group and added our passports to his pile. He didn’t ask for any money, either!! Then we headed to the ferry terminal where we spent the next three hours, once again, looking a little lost. First a man took our ferry tickets off us and threw them in a bin beside him, then someone took our passports away and disappeared. Then someone took our bags away. Then...nothing. Eventually we made it on to the boat and, as I write this, we are waiting to move out in to Egyptian waters! We’ll write more from there.
Amman, Jordan 2nd June 2010
2nd June 2010
It wasn't until we got off the bus from Cairo and found ourselves in Dahab that I (being Graham) realized that we had actually crossed
continents on our journey, too. We were now in Asia, technically speaking, although there was not a lot of difference between the
attitude of the people in Dahab – they still were determined to squeeze every last penny out of the tourists in their midst.
Dahab is a nice, relaxing backpacker town full of laid back cafes by the beach (complete with comfy pillows to lie on and Buddha Bar
type music. The snorkeling both off the coast in Dahab itself and a few kilometers away at a site known as the 'Blue Hole’ is spectacular,
so we spent a couple of good days with our faces firmly pressed in to the Red Sea, admiring the fish. However it left me (Graham) a bit
sad as I could see the damage the thousands of tourists are doing having snorkeled here just 3 years ago when there were far fewer
tourists. The dilemma of being one of those who want to see the world – but knowing you are bringing your destruction with you when you travel.
After our chilling out time in Dahab, it was time to continue on the road. We still had about a week before joining the overland truck
that will take us through Libya to Tunisia, and we had had just about enough of the Egyptians and their money mindedness, so we
decided to hop on a ferry and sail over to Jordan.
Thankfully, the boat from Egypt to Jordan is far easier than the one from Sudan to Egypt (see earlier blogs if you missed the adventure
we had getting on and off the boat there), and far less crowded than the on across Lake Tana in Ethiopia!! However, there was still a four hour delay (and no information about this) before the boat sailed. It was a nice trip once the boat actually set off, though.
Once in Jordan we spent one night in Aqaba, which is a very pretty seaside town built on a hill, before heading up to Petra. There is
probably not a lot that needs to be said about Petra itself as it is such a famous site, I’m sure you have heard all about it before.
Once you buy your tickets for Petra, you then have a choice of either an 800m walk or a ‘free’ horse ride to the main entrance. The
‘free’ horse ride is supposedly included in the price of your ticket, but, unusually for the Jordanians, the owners of the horses hassle
tourists quite aggressively for bakshee (tips) once you dismount. Having watched this happening, we were glad to have chosen to walk the 800m! As I say, this is the only place in Jordan where we have seen tourists being hassled for money by locals.
At the end of the 800m walk you reach the ‘Siq’, which is a 1km walk down through a beautiful narrow gorge. This used to be, when
Petra was in operation as a city, the only way in to the place. It is a narrow gorge that had rocks stretching around 100m up in places.
It winds and twists around, getting wider in some parts and narrower in others. The rocks are all striped white, red, grey and blue, and the sheer sides of the gorge provide shade as you walk down to its end. Once you reach the end of the gorge you come to what is probably Jordan’s most famous tourist site – the huge ‘Treasury’. Carved from the cliff face in rose coloured stone, this is a huge, ornate entrance way to what was actually a burial chamber. There are columns, statues, animals, arches all carved in to the rock.
The treasury stands in a large open area and outside are a mixture of tourists from all over the world, camels, horses, donkeys, horse
and carts, sellers and traders. This hotch potch of noise and commotion is probably not too dissimilar to how the place was when it was first built! Petra was known as an important trading center on the silk route.
The rest of Petra sprawls after the treasury and there is a combination of temples, (some at low level, and some at high level accessible by stairs – like the ‘Monastery’ which has 850 stairs leading to it), burial chambers (holes in the side of the cliff or ornate buildings), churches, and Roman columns. It is not so much the individual buildings themselves which give you the ‘wow’ factor, but the fact that there are so many and the fact that they are in such a beautiful area, surrounded as they are by multi-coloured cliffs.
We did two long walks here, exploring the site, and managed to see most of it – with sore legs and blisters to show for our efforts!
After Petra we took a bus to Amman. This is the capital of Jordan and is a modern, bustling city with all that this entails. It is a great
place to do day trips from and we did two: the first day trip we did took us to Jerash. This is a Roman city that is very well preserved.
The ampitheatre here is probably the best preserved one in the world, and the stage is complete. It was easy to imagine the Roman
actors coming on to the stage to do their bit for the citizens. We also went to Umm Qais, which is a smaller Roman city and the site,
apparently, where Jesus sent demons from a demon-possessed man in to a herd of pigs, which then promptly tried to fly off the nearest cliff! We didn’t see any signs of pigs or demon possessed men whilst we were there, though. The third stop on this day tour was at Ajloun. This is a 12th century castle which is still in pretty good condition. It was built by Saladin during the Crusades to repel Christian invaders.
The second day trip we did continued the spiritual theme (there are a lot of ‘holy’ sites in Jordan). We went to Mt Nebo, which is where
Moses was told by God to ‘go and look at the land that I am going to give to your people. Then die.’ There is a stunning view of the
‘promised land’ here, but as the day was a little hazy we couldn’t see as far as we would have liked. After this we headed to an area
known as ‘Bethany’ which is where Jesus was baptized. In the 5th century the church decided they knew the exact spot on the river
where this event took place, built a shrine at the exact spot where Jesus must have disrobed and a church behind the actual baptism
spot. I am not sure how they knew that this exact spot was the right place! Sadly, the river has dried up a lot and what was 60 years
ago a clear, fast flowing 65m wide river is, at the baptism spot, a muddy puddle that I am sure even John the Baptist would turn his
nose up at!
Then came the Dead Sea. We paid to use the facilities at a resort on the coast, which included showers, changing rooms and a large
fresh water swimming pool. The Dead Sea itself is great fun, and so easy to float around, which we did. The water was really warm (it
stays shallow for a long way), slightly smelly (apparently because of the minerals) and really salty.
Today we enjoyed the delights of Amman itself (the capital city). There are a few great things to see here including an old Citadel, with a museum containing the oldest statues known to civilization (apparently), which are around 8,000 years old! There is also a big glitzy shopping mall complete with food court and cinema here, which we felt duty bound to make the most of.
Tomorrow we head over to Cairo to join our team for the Libya to Tunisia bus trip. Should be fun! We'll tell you all about it soon!
Dahab, Egypt
27th May 2010
We left our last blog when we were sailing merrily across Lake Nasser. The journey was very relaxing and it was great watching the sunset and rise over the desert. The fun started in earnest, though, when it was time to get off the boat.
First, Egyptian immigration bordered the boat and everyone had to file past them and get their passport stamped. Easily enough done
but for some reason this took about four hours. Then we were allowed to leave but when we looked down the boat's stairs we saw what looked like an overgrown rugby scrum of people all trying to elbow their way on to the land while porters tried to elbow their way onto the boat. So, we waited.
Six and a bit hours after docking, we picked up our bags and joined the crush. 10 minutes later we found ourselves on the shore.
Thinking the worst was over we headed towards the customs hall. Here, before getting to the hall, was a barrier manned by customs
officials. They blocked the way until everyone who had left the boat in the last 2 hours was standing in a huge, seething mass of bodies
in the 40 degree heat (why let people through individually, as they arrive, when you can watch them dehydrate)! A guard told Sarah
and I to heave our bags over the barrier and get back in to the mass of bodies. We did this and, for no reason that was obvious to us,
after we had pushed and elbowed and been shoved a bit more, the same guard smiled at us and let us through his barrier.
This whole process was repeated again at the actual door to the customs hall, and was complicated by a senior guard insisting that the mass of bodies was divided in to a seething mass of women on the left and a seething mass of men on the right! If you are ever
travelling this way and crossing from Sudan to Egypt by boat, we recommend staying on the boat until absolutely everybody has left,
then adding another hour’s waiting time for everyone to clear customs, and only then leaving the boat – unless you are a rugby, or a last day of the sale’ fan!
It seemed like absolute luxury when we finally reached Aswan and were able to check in to a hotel with air con, no dust storm and a
satellite TV! Aswan is a pretty city with some attractive little islands in the Nile which runs through town. The side of the Nile we were
on was a busy built-up shopping area, and the other side was covered in sand dunes and tombs, which made for attractive sunsets!
One thing you learn quite quickly in Egypt is that everyone wants to sell you something. Whether you are asking for directions, need a
loo, want a tour or just happen to walk past a shop, someone will ask you to stop and spend money, or give them ‘bakshee’ (a tip) –
even the police men. There is also a big division between the things tourists are allowed to do and the things locals can do. Certain
buses and trains are for locals only, (unless you pay bakshee to the right people). Egypt has the feel of a long factory production line.
Tourists are stamped into the country, they join the tourist bus or tourist train, go to the tourist sites, buy the tourist goods (there is a
look of dismay and shock on the faces of the sellers if a tourist should actually say ‘no’ to them) and finally are stamped out of the
country again at the appropriate border point.
Despite the hassle and the factory production line feeling, there are some absolutely stunning sites here. From Aswan we went to Abu
Simbel, which is the temple of Ramases III and his wife (the only time a Pharoah built a temple to his wife, apparently). We went to
Philae temple, a Nubian museum and got a ferry to one of the islands in the Nile (for a bit of rural life experience).
From Aswan we went to Luxor, stopping, of course, at two ancient temples on the way. Luxor had more, er, temples to explore
(including Karnak, which is where ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’ was made). We also took a day trip in to the Valley of the Kings which is
where lots of Pharoahs are buried (including the infamous King Tutankhamen).
To our untrained eye, there is not a lot of difference between the different temples. They nearly all have big statues of the various gods or Pharaohs guarding entrances, they all have differing quantities of hieroglyphics, and there are often also bits and bobs left over from the Roman occupation of the temples – like the customary huge pillars. The surviving quality of these features depends on things like whether or not the Christians took over the pagan temples to use as a church (if they did, they nearly always scratched out the faces of the god figures on the walls), whether there had been family intrigue in the dynasty of Pharaohs (in one place the Pharaoh’s son had scribbled out the face of his step-mother, who, he claimed, had stolen the throne from his father). Despite the similarities, though, it is still amazing to be standing in the middle of 3,000 year-old statues and architecture and getting some idea of how grand the Pharaonic empire must have been. The power and wealth are made even more visible when you go to the museums and see the treasures that were taken from the temples. It is interesting to think that Tutankhamen was a very minor Pharaoh, and yet the goods taken from his tomb occupy an entire floor of a museum in Cairo and are worth millions of dollars. It makes the account of Moses, standing up to one of the grandest of Pharaohs, even more amazing!
From Luxor we took an overnight train to Cairo - Yay, made it from Cape to Cairo(Well there is still the gap between Nakuru and
Addis)! And then jumped immediately on to a bus and went to Dahab, by the Red Sea.
Alexandria, Egypt
9th June 2010
We had a very uneventful, but easy and pleasant enough flight from Amman to Cairo. Once in Cairo we dodged the over-priced taxi
drivers and got ourselves onto a bus headed in to the downtown area to find our hotel. We had booked ourselves on to a tour from
Cairo over to Tunis, through Libya. This was to be our first experience of overland truck travel, so we were quite excited and intrigued to find out how it was all going to work.
The next morning the group arrived – we were joining a group who have travelled from Istanbul so had been travelling together for the
last 2 months and therefore knew each other really well and we felt a little daunted by the prospect of spending the next three weeks
with them camping in the desert. As we got to know the crowd, though, it became clear that they were quite a decent bunch of
reprobates. They are generally all younger than us – a few of them on gap years and quite fresh to travelling. Once we started chatting
to them, and relationships started forming, it became easier to relax and start enjoying the action!
That first day was full of activity – a ride on a camel around the pyramids, a guided tour of the museum, a climb through a 5,000 year old pyramid and, of course, a stop at the local perfume shop. We've done these activities before – but this time we were on an organized tour – different experience – not all bad but definitely a culture shock going from two months of quiet, independent travelling to being herded with a bunch of youngsters from one place to another! We were glad for the following day when we were 'free’ to do our own thing in Cairo. We spent the day wandering the streets looking for museums that seemed to have closed or moved, and then heading to a cinema which was so old that they changed the reels half way through the film!
Today was our first day on the actual tour truck. The thing is a huge, yellow beast that looks like it is armour plated. The passenger section is a large rectangular room raised well above the driver’s cabin, with about 20 seats in, all facing inwards. There is a space at the front where you can pop your head out in to the fresh air, and each side is open, giving a 360 degree view! Everyone settled on the truck, and like clockwork some of the travelers opened the windows, others secured the luggage, one raised the stairs at the back, all in a bit of a blur of activity. Once again we were left feeling a little lost! It is quite odd as we see ourselves as quite experienced travelers, but this is a type of travelling neither of us has really done before, and we are taking time to get used to the routine.
The truck took us to Alexandria, and we have just spent the day wandering around the famous library (the new modern one, not the ancient one which no longer exists!), watching the sun set over the huge, circular harbor and eating koshari (a local dish of macaroni, spaghetti, noodles, tomato sauce and chick peas).
We did benefit from booking the trip through an agent. On the internet we were quoted part of the price for the trip in dollars. When we came to pay for the trip, the guide here asked for the same amount of money, but in British pounds. We checked with the head office and, apparently, the pounds figure was correct (obviously quite a lot more than the dollar figure we thought we owed). We then contacted our agent and told them that their advertising on the internet was wrong. They agreed and have refunded us the difference!
A nice saving on the real price for us, which is great!
We have one more day in Alexandria before heading over to Libya. We aren’t entirely sure how much internet access we will have, as
we are camping in the desert over the next week or so. We’ll send updates as and when we can!
Leptis Magna, Libya
16th June 2010
The last blog left off when we were in Alexandria, enjoying our time by the Med. We spent a nice day wandering around the catacombs
and old fort and having a great meal on the water's edge in the evening. We both decided Alexandria was one of the nicest cities in
Egypt, and appeared to be quite hassle free.
The next morning we set off in the truck towards the Libyan border. Life on the truck is pretty laid back when we are travelling. There
are two rows of chairs, one along each side facing inwards – making for quite a social atmosphere and now that we have got to know everyone better, it is a fun group (of 7 passengers, 2 Libyan supervisors and the 2 tour leaders/drivers). There is also an area known as the 'beach’, which is at the front of the passenger deck and is an open-topped area with comfortable cushions – great for watching the scenery flash by, but Graham discovered the hard way that if you put your head up when there is a low-hanging wire passing overhead, it can hurt! He is now the proud owner of a face that looks like he fought with a camel on heat and was the cause of an emergency truck stop to apply first aid. Don’t worry, he is fine – but will have another scar to add to the worm scars to show off!
Everyone mucks in and there is an air of efficiency about the place. As soon as we get to our campsite we each have tasks to complete
– Sarah and I are responsible for taking out the camping stools and rolling out the camping mats. Other people clean the truck, some
get the jerry cans out, others dispose of the trash etc etc...it takes about 15 minutes from stopping until there is a kettle on the boil and whoever’s turn it is to start cooking gets the food on the go. Accommodation on the trip is either in a budget hotel or in the desert – we just pull in off the side of the road, drive into the desert off-road as far as is safe to go with such a big truck and set up camp. The stars have been wonderful at these places, the scorpions friendly enough, but of course the showers and toilets are non-existent. Doing two of these bush camps in a row leave your hair feeling thick and gritty, and you develop a slight aroma, but it makes you really appreciate the first shower you get to – whether it is hot or cold, powerful or just a dribble.
After leaving Alexandria we got as far as El Alamein on the first night. This was the scene of a decisive battle in the second world war, so has huge war graves, museums, tanks, planes etc to look at. All very interesting and quite moving, too. Early the next morning we headed to the Libyan border. This was quite an easy border for us as we had a fixer who dealt with most of the paperwork and our task was to wait (and wait) for all the paperwork to get done. It took about five hours to get through but unfortunately the Swiss trainee truck driver wasn’t allowed through as the Libyans are still angry with the Swiss for arresting Kadaffi’s son when he beat up a bloke in Switzerland. He had hoped to cross on his South African passport but the border guards spotted the gaps in his new passport and wouldn’t let him through.
We completed our war tour with a quick visit to Tobruk. There wasn’t a great deal of difference between here and El Alamein, with a museum and some Allied cemeteries to look around. After another bush camp we headed along the coast, past some beautiful stretches of sand and great desert, rolling hills and local life (complete, of course, with camels). We went to a Roman ruin site called Cyrene, with its port area called Appolonia. For those in to Biblical history this is where Simon of Cyrene was born and brought up (the guy who carried Jesus’ cross before the crucifixion), and where Mark of the gospel fame was born, too. The ruins are spectacular, being well preserved and right next to the Med. Probably the nicest setting for Roman ruins that we’ve seen so far (and we’ve seen quite a few).
Another stop we have had on this journey was at a 1500 year old church and small fortress, which are not much to look at, but the
mosaics here are great -still in prestine condition. All the mosaics on display here once formed part of a giant mosaic on the floor of the church. The archaeologist who discovered them, for some reason known only to himself, carefully cut out all the interesting square pictures from the church floor and stuck them on the wall of a museum. The remaining floor of the church now looks like a chess board, with mosaic borders around perfectly empty squares!
A dusty day on the truck followed this adventure, and another bush camp. This one was in the desert, but near a road so it wasn’t so
pleasant. The sand was really, really fine, too, and managed to get in to pretty much everything! We were glad when, the next day, we
drove to Leptis Magna and checked in to a cheap hotel with a shower and a chance to wash a few clothes!
Leptis Magna is a huge site of well preserved Roman ruins (old things seem to be a theme of this holiday, what with the Egyptian sites and now a whole series of Roman and Punic sites coming up)! There is the usual collection of triumphant arches, colonnaded roads, ampitheatres, statues, byzantine churches etc. The interesting thing about this place is that the main guy the arches are devoted to is a chap called Septimus Severus (which sounds like a name from ‘Harry Potter’). He was born here in the remote corner of Libya, joined the Roman military, rose through the ranks and ended up as Rome’s first African emperor! Leptis actually rivaled Rome as the HQ of the empire at some stages in the past, but never quite overcame the power of tradition. Still, it made for a fascinating set of ruins on a huge scale in a beautiful location (once again, overlooking the Med in all its glory).
Tomorrow we have a short truck ride, hopefully without so much sand, and a chance to spend a day in Tripoli. We’ll write more once
we’ve completed our time in Libya – then it is back to old haunting grounds in Tunisia before a quick bus ride through France. Sad that
the journey is slowly coming to an end for us, and time to start applying for jobs!! We’ll keep you posted on that front, too.
Matmata, Tunisia
22nd June 2010
Tripoli was interesting but a bit rushed. One disadvantage of group travel is sticking to a timetable which moves a little faster than we
would chose to! However, we got to go to the state of the art multi-media museum where we interacted with images of Punic, Roman,
Hellenistic, Byzantine, Islamic and Revolutionary Libya. It was all very hi-tec (touch screen, holograms etc), and after two years in
Rwanda and having spent time sleeping on the sand in the desert, being in the presence of such high-level technology was all a bit of a mind-boggling experience! We also went for a walk through the old town Medina which came to life in the early evening with the narrow alleyways thronging with people and wares for sale, as well as having big screen TVs showing the world cup, so we caught a bit of footie while we were having a nice meal.
Then there was a long drive in searing temperatures, getting sand blasted through the open-sides of the truck. We drove through some very pretty desert to Nalut - where there is a wonderful, old fortified granary where the local Berbers used to keep their produce – a bit like a bank where they could deposit grain and goods, trade it, make withdrawals etc. It's abandoned now but very picturesque – see the photos. We continued down to Gadames which is an interesting place. The old town (all made from mud bricks) is a maze of covered alleyways with a very ingenious system of water distribution from a central spring. We had a guided tour through the town and a traditional Berber lunch in a beautifully decorated house (although the vegetarian couscous had a lot of camel in it)!
There is a very clever way of telling the time for the farmers in old Gadames. In the town squares, time was told in knots. Someone
was employed to sit at the water channel with a bucket with a regulation sized hole in the bottom. They filled the bucket from the
channel and watched it drain. Once a bucket had drained they tied a knot in a bit of rope and started again. Farmers bought shares in
the water supply – one share equaled one knot. So, if you bought 200 shares, you got the water supply (directed down irrigation
channels using stones to block and direct the flow) for the time it took for 200 buckets to empty. You were told that your supply started at a certain time in the day ('You can get water at 500 knots’), and you went to the town square to count the knots in the rope to find out what ‘time’ it was and to work out when your turn had come! All very clever and much more fun than having a normal watch!
The next stop, much to our pleasure, was on the coast. Two nights camping on the beach with a side trip to Sabratha was just what we
wanted to do. Sabratha is another Roman site – this one with a VERY impressive theatre with a three-floor structure on the stage – one for actors playing mere mortals, one for nobles and the top one for the gods (hence our phrase ‘a seat up in the gods’).
Camping on the beach was good fun especially the last night when we had a great fire on the dunes in the evening, and had fun playing cricket and football in the sand (we had to stop when it got dark, as nobody could see the ball – but we consoled ourselves by making a hot chocolate and roasting marshmallows over the fire)!
All in all Libya was well worth the cost (of the visas, a compulsory guide at every site and tourist tax of $50 tourist tax per group/per
day) and the constraint of going on an organized tour (We had to be accompanied by a tour agent and a policeman (who were both very
friendly and helpful) everywhere we went. The Roman ruins were every bit as good as we were expecting and we saw only one other
group of tourists the whole time we were there which made them exceptional. Would love to go back and see more of the desert country one day....
Today, as we write this, we are sitting on the truck at the border waiting to cross in to Tunisia. We’ve been here for nine hours so far, and at the moment both the keys to the truck and everyone’s passports have been taken away, and the guards have left their posts to go to lunch!
Wish us luck!!
Tunis, Tunisia
28th June 2010
Finally, after 11 hours of waiting on the truck, we made it across the border from Libya in to Tunis. It was a relief to be on the road
again, but we weren't as relieved as the guys who had left the truck and crossed over independently. They had to sit in the hot sun
whilst they waited for us, and the border guards kept telling them to move on. It was grumpy faces as we moved on in Tunisia to
Matmata.
Sarah and I were happy enough as we spent the 11 hours on the truck with our iPod, books, and a place to lie down and get some kip whilst we waited for everything to be sorted out. The only thing that made us slightly grumpy was the fact that we were now doing
what must surely be the most beautiful road in the country (the one up to Matmata, over the windy mountain track with the great views of the Ksars etc) in the dark.
We were quite surprised when we arrived in Matmata, were taken to the same hotel as we had stayed in three years ago, and, believe it or not, were given the same room as last time! We felt like we had a new role in the tour group now as we were very familiar with this
place. We gave advice on where to go, how to get to the Star Wars bar, where the Post Office was etc...before settling down to a great
Brick and Couscous supper. The next day the rest of the group went on a guided walk around the area. We guided ourselves.
Our next journey took us across the Chotts. This is a huge saltpan area. Very flat, white and dry, with small lakes that are made red by
the minerals in the water. Camels are about the only things that live in this area. It is a weird moon-like landscape that makes the long
journey from Matmata north more interesting.
We stopped for two nights in Tozeur. We were very pleased that the tour included this area as it is one of the few places in Tunisia we
hadn’t been to before. Tozeur is a pretty town with a large palmary (huge area covered in palm trees used to harvest dates and oil)
running through it. We went to a bizarre park made by one man in an attempt to show the history of mankind from the beginnings to
the modern age. Life size and larger fiberglass statues depict everything from the big bang to evolution to creation to Noah and the Ark to Moses and the parting of the Red Sea. It covers some Tunisian history and Hannibal, the Romans, the Punic period and everything in between (What events would you chose to depict if you were trying to make a museum of the whole history of the world?). Sound effects accompany the exhibits and a commentary can be heard in about five different languages. It is all a bit surreal!
Also near Tozeur there are some pretty oasis towns. We took a half day tour to three of them and it was great to see the difference
between the green oasis and the dry desert that surrounded them. We were taken high in to the mountains to see fantastic panoramas
and gorges.
At one of the sites (which, incidentally are very touristy and come complete with souvenir and drinks shops) there was a beautiful lizard tied up to a piece of string along with some snakes in a bottle. One of the more, shall we say 'spirited’ members of our group grabbed the lizard, untied the string and let it run away, then tried to release the snakes from the bottles too – much, obviously, to the owner’s displeasure. A big argument ensued. It was one of those times where we were behind our fellow traveler in spirit, (wishing the animals to be set free), but also eager to stand well back! He was known for getting into trouble, so took it all in his stride.
After Tozeur we headed to Le Kef. We had been to Le Kef before and quite enjoyed being in this sleepy village. It is high in the hills so
has a great view (especially from the fort at the top of the hill) and doesn’t get too hot. We pointed people in the direction of the fort
and then headed down hill to find the internet and some food. On the way here we had driven through Haidra. Haidra is a site of
Roman ruins which was built by Septimus Severus (still sounding like a name from Harry Potter), and it was interesting to see the range of his empire – having been to his birth place in Libya. We wondered if this was the furthest West his Empire extended. Let us know if you have any insight on this!
The best thing about Haidra (which isn’t big, but has a nice arch and a couple of nice temples) is that it is totally free to enter! Always a bonus!
The final leg of our journey before reaching Tunis was via Dougga to Hammamet. Dougga is Tunisia’s answer to Leptis Magna. It is a
vast, sprawling site of Roman ruins and includes everything you would like to see at such a place. It is one of our favourite places in the country and, despite having been there three times previously, we eagerly paid our entry fee and acted as impromptu tour guides for other members of the group. Dougga is set on a hill, so, although perhaps not quite as impressive as Leptis’ view of the Med, it gives great valley views across the olive plantations and farmland.
Hammamet is Tunisia’s answer to Benidorm with lots of five star hotels, crowded but pretty beaches and all the other associated things a mega-touristy site has (restaurants, mickey mouse railways, souvenir shops etc etc). We stayed at a camp site/hotel on the edge of town. There was a nice bar attached where we watched England being hammered by the Germans (no surprise there), and a couple of cheap and cheerful eateries nearby. We spent a nice afternoon on the beach and wave jumping in the sea.
Then the end came very suddenly. Before we knew it the final morning of our overland truck trip had arrived. We gave our tour leader a Gaddafi watch that we had bought him in Libya, had our final truck breakfast and jumped on a local bus (with the rest of the group) to Tunis. Once in Tunis we said a sad farewell to everyone and headed to Tunis Youth Hostel in La Marsa. We are ‘staying with’ Kaithe and Ted (ex-colleagues) here (they are in their camper van and we are in a room in the hostel) for a couple of days before sailing to France.
We spent a relaxing day swimming in the sea and going to the British Council office to catch up with old friends. We're now rested up and ready to take on France!
We’ll write again once we’ve been in France for a while.
Paris, France
2nd July 2010
Well it all must come to an end at some stage and we're now in Sandhurst, England!
The ferry from Tunisia to France was a VERY different experience from the ferry we did between Sudan and Egypt! The immigration
process was smooth and only took about 10 minutes, it ran on time, the ferry was almost empty with loads of space, there were
restaurants, bars and even a swimming pool (although this was empty). However, the price was also very different – so much so that we didn’t even take a cabin which lead to a rather uncomfortable night sleeping on the floor under (rather than on) our chairs!
Landing in Marseille was also a bit of a culture shock – we disembarked, cleared customs and immigration within about 30 minutes. We enjoyed our day in Marseille – went for a walk around the old harbour, caught a bus up to the basilica Notre Dame (with stunning views down over the city) and went round the museum.
The train journey to Paris was another shock to the system – only 3 hours, very clean, very efficient, very easy and very, very fast - but
at €80 per ticket it could have funded a lot of travel in Africa!!
We spent 2 days in Paris – the first was spent doing the 'sights’. It has been a long time since either of us were in Paris so we felt
obliged to see the Eifel tower, Notre Dame, have a boat trip along the Seinne and try to cross the road at the Arc De Triumph. It was a
lovely hot summery day and we enjoyed ourselves immensely especially sitting in pavement cafes enjoying baguettes, coffee and being able to drink alcohol in public whilst people watching (a favourite French past-time).
The second day dawned wet and grey. We revised our plans of more sightseeing and decided to go to the Quai Branly museum in the morning to give the sun a chance to come out. This museum contains art work from around the world and celebrates non-western art and culture. It was SO good we spent the entire day there only leaving at 7pm! They had a special exhibition on art (mainly masks) from the Congo basin – so our trip from central Africa to Europe ended with a day of looking at central African (along with all sorts of other) art in Europe, much to our amusement.
The coach trip to London was easy, comfortable and non-eventful (yes you guessed it – European travel isn’t as interesting as African
travel). Then there were a few domestic trains to catch before we walked up to Graham’s parents house in Sandhurst at 8:30pm on
Sunday evening thereby ending our 3 month 6 day trip home.
Hope you have enjoyed our blogs – we certainly found it more interesting than flying directly back! At the moment we are looking for jobs (have a few interviews lined up and will let you know when we have a new base. We hope to see as many of you as possible as
soon as possible. Thanks for travelling with us, it was a journey we’re not going to forget easily (especially Graham who has two worm scars on his arm to remind him of the good times)!
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