joshcohen.com

Panoramas

2007-12-19T00:23:00.000-05:00

Spent the last week in New York and Boston. Went out to some bars, saw No Country for Old Men, and generally spent too much money, but had a good time.

I took the chinatown bus from new york to boston last thursday during a huge snowstorm. Everyone was talking about the snow the day before, and I just shrugged it off thinking it would just be a few inches and no big deal. I had no idea what I was in for...I got on the bus at 10am after having a coffee and a muffin...and didn't get off the bus in Boston till 8pm with no food or water along the way! Apparently the storm I shrugged off was due to dump 6inches of fresh powder on New England and I happened to be right in the middle of it.

It was vaguely reminiscent of my time on the Ethiopian buses, the tradeoff being that on those buses we stopped regularly for food, but at least this bus didn't have horrible music or uncomfortable chairs.

To pass the time I had my laptop and went through all my panorama pictures and put together a panorama web page. Some really good stuff, planning on printing some out.

Israel Recap

2007-08-31T14:15:00.000-05:00

Nothing too exciting happened in Israel aside from the wedding in the previous post, but I'll give a little recap of what I did.

The week of the wedding I just hung out around the pimp 5-star hotel I was staying at, wandered around the old city in Jerusalem, went online a lot, caught up on my falafel eating, and went drinking almost every night with my cousin (brother of the one getting married). Was also able to meet up with 2 friends from college, one who turned into a religious jew and has been studying in israel for the last 2 years, the other is getting paid to be here by some fellowship (Jewish agencies love to throw money at Jews going to Israel, for instance if I decided to move here they would pay for my plane ticket, give me several hundred dollars a month for the first few months, and cheap loans for buying a house or furniture or whatever).

After Jerusalem I went down to Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, where I met up with my dad's old business partner Avi, who I've met several times in the US and Israel. He hosted me for a couple days. I'd had a bad cough the past week and a half and finally went to see a doctor who quickly diagnosed me with a lung infection and gave me antibiotics (they worked, everything's fine now). I didn't feel sick at all, just had a horrible sounding cough and some wheezing.

3rd day there I met my dad's other business associate at the kibbutz. He is very interested in me helping them out exporting their olive oil to the US, been discussing it with him a lot and it might be an interesting project to take on when I return home in November. That day he drove me to Tel Aviv and I met up with my old friend Eitan...known him since I was a camp counselor almost 6 years ago. Went out with him one night and met some interesting characters like a massive Georgian (the country) guy who runs a liquor shop that sells triple shots of vodka for $1 and one of his philosopher friends who likes to turn every conversation into a philosophical poetic rhyming and flowing match.

Next day I took the bus to Herzeliya and met up with my friend Rachel from home, she moved here 7 years ago, went through the army here, traveled a bit, and is now going through college. She had a very nice apartment with an extra mattress, stayed there for the weekend, went to the beach both days. The first day went out in Tel Aviv to a sushi restaurant (delicious) and to the hottest bar in Tel Aviv...dropped so much cash that night and didn't even get drunk (f obscenely expensive bottle service).

After Herzeliya, took the train up to Haifa and hung out with 2 of my friends from camp 10 years ago. I saw them 4 years ago, and it's always cool to see everyone change...one is still in the military, a chief engineer on a ship in the navy. He told me he just did a training exercise with the US and Turkish Navies and was having a drink with all the US officers, they couldn't believe he was so highly ranked at 24 yrs old, but that's how they have to do it in Israel. My other friend is a student at Technion, considered the MIT of Israel. We played poker one night with their friends, of course I kicked all their asses for a $10 profit (only played about $2.50 buy in per person). Next day hung out at the beach and went out for a few drinks that night.

Now I'm back in Tel Aviv. Was able to get my ticket to Thailand changed and will be leaving tomorrow for Thailand. Will spend a week there, get my visa to China, then fly to china on Sept 8th. Looking forward to getting back to the East...been a long road. Hard to believe i'm more than 2/3 of the way through my trip.

As a side note, started playing poker online again , have had too much free time when my friends were at work and me just sitting around doing nothing. Was down about $140, but last night won $200...so I'm back in the game! Might play some more in Thailand if I get bored, but probably won't play in China.

Another side note, since I am a huge nerd, I published a spreadsheet of my costs to date...completely up to date, can be viewed here. Israel cut my daily cost a bit due to being treated to so many meals by my relatives and friends, and not having to pay once for housing. Literally all my money was spent on food and with a little on buses/taxis/trains. Thanks friends!

My Cousin's Wedding

2007-08-26T06:13:00.000-05:00

Been awhile since I posted anything, just been hanging out in Israel with some friends. At the beginning I met up with my family. My cousin (I think technically it's first cousin once removed) was getting married here. He moved to Israel about 5 years ago and became very religious. The wedding was an Orthodox Jewish wedding, which I have never experienced. Men are separated from the women, much more praying and singing than a non-religious wedding. I took a ton of pictures, but mostly videos, which I posted below...some of them I thought were pretty funny. Most of the crowd were people like my cousin, who became religious later in life.

The wedding had it all, crazy dancing, gymnastics, rap, and a good band. The only thing it was missing was women.

The bride being led to the wedding ceremony

My cousin, the groom, praying and waiting for the bride to come

The bride being led around the groom 7 times as part of the wedding ceremony...the first time they EVER touch is when he puts the ring on her finger (they have met before, but never touched each other)

My cousin elated immediately after the ceremony

They sit the bride and groom and family down and people perform various acts, like juggling, human pyramids, etc

Various common Jewish stereotypes were shattered at this wedding, if you thought Jews could dance, check out these videos...

If you thought Jews couldn't make funny faces while dancing, check this guy out

These guys actually have some moves...

This one is my favorite...

This guy apparently went to a few raves before he became religious, really very good.

If you thought jews weren't flexible, see below

If you thought Jews couldn't fence, see below

If you thought Jews couldn't do gymnastics, see the next 3 videos to be proven wrong

If you thought Jews couldn't freestyle, see below

Plus a couple videos of the general party...

Jordan - Petra & Amman

2007-08-16T04:55:00.001-05:00

Been over a week since I updated, posted so many entries in egypt wanted to take a break for a few days. Ended up leaving Egypt last thursday...took a minibus to Nuweba where there is a ferry to Aqaba in Jordan. I wanted to take the ferry b/c I thought it would be less of a hassle than crossing through israel, but I was very wrong. First it was incredibly expensive, cost $68 to take the hour and a half ferry. I got to Nuweba around 11:30 in the morning and the ferry was supposed to leave at 2:30...I go to buy the ticket and the ticket window isn't open. End up having to wait around until 2pm to line up with an angry crowd of egyptians pushing and shoving and cutting in line to finally buy the ticket (you'd think for a $60 ferry ticket they'd be a little more organized...). Get to the port only to find out the ferry is late and won't be leaving till around 5pm...more waiting, finally get on the boat around 4:30, it leaves at five. Very smooth ride, and fast, but it was miserable with about 20 different babies crying the whole ride and little kids running around wreaking havoc.

Got to the port in Jordan and the customs people hold us on the boat for over an hour, I somehow push my way out near first in line, only to get to customs and have them tell us it would take an hour to process the foreigner visas. Didn't end up getting out of there till 9:30...was planning on going straight to Petra, but decided to take a taxi to town and find a room. Met a couple Japanese backpackers who could barely speak english, and we booked a three person room together.

Next morning woke up early and took the first bus to Petra, found a room and hit the Petra ruins (ancient civilization that carved a city into the desert rocks...featured in the end of Indiana Jones 3). Walked over 15km that day and didn't eat anything till around 4:30. Ruins were very nice though, was able to see everything I wanted in one day which was good because a 1 day ticket was about $30 and 2 day was close to $40 (many people spend 2-3 days there). There is a really cool 1km long narrow gorge you walk through to get to the main temple there. I was a little disappointed by the temples...They are really impressive looking from the outside, but I expected they would continue deep into the rock. Mostly though, they are just a facade, nothing to explore inside. There is one temple up a mountain that was about 800 steps to climb up...made the hike and it was worth it. A lot of great views of the desert up there.

Morning after that I took a bus into Amman, still with the Japanese guys...we arrive and none of the taxi drivers know the hostel we are trying to go to & the japanese guys only have a guidebook in japanese. After a lot of arguing between each other one of the drivers says he knows and takes us...he didn't know, had to ask his friend on the way...f-ing taxi drivers are the same everywhere. Met an Israeli guy travelling up there and a Korean girl at the hostel and we went to Iraq Al Amir, the palace of an ancient jewish family that controlled the area a few thousand years ago. Mostly ruins, but the israeli guy was a history major so he gave us the whole story of the family and the history of the area, which was interesting. To get there had to take a taxi who ripped us off, then a bus, then a minibus...was a little adventure. The ride back was much easier.

My dad has a customer in Amman named Mahar and he promised to show me around the city and the area. So that night I met up with him and he took me for dinner and drinks. He was a really fun guy and we ended up hanging out for another 3 days. I didn't have much to do in Amman, but I wasn't in a huge rush to get to israel...was pretty bored during the day, but had a lot of fun hanging out with Mahar every night. One afternoon he took me to Jerash, a city about 30min away where there are ancient Roman ruins...it was very nice, almost a whole city preserved in ruins. At night there was a music festival there with performances from all over the world and had a good time watching those. Was difficult to have to much fun in Amman though, because my hostel had a 12pm curfew...had to cut the drinking with Mahar short every night.

On tuesday I decided to go to Israel and Mahar dropped me off at the border and I went through, met a few US marines travelling on the bus, and rode with them to Jerusalem. I had bought a new cell phone in Amman and immediately bought a sim card and got in touch with my family...was able to meet up with them (after almost getting screwed by israeli cab drivers...i hate them, why can't they all just have meters!) So now I'm staying in a very nice I think 4 star hotel here in Jerusalem getting spoiled on good food and nice beds. My cousin's wedding is tonight and I'll be sure to write about that, it's a Jewish orthodox wedding, so it should be an interesting experience.

Luxor, Mt. Sinai, and Dahab

2007-08-09T06:06:00.000-05:00

From Cairo I took the overnight train down to Luxor, which was freezing cold b/c the air con was too high...was wearing a fleece and shivering all night. Get to Luxor and it's 110 degrees in the shade! Find a hotel and check out Luxor Temple, which was very nice, cool hieroglyphics and pillars. Then make the decision to walk to Karnak Temple...guidebook said it was 500 meters, but it was really about a 4km walk in the blazing heat. Made it there and had a nice time walking around the temple...some nice obelisks and pillars. Took a cab back b/c i wasn't about to do that walk again and just chilled in the air conditioned room for the rest of the afternoon.

Booked a tour the next day to go to Valley of the Kings...about 70 tombs of ancient Pharaohs nestled in a cliff. With the ticket you can only visit three...they are like saunas inside due to the heat, but all incredible well preserved hieroglyphics...really neat to see...and the tombs go so deep into the rock, overall worth the trip down to Luxor. Then the tour took us to some alabaster factory where they "hand make" alabaster statues...like it's some kind of lost Egyptian craft...the honeymooners on our tour bought over $80 worth of the stuff, i didn't even look at it, was a little pissed they hurried us through the tombs to take us to some factory so they could get commissions. Went to another temple, can't remember the name, then the statues you can see in the last picture below.

That night we took the bus up to Dahab, a pleasant 20hr bus ride...music wasn't too loud and the driver only smoked about once an hour, air con too. Other people were complaining about how miserable it was, but compared to Ethiopia and other bus rides I've been on recently it was nothing.

Got to Dahab and ended up chilling there for 7 days. Really tranquil, a lot of beach side bars you can just lay on pillows and read books all day. Great snorkeling and the one time i was able to dive (caught a sinus infection...couldn't dive) it was great too. One of the nights I took their Mt. Sinai tour, where Moses supposedly received the 10 commandments. We hiked up in the middle of the night and watched the sunrise from the top...can see some pics below. Absolutely beautiful. Not a difficult hike, worst part is dealing with all the camel droppings from all the tourists riding camels up. At the bottom there is a monastery that houses the supposed descendant of the burning bush...it was hanging up on a wall, and so many tourists were grabbing at the branches and ripping leaves off for good luck.

After 7 days in Dahab and not being able to dive I had to go...couldn't justify lounging around there another week, even though I wanted to. Cheap food & room, great scenery, good people, had a really relaxing time...definitely a place I'll go back to & would recommend.

St Catherine Monastery

Mt Sinai surrounds
Polish group praying as the sun rises

sunrise from the summit

sunrise
Dahab

Statues at Luxor west

How to Cross the Street in Cairo

2007-08-06T08:29:00.000-05:00

When I arrived in Cairo I quickly learned the intricacies of how to cross the street. Cairo probably has the worst traffic of any city I've seen and there is no respect for pedestrians. Furthermore, there are almost no traffic signals, and in the few places they exist they are ignored.

Taxi drivers fly through the city chain smoking in small stick-shift four door Fiats barely paying attention to the road, Buses go 40mph and zip across two lanes of traffic to pass a slow commuter (on the right) only to make a whip-lash inducing stop half a block later to let off passengers (Was standing in a bus waiting to get off and almost fell through the driver's window at one of these stops, only thing that stopped me was almost knocking some poor woman over, was quite a scene). Thankfully, there aren't many motorbikes or walking might be impossible.

So crossing the street is always a small adventure. There is a similar situation in China, but there at least when they see someone trying to cross they tend to slow down and give you a chance. In Cairo they don't slow down...half the cars seem to speed up and try to get by me, usually barely missing me by half a foot or less. Most times I would try and walk alongside an Egyptian and try to walk like an Egyptian (o I crack myself up). It's a little unnerving to stand alone in the middle of intense speeding traffic waiting for an opening to run across. And run I did...at any opening, shamelessly sprinting across the road, there was no other way.

Posted a couple good videos to illustrate what I mean...this is an intersection right by the hostel I stayed at and I crossed it several times a day.

Cost structure

2007-08-06T07:09:00.001-05:00

Today marks the 5 month anniversary of the start of my trip and I just spent about an hour on the internet making a spreadsheet tallying all my costs so far. I haven't broken it down by country yet, but I think I have a total cost unless I missed something.

In total I've spent $6,057, which at 153 days traveling is $39.59 per day or more curiously $.03 per minute - significantly more than I expected to spend...was trying to budget around $30 a day, but the cost of Africa & the dropping dollar conspired against me.

If I remove the various thieves that have stolen money and objects from me, $150 in cash & a $45 cell phone in SA, spending $45 to send a document express in SA that got lost in the mail, $161 from the ATM in Tanzania, a $50 cell phone in Ethiopia, and a $29 late fee on my credit card (this is 99% my fault, 1% the bank for not having an auto-pay option). This brings the cost per day down to $36.45.

If I remove the flights I've had to pay for, to get only a day to day travel expense, that brings the cost per day down to $30.55.

Also have to remember that my parents treated me to the overland truck from Joburg to Nairobi, so that is 26 days that I only had to pay for extra activities and food...

Cairo! - Ethiopia conclusion posted yesterday

2007-08-04T08:24:00.000-05:00

Got to Cairo and took the bus from the Airport to downtown, where I knew the name of two cheap hotels to stay. I had no idea where to get off on the bus and a nice guy named Ahmed sitting next to me told me it was the same stop as him. He helps me get off then walks around with me in the sweltering heat (he was wearing a suit and still kept offering to help me carry my bags) for over 20 minutes trying to find the hotel before someone on the street notices our misery and leads us to a hostel called the Canadian Hostel. Egyptian hospitality already proved itself, then the guy who led me to the hostel, what are the odds, his name would be Mohammed, invited me to tea and coffee so I went out with him for an hour or so at a coffee shop...nice guy and wouldn't let me pay. The number of free coffee/meals I've had in Africa continues to pile up.

Ended up meeting a few of the people staying at the hostel and instead of sleeping likeI should have done, was convinced to head to some nightclub. I get there and have an overpriced beer (over $4!), only to learn when the waiter comes around for the second round that there is a minimum charge for men of 100 egyptian pounds (roughly $18) - way out of my budget. There was no warning or sign and the waiter never mentioned it...he kept saying everyone knows everyone knows. So me and another guy argue with the manager for awhile and eventually I leave paying about $6 for my one beer vowing never to return.

Next day with the same people I headed over to the Citadel with an historic mosque and military museum (that just happened to skirt over the unsucessful wars with Israel while glorifying every victory in any conflict...was fun). Spent the afternoon drinking tea and smoking hookah (my new addiction here) and went to sleep early.

I think it was the day after that I went around to the big market with a girl named Jade from Hong Kong who was travelling alone at the hostel. Had a good time wondering around the market and watched the sunset over the Nile at the Hard Rock Cafe Cairo (lame I know, but I was really craving a good burger - it was succulent). So romantic sipping bottomless sugary soft drinks and scarfing greasy burgers with a beautiful sunset...too bad she has a boyfriend at home and I, of course, am a gentleman. We both were on roughly the same travel path and decided to travel down to Luxor (12hr train ride to ancient temples) and up to Dahab (20 hr bus ride to the beach) over the next week together.

Last day in Cairo I still hadn't seen the Pyramids so I took the bus over to Giza paid my fee and saw them in the brutal 110 degree shadeless mid-day heat. You can see pics below of me acting like a goofy tourist...it is low season here in Egypt, but there were still busloads upon busloads of tourists at the Pyramids. That night took the overnight train down to Luxor and ended my Cairo adventure...nothing too exciting, only got kicked out of one bar! Most people tend to hate Cairo since it's so polluted and busy, but I liked it a lot...first modern city I've been to in over 2 months...it was like paradise to have a functioning western toilet, fast internet, and real architecture in the buildings.

sunset over the nile

Citadel Mosque courtyard

Ethiopia Conclusion - o so long, sorry

2007-08-03T06:45:00.001-05:00

So Lalibella Churches were beautiful, had a nice time meeting some other travellers in the area, and we went on a beautiful hike up to a monastery in the mountains (you can see some of the pics from the hike in the earlier posts). Few disturbances on the hike only a couple villagers trying to carry our water or guide us for expected tips, we made it clear to them we won't be paying them. At the top, the village was very nice to walk though, some farms, stone huts, and everything extremely green with a small creek running through the middle. We didn't go into the monastery since it was a fairly high entrance fee...we only were in it for the hike anyway.

Our plan for going to the north was to try and cram Lalibella & Gondor into the week of travel that we had, but the ethiopian bus system conspired against that. The next morning we woke up at 5am to find the tickets to Gondor were sold out...since stacey had a flight in a few days without leaving for Gondor that day we couldn't chance trying to go there the next day. We spent the day relaxing, I locked myself in the room to get away from the teeming masses and read the book Skinny Dip - highly recommended, very funny light read. I played some Ping Pong again with some kids in the street, it was supposed to be .30 birr per game, and I played one kid and beat him, then played a pretty good teenager and lost 2/3 very close matches. When I walked away all these kids watching surrounded me and demanded I pay 10 birr for the games...I said no way I'm paying that much...they all said i had to pay and I said I would pay 2 birr total - more than the fair price. The kid who beat me was leading the mob, and finally he said "OK OK my treat" so I walked away not paying anything...then he followed me demanding the money with the supposed table owner walking with him (a kid about 16)...I said it was very nice of him to treat me to such an expensive game and kept walking. Finally, I paid him the 2 birr I was willing to pay from the beginning and that pacified him. Nobody can just have fun playing ping pong with the white guy, they have to try and make a buck at it...I said from the beginning I would pay...the kid who brought me even told me the mob was yelling at him for telling me the correct price and not trying to rip me off...just another day in ethiopia.

The next day we woke up at 4am to make sure we could buy a ticket back down to Addis. We push and shove our way onto the bus (somehow most of the people already had tickets, but we asked around so many times the day before to buy one and no one would sell it to us!!). We take another miserable bus ride for 4hrs or so, then stacey starts searching her bag and realizes her passport was missing. Of course, this is very worrisome considering she has a flight home in just 3 days, but she didn't seem so worried about it at first...in a few minutes it hit her what a big deal it was and she gets more and more nervous. We searched around the bus and it wasn't there...we figure she left it inside her notebook and accidentally left the notebook in the room (these kinds of things happen when you are waking up at 4am two days in a row to catch a f-ing bus from hell). So we stop at a town named Woldia, where we knew we could find a ticket down to Addis the next day. I try to sell our $10 tickets to Addis , but the ticketmaster will only give me less than $2 for it...then i watch him turn around and sell them to someone else for $8...he wouldn't let me sell it directly to that guy for the $8...no big worry, we had other things to worry about, like whether we had to spend 6 more miserable hours riding back to Lalibella to find Stacey's passport.

Stacey went to the manager of the bus station, we only knew the name of the hotel we stayed at and wanted to call there and make sure the book/passport was there. They were more than helpful, found someone to translate for us and ran around town trying to find someone who knew the number to the Blulal hotel we were at in Lalibella. They ended up finding a woman who was friends with the owner of the Blulal and we got the owner's cell phone number. We talked to the owner and she called the hotel, after a few calls back and forth they had found the passport, and even found someone who was flying down to Addis the next day who would meet us and give it back! Insane luck...Stacey was still a little nervous it would work out, but everything seemed to be in order...she would get her passport back the day before she left...she was thanking her lucky stars over and over again.

We checked into a hotel in Woldia and sat down to eat some lunch/dinner...it was about 4pm and we hadn't eaten anything all day b/c of the damn bus ride. There was only a table with some guys chewing qat and drinking coffee so we sat with them. We ask them where we could buy a ticket to go to Addis the next day and it turned out we were sitting with the bus driver and tickettakers for the bus! Ended up drinking some beers, chewing some qat, and smoking hookah with them till late that night - they wouldn't let us pay for anything, but I made sure to at least pay for the hookah. They told us they'll be sure to save a couple tickets for their new brothers...

Next morning we get to the bus station early, walk over to the bus, and our new friends usher us in through the driver's door and sit us in the front before they let anyone else in! Had a 4-5hr morning ride, significantly more enjoyable in the front where i could stretch my legs out. I kept trying to sleep but the driver kept saying "Josh Josh...if you go to sleep I'll fall asleep...you aren't allowed to sleep" so I chatted with him a bit and the people around me. We stopped for coffee somewhere and the driver/tickettakers wouldn't let us pay...treating us to coffee.

At lunch we stop in some small town and stacey and I go to a cafe to get some cokes...I want to get some bread and a customer, not the waiter, says 2 birr and he will buy it for me. I know it is supposed to be one birr so I try to call the waiter and pay him at the same time arguing with the scam artist. I sit down and end up spilling my coke all over me and knocking the bottle on the floor...that jackass customer made me do it, he knew it too, and didn't even apologize. I got the bread, and a new coke...then when I went to pay i had to pay for the broken bottle, which was more than the coke...I paid with a 100 note for a 13.25 birr check, the guy gave me 81.75 birr in change...then i said he owed me 5 more birr...it was like extracting teeth getting him to pay me...first he gave me two more, then i had to pester him again and he gave me one more, then i had to ask again and he gave me the rest. Not sure what these people think...i can't count or I don't care about money or something...the money is small, but when people try to pull these little scams it pisses me off so much I'll fight for a penny just on principle. In the end I still gave him a tip since he had to clean up the coke. After that debacle, i'm a little angry, then our bus driving friends call us over and insist on making the whole bus wait while they buy us a papaya dish...it was delicious.

Lunch is over, everyone is getting on the bus, and this little local kid, maybe 10yrs old, is standing near the entrance trying to get my attention by shouting "You You You" in my face...i turn around and say "what do you want" and he screams "Fuck You!" at me...so I say "go fuck yourself"...was not in the mood for this crap...he shouts back "fuck you" and I just get back on the bus visibly angry. One of my new friends on the bus asks me if there's a problem, I said one of the kids just said fuck you to me...he asks which one and I point him out. The guy starts shouting at the kid in Ahmharic, telling him off, then the manager of the restaurant where we just ate papaya comes out, grabs the kid and starts smacking him in the face...holding the kid's head with one hand and smacking him with the other, all while yelling at him. Finally some justice in Ethiopia...I don't think he'll be yelling at foreigners again. Yet again, Ethiopia proves to be a land of extreme annoyances and extreme generosity, one minute i'm arguing with a guy trying to rip me off, the next minute someone is buying me a meal and beating up a kid trying to insult me. You can probably see how travelling in this country can be so exhausting, but the stories are worth it :-)

That night we stop at some town and the bus driver and his pals get us a hotel room at the best hotel in town (we paid, but they made sure we had a reservation b/c everyone on the bus rushed to that hotel). Then we were relaxing in the room and they brought us down for dinner - again wouldn't let us pay for food or drinks...

Next morning we get to Addis, find a hotel. The whole bus ride we were a little worried about the passport situation, stacey called the woman who would be delivering it, and she was already in addis and knew the hotel we'd be at. We get to Addis, call the woman, and she showed up right on time at 11am, brought Stacey's notebook and passport...even tried to buy us coffee...Stacey gave her a thank you note with some money slipped in, and we bought her coffee after sitting with her for 20 awkward minutes of strained conversation...we were so thankful though. This story is probably luckier than me getting my camera back after dropping it in the taxi in Thailand - at least then I noticed within 15 minutes and could take some action...by the time stacey noticed we were 4hours outside of town.

That night we took it easy and Stacey flew out the next morning. I bought my plane ticket to Cairo. Also, my friend Eitan from Israel was in town the next day, so I was able to meet up with him and tour addis with his group of Israelis. Had a good time seeing some new sites and caught up with him. That night we made plans to meet up and go to a bar, but somehow they fell through. I ended up going to a bar with someone people I had met in Uganda that I bumped into in the Addis hotel, and a couple other people I met hanging around the hotel.

We got pretty drunk on cheap wine, and these two prostitutes come into the bar with a slovakian guy who was at our hotel and immediately ditch him and start trying to flirt with us. We joked around with them for an hour or so, all good fun...they ended up leaving with the slovakian guy...the bar closes we leave...I walk halfway down the street and realize I left my bag in there with my passport, camera, cell phone. I go into the bar, the waiters pretended they didn't know anything about a bag...we searched the place and found it in some corner...passport was there, camera...but I forgot I even had my cell phone in the bag. Later we decide to go surprise the slovakian guy, one of the people in our group knew where the prostitutes lived and we wanted to knock on the door and just see what would happen...it was 2am or so...and it seemed like a good idea at the time. We go to knock on the door and one of the girls walks down the street and sees us...so the other girl comes out and they kept trying to throw themselves on us...meanwhile the slovakian guy peeks his head out the door and we just start laughing...all in good fun, not sure if he spoke english, but he didn't get angry. Nothing too exciting happened, it was all just a little surreal standing on some Addis back alley at 2am telling these girls to show him a good time while they kept trying to invite us in. Eventually the joke got a little old and we went back to the hotel.

That night I got back to my room and realized my cell phone was gone my bag...making that the 2nd cell phone stolen on this trip. Bad luck with phones..I blame myself for drunkenly leaving my bag in a sketchy bar.

Next day I didn't do much, just read and hung around, I had my flight to Cairo the next morning. We went out again to a bar, turned out one of the prostitutes from the night before was hanging out at the bar with one of the friends of the people I met in Uganda. We sit with them for awhile and this drunken guy keeps yelling at us about something. I walked out to the bathroom at one point and that same drunken midget smacks me in the face unprovoked. I'd never even seen him before that night...I've never been in a drunken bar fight and I wasn't drunk at all, but I almost punched the guy before considering the consequences of what might happen if I got arrested in Ethiopia. So I had some angry words and walked away...the "security guard" from the bar did nothing...then I tried to go back in and the guard tried not to let ME back into the bar, not caring about the guy who smacked me for no reason...I pushed my way in and went back to the table. The guys I was with were ready to help me jump the guy who smacked me, but I told them it wasn't worth it and we let it go.

To tally it all up, in the span of two nights without stacey, I lose my cell phone, walk around Addis streets at 2am with a multinational gang of backpackers to bother some Slovakian whoremonger with no fear of AIDS (he was allegedly a 28yr old virgin trying to have his first experience...), and almost get into a bar fight with a drunken midget.

For Sub-Saharan Africa tallies...7 flat tires, 2 cell phones stolen, $150 cash stolen through mugging, $161 in cash stolen by a fraudulent ATM that my bank says I can't get back, 2 emergency outdoor toilet runs, 11 countries visited, somewhere around 10,000 km travelled on truck, bus, taxi, minibus, whitewater raft, small airplane, jet, foot, motorbike, ferry, speedboat, dump truck, and probably more I've forgotten.

Southern Ethiopia part 4

2007-08-02T08:44:00.000-05:00

Sorry it has taken so long to complete Ethiopia. I'm about 3 weeks behind in writing.

I left off arriving in Arba Minch, fighting off the plonkers and finally finding a room. It was an ok price, but it was probably the worst room we stayed in in Africa. The toilet was broken, there was a horrible smell of sewage and sweat, and the bar was loud late into the night. We went to sleep worrying if we'd be able to get money from Western Union the next day since we spent almost half of our remaining cash online trying to transfer money to ourselves.

The next morning we go into the bank, show our ID, and they can't find our transaction in the system. Then they tell us there is no way to send money direct from abroad to this town, it has to be sent to Addis. We say there has to be a way and we have to go up and talk to the bank manager. Stacey was on the verge of a breakdown, very worried. We started explaining the story to the bank manager and she started crying. I told her to wait outside and I asked the manager what the options were. He was more than helpful, even took out 100 birr and offered it to me "for my touble" he said...I told him that wasn't neccessary yet, just needed help getting our transfer. He said he will make some calls and find out.

In the meantime I went back online and grabbed the receipt number for the transfer...brought that over to the bank and finally something happened and they found the money. Still took about 45 minutes for it all to clear, but we were free and loaded with cash. Moved to a nice clean room, bought a bus ticket to Addis for the next day, and decided to spend the afternoon hiking in the mountains.

We wanted a nice serene hike, away from all the hassles, but as soon as we started walking a herd of runty children started following us. We hoped online for a short distance (we had walked through their village) and most of them dropped away after about 20 minutes, but a pack of about 6 kids followed us for over 2 hours trying to show us the way. It was a nice hike, bumped into a lot of farmers and people gathering wood in the hills. Everyone was very friendly. We tried to reach the summit of a nearby peak, but couldn't find a trail to the top. On the way back the kids following us (who now knew our names) started chanting "Josh 1 birr" and "Josh money" for a good half hour. I picked up a rock and pretended to throw it at them a couple times, but they kept coming back. Never expect any peaceful moments in ethiopia...lesson learned. There's always a child trying to beg from you, an asshole trying to show you a hotel, and so many times i'm at the edge of screaming dealing with those bastards right when someone extremely nice comes along and just wants to talk to a foreigner and maybe buy you a coffee...a land of extremes.

We bumped into our friend Wanderson who we met in Torme and made plans to meet up in Addis that weekend. Next morning at 5am took the bus from Arba Minch to Addis, rouchly 13 hours on the aforementioned miserable ethiopian bus system.

Got to Addis, checked into a decent hotel, and called Mahala. She is one of my best friends from home's mom who has moved back to Ethiopia. She came and picked us up, took us out to a nice dinner and promised to show us around town. Next day we met up with Wanderson after lunch, and he took us out to chew qat for the afternoon. Had a nice time sitting in a little cramped room chewing qat and eating peanuts with a bunch of wild-eyed qat-crazed ethiopians. That night met up with Mahala again and got to call home to the parents for the first time in a few weeks.

Next day was stacey's birthday and we checked into a decent hotel with a real shower paid for by the parents. Nothing too extravagant, but it was better than we were used to. We found a ticket to lalibella and booked the bus for the next day. It would take 2 full days to get there. Nothing too exciting happened on the 2 days of bus rides, just the usual getting stuck for an hour, tire blowout in the rain, children puking, and horrible bleating goat music.

Finally, got to lalibella and it was beautiful. As you can see from some of the pictures below (some were from the bus window, it was incredibly scenic) northern ethiopia is stunning. The town itself is extremely religious and centered around 2 clusters of rock-hewn churches. they took about 40 years each to carve out of the rock and they are still in use today. In fact, much more interesting to me than the physical churches, arethe pilgrims and various monks/nuns who live in and around the churches giving them a very holy feel and making them seem alive. The walls are covered with pictures from the old and new testament, interestingly usually with black characters instead of white ones...I tried to take a picture of Jesus with an afro, but it was too dark to come out. We took a guide and it was nice to learn more about the symbolism inherent in the design. He also took us into one church with an incense ceremony going on...he never fully explained what the ceremony was about, just that it only happened once a month so we were lucky to see it. There is a video of it in the first picture post.

Getting a little long, will try to finish off ethiopia and start on egypt in the next couple days.

Some amazing panoramas and a couple movies

2007-07-29T07:44:00.000-05:00

As usual, click for larger pics...they span from Murchison Falls at the bottom up to Lalibella

Africa Pics!

2007-07-28T13:02:00.000-05:00

Was going to update the ethiopia story, but there was a card reader here and fast internet so I posted a bunch of pictures...this goes from ethiopia through uganda.

hiking through mountain village in lallibella

Lallibella from above

Lallibella monk
Lallibella town scene

Church St Georgis
Church St Georgis from above (it is carved into the ground)

Lallibella mist...forget if this is fog or incense

Praying outside a rock-hewn church

Typical Ethiopian mountain scenery
Rainbow from bus window on the way to Lallibella

Childred following us shouting "You You You" in Arba Minch
We wanted a peaceful hike in Arba Minch...couldn't get these little devils away...staying trying to yell at them, but they followed us for over 2 hours

Stacey with our truck drivers Bekalu and Addis
Hamar market in Torme, not as impressive as we expected

Trying to get a truck unstuck on the hill
From the truck window, Omo Valley

Bekalu doing what he does best, pimping and driving
This runt followed us for a half hour in Konso, asked for a picture then tried to make us pay him for it

Video from Konso after winning a soccer match...the whole town went nuts for about 20 minutes...we didn't see the game, just the celebration.

Cute Ethiopian twins in Yabello

Our "guide" above Yabello

Yabello Market
Yabello Street Scene

Smoking Sheesha in Moyale
The road from Isiolo to Ethiopia...4 flat tires going 100km/hr down this

Fixing a flat tire at 2am on the road to Ethiopia
Me next to Murchison Falls

Murchison Falls from afar

Egypt Tomorrow

2007-07-25T02:21:00.001-05:00

Bought my flight yesterday to Cairo...$370 one way...not cheap at all but better than the $500 other airlines wanted. Had to go on Yemeni airlines, connecting in Yemen to Egypt - should be interesting. Also my dad was able to change my flight out of israel to the 16th of September and I booked a ticket to go to Turkey for the first two weeks of September. I'll try to fill in the rest of the ethiopia story when I get there, just converted all my spare ethiopian money to dollars and don't have much money for the Internet.

Ethiopian Buses - the devil's spawn

2007-07-23T02:45:00.001-05:00

I would like to finish our adventure in the south, but this ethiopian bus rant has been brewing in my head for some time.

Ethiopian buses are the worst form of transportation I have ever used. Even worse than the horrible experience i had in the 4ft high cargo hold of the Thai ferry, worse than the pickup truck in Cambodia crammed with 20-some people in the back...at least those were one-off things. In Ethiopia, unless you pay to fly or rent a car your only choice to get around is the government run bus system.

After having spent roughly 5 full days of my 3 weeks in ethiopia riding on these buses I think I am experienced enough to comment on them. I was pre-warned by other travellers when I was in Uganda about how bad the buses are, but nothing prepared me for the misery I have endured. In fact, I was going to stay here another week, but the thought of taking one more of these 12 hour bus rides makes me sick, so i'm leaving this country once i find a flight out.

First, it is now 10am in Addis right now, but I have been up for 5 and a half hours. Why? because every bus in Ethiopia boards at 5am! What that means...you have to get there at 5am to hopefully buy a ticket, so you have to wake up at 4:30, get to the bus station gate before 5am, and while wiping the crust from your eyes crowd around the gate with a huge pack of rabid ethiopians ready to sprint to the bus to buy their ticket first. They open the gate at 5am, a mad dash ensues, everyone running in every direction, I refuse to demean myself by running. There are almost always seats available.

You find the right bus, everyone is crowded around the ticketmaster trying to buy a ticket, fighting, arguing, etc. Eventually you get the ticket, or maybe you've purchased a ticket the day before (sometimes possible, sometimes not), now everyone crowds around the door, salivating at the thought of maybe scoring a front row seat, and thus less bumpy for the 2 day trip to whereever you're going. Before opening the door, the ticketmaster lines everyone up around the bus, then leads the front of the line in a circle around the bus to the back door. This is entirely pointless though, he opens the door and everyone who didn't line up just runs up and starts pushing and shoving, biting and kicking, women tossing babies up probably just to distract you long enough to get in front of you and squeeze through the door. It's vicious, no rules, dog eat dog, bare knuckle brawling. Within a minute, all the people who didn't wait in line push the ticketmaster away, open the front door, and steal all the good seats in the front. One time, I started screaming while everyone was pushing "Push! Push! Push! Maybe you can kill someone this morning, keep pushing, harder harder, i want to see blood" stacey thought it was funny, most people probably thought i was nuts.

Hopefully you avoid getting punched or kicked in the balls, you get to your seat in the bus which is usually 30-50yrs old. The seat is rock hard and the back goes up to your shoulderblades with no head rest. The seats are spaced to fit midgets and of course there is a sharp metal bar right where your knees go if you happen to be average sized. It is now 5:05am, everyone has found a seat, we should be leaving at any moment, we have a 12+hour ride ahead, but no, we wait. For no conceivable reason, the bus waits until 6am to leave. If you are in addis, all the buses leave at 6am and it takes you another 45minutes just to get out of the parking lot.

It's ok though, you're tired so you try to take a nap on the metal bar over the seat in front of you. It's hard, but it's 5am, who cares. At 5:30am, the bus starts up, since the exhaust is on the side of the bus and the door is still open, the bus next to you kicks up a huge cloud of thick black acrid exhaust filling your entire bus. You wake up choking, no one opens a window. No one even seems to mind that they are all slowly being poisoned by carbon monoxide and lead (ethiopia only recently switched to unleaded gasoline, there is probably still a lot of lead knocking around the engines).

It's 6:00am, you start to move, you start to wist back to sleep, only to be shooken awake by the driver blasting "tradition ethiopian music." It is the same tape played for 12 hours, the same tape on every bus, every time you take the bus, the same awful tape. Well there are a few, but every song sounds the same. It sounds like someone skinning a goat alive using a dull blade with a horrible 80s style synthesized beat in the background. It is ear-piercingly loud and the speaker is probably 20years old and buzzes at every high note...and there are so many high notes. No matter how high your turn your ipod up, you can still hear the atrocious music blaring in the background. An ethiopian woman behind you hums along and loves it...you ask yourself how this is possible, but you find every type of ethiopian enjoying this music. One day you try to buy a tape on the street in order to beg the bus driver to please put some american music on, but the only thing they sell is Celine Dion, Phil Collins, 50 Cent, and a country music mix tape (Africans south to north, love country music, so strange).

You never full adjust to the music or your painful seat, but you make do for a few hours on a nice road. Then the road gets bumpy, and since you didn't push and fight your way to the front, you get the full effect of the bumps. It is also getting close to mid-day and it's getting hot. You try to open a window, it's 90 degrees in the bus and only about 70 outside, but a chorus of angry people yell at you to close it. Ethiopians have no resistance to wind, they say quixotically. You look around, shedding all your layers, sweating profusely, and all the ethiopians still have winter hats and their jackets on, seemingly oblivious to the stifling heat.

The air is stale, it feels like there is no oxygen, no one has opened a window in hours! Between the music, the seat, the heat, and the stale air, you wonder if you will survive the next 6 hours. You stop for lunch, it is great, you haven't eaten breakfast since you were up at the ungodly hour of 4am, you are starving, craving coffee, you stumble off the bus and find some food. It is ok, they try to overcharge you for being a foreigner, but you fight them down to the correct price, maybe with the help of some new friends on the bus.

Everyone piles onto the bus again. Within 15 minutes it is hot, the air is stale, you are listening to the same tape for the 5th time...the goat never seems to die, just wails and wails to that horrible beat, but at least you are not hungry anymore. Then the bumps come, suddenly people from all over the bus are yelling to the ticketmaster for a plastic bag, the heat and the stale air have caused women and children all over the bus to start puking. In an hour, 4 children and 2 women have puked, no one opens a window...the air is now stale, hot, and smelling of puke. The only respite is when they open a window for 30 seconds to launch another bag of vomit out the window.

In the space of the 12 hour journey, you were undoubtedly stuck for an hour due to mud, a flat tire, someone getting kicked off in the middle of nowhere because the ticketmaster finds he has no ticket and no money to pay, or some other nuisance, but you welcome this since it gives you a chance to get off the bus and get some fresh air.

Finally, you arrive at your destination, only to meet the plonkers at the bus station trying to overcharge you for a room, children screaming "You You You," and everyone staring at your everywhere you look. You want to cry, but that's just what they want, so you suck it up, fight off the parasites, find a room and lay down. You get some dinner, go to sleep, only to do it again the next day, because it takes 2 full days of travelling to go 300 miles in this country, the roads are just that bad.

This is why I am leaving a week before i wanted to, and is why I won't be going to Bahir Dar, Gondor, Axum, or Harar. I'll only come back to this country if the buses improve, I rent a car, or have enough time to spread these bus journeys out to about 3-4 hours and stop somewhere along the way.

Southern Ethiopia - Part Three

2007-07-16T09:15:00.000-05:00

Left off arriving in Konso...

Of course as soon as we arrive, an ethiopian speaking perfect english walks up to us and offers to give us information...his name was Burkett. We say we have no money and are trying to get to Jinka, he says no problem, information is free...right. We are hungry and he takes us to a restaurant, and offers to draw us a map of the area. We protest, there is already a great map in our book...but he insists. He talks to us for 5 minutes, enough to make us realize he doesn't know anything that isn't already in our book. So we leave him and head to another restaurant...queue annoying wannabe guide number 2.

Sitting in the restaurant reading our guidebook and trying to eat lunch, another man speaking perfect english offers to help us with information. We say no thanks, but he sits down in the restaurant and listens to us discussing...every few minutes interjecting with some "free information." We start to get really pissed off since we're trying to make a decision and he keeps butting in...he even offered to draw us a map...there must be a school where they all learn these stupid tricks. After the 5th of 6th time of him butting in (and one time giving us information that turned out to be false and would have cost us $5 each if we listened to him), we started yelling at him to get out of the restaurant and leave us alone. These people just don't go away easily around here...literally have to tell them to fuck off before they act all offended, pout about how rude you are, and walk away. At first i was hesitant to be rude with them, but they don't listen to polite suggestions that we don't want their help.

We finally decide to go to Torme, about 5hrs away on a bumpy dirt road...it is late and we end up having to spend a night in a room with no electricity and no bathroom. No problem though...Wake up at 6am the next morning and try to find a truck going to Torme. We put the word out on the street we looking for a ride, wait on a hotel doorstep, and within 15min some guys come up and say there's a truck to Torme and to come along. We negotiate the price from $6/person to $3/person, and jump in the cab of a huge dump truck carrying beans for UNICEF bound for a town called Dimeka, about 1hr from Torme. The guys who hooked up the truck demand a tip, they keep hasseling us about it, but we know they get paid a commission by the driver and are just trying to suck extra money out of us...

So we meet our new escorts, the driver Bekalu, and his handyman Addis. Bekalu is very talkative and laughs hysterically every time stacey tries to speak Ahmharic. Addis doesn't talk at all, but just sits happily smiling the whole ride. The ride is beautiful, and Bekalu is an excellent host. We stop at a restaurant for lunch, and since the tourist prices are 3x the local prices, we ask him to bring us some food in the truck. He does, and doesn't let us pay for it. Then he invites us for coffee and qat (pronounced "chat") the ethiopian drug of choice while Addis fixed one of the truck tires. Apparently it's illegal in the US, but it's just some green leaves you chew for a few hours and it's a mild stimulant. Stacey and I have done it a few times here, and it's fun...similar feeling to having 3-4 beers, but having the effect last a few hours. Pretty harmless, though not something I have any desire to chew often.

After an hour of chilling and chatting and getting to know Bekalu a little better we hit the road again. The ride is incredibly scenic, we drove straight through the famous Rift Valley, and along the way we start to see Hamar tribespeople. The men wear pretty normal clothes and walk very erect, sometimes they have their face or body painted, but it's the women that the tribe is notorious for. The women don't wear a top, just a goatskin smock with a lot of shells and beads over their chest...so there are boobies everywhere. They also put this strange red waxy dye in their hair, and wear very thick bars around their neck and arms. It's pretty interesting...them and all the people in the Omo valley are living in several thousand year old, largely unchanged, tribal cultures.

Finally we arrive in Torme, after stopping once in the middle of a hill to help a truck that was stuck in the sand (it was a double trailer truck and it couldn't make it up the hill with both trailers, so they just left one trailer behind and would come back the next day for it). On the way to Torme, we had decided to go with Bekalu up to Dimeka, and get a ride back with him too...but when we arrive there the police in town fine him 50 birr (about $6) for taking tourists and demand a ride themselves up to Dimeka. He tells us he will pick us up 3km outside of town on the road the next day so we can avoid the police and will take us all the way to Arba Minsch for free (of course we ended up paying him - on our insistence - but felt good about it since we really liked him). He told stacey he loved her, and gave her a ring in case he never saw her again.

We check out Torme, all the tribespeople want 1 birr for a picture, and i refuse to pay people for pictures. I got a few pictures on the road, and took one picture of the market they were all gathered around. We can't walk half a block down the street without kids coming up asking for money or people speaking perfect english coming up and wanting to be our guide. We got a room for $4 after having to negotiate hard...they are obsessed with tourist prices around there...the real ethiopian price for our room was $2, but they tried to charge us $6. All the food prices were double for tourists and there was no negotiating it...it was infuriating since we literally had $25 between us at this point and if Bekalu didn't come to pick us up the next day we might be stuck in the middle of nowhere with no money. Cheering me up, that night I met two guys both named Wenderson who are engineers on the roads in the area. We had a long discussion about politics and ethiopia and america, then he said he'll be in addis when we are there, so we agreed to meet up (did meet up last saturday and had a fun time)

Next day we carry our bags 3km outside of town and wait on the side of the road...I can't think of a more remote location i've ever been. Bekalu said he would arrive between 10am and 11am. We sit there for 2hours under a tree while all these tribespeople keep walking by looking at us like we're nuts (we were). It was about 90 degrees, luckily we were smart enough to bring a lot of water. Two guys herding some cattle come up and speak to us in broken english...the one guy walks off and the other skinny old man stands over me with an ax in his hand not saying a word, just staring at me. So I took out my little binocular to break the ice and showed him. He liked it, but he kept standing there...finally i open my bag and found a dirty white t-shirt that i was planning on throwing away anyway and offer it to him. He gets a huge smile, puts the shirt on immediately (this was the shirt i white-water rafted in, and haven't cleaned since) and he walks proudly away into the blazing sun. A bunch of women come by asking for 1 birr for a photo, but we decline. Herd after herd of cattle, sheep, and goats wander by and we take it all in stride, confident that Bekalu and his oversized truck will come eventually. Everyone was very friendly though...finally just as we were losing hope in ever seeing Bekalu we hear a rumbling in the distance...soon I see Bekalu's huge red Nissan barreling down the dirt road flashing his lights at me. He jumps out (literally jumps...he is about 5'6") and runs over and hugs us. He had had a flat tire on the way...we happily jump in and hit the road. We thought we were going to Arba Minch that day, but turned out we were stopping overnight in Konso again, then going to Arba Minch.

We go to the same place for lunch. I try to buy Bekalu a pack of cigarettes, but since i'm white they try to charge me 25birr...normal price is 10birr...so some kid says he'll buy it for me, and he does for 12birr then demands a 1birr tip...for ripping me off for 2 birr...hilarious. Bekalu treats us to lunch and coffee, then we ride back to Konso, where he treats us to dinner and beer. Along the way Stacey introduces him to her iPod and we learn he's a huge Shakira fan...he spends 2 hours with the headphones on singing and dancing to Shakira. He tells us about his son who was an accident with some girl he met on the road, but he loves him very much. He was a real character.

After a night in Konso we expect to go straight to Arba Minch the next day at 6am, but Bekalu has other plans. We jump in the truck at 6:15 and head straight for a dry river bed...we don't know what's going on. Soon we see 10 guys with shovels come out and start loading up a truck with sand. We had to wait for 2 other trucks to get loaded with sand by 10 guys with shovels (about 45minutes each), then they broke for breakfast, then our truck. Finally, about 11am we get out of there with a full load of sand. Bekalu tells us he can buy the load in Konso for about $30 and sell it in Arba Minch for about $175...an incredible profit for a few hours work by any standards. Of course, this is a side game and he can't tell the trucking company about it. He pays Addis about $30 not to tell anyone.

Get to Arba Minch at about 3pm and stop outside of town waiting to drop the load off. I ask if I can walk around and look for a bank, Bekalu says no problem, 5 minutes later I see the truck flying down the road with stacey, driving right by me...I run after it but he doesn't stop. I figure my only option is to wait...i end up waiting 1.5hrs for them to come back, but I had a nice conversation with a man on the street who spoke perfect english about Ethiopia, America, politics, and economy while i was waiting. When they get back I found out stacey was on the verge of tears screaming at Bekalu to go back for me. He picked me up, and dropped us in the center of town. We pay him about $15 and say goodbye for good.

We are immediately surrounded by what our guidebook calls "plonkers" - people who speak about 5 sentences in english and are endemic to every ethiopian tourist town, they run up to you seem polite, and ask if you need a hotel room. We try to shoo them away, because we know if we go with them to a hotel they increase the price at least 25% because they have to pay these douchebags a commission. It is not difficult to find a hotel, the whole town is about 3 blocks square! Eventually they won't leave us alone and we literally scream at them to go away...we walk into some fleabag hotel and get a room for $3.50...One of the plonkers comes in right after me I say "what are you doing here, go away" he claims "I came here to eat" and I say "why the fuck are you standing there then and not sitting and eating" he has no response...oh man I hate these people, they are true parasites. After the room I have about $7 left to my name and our only hope is Western Union....to be continued yet again...ethiopia has been a long story, I need it all documented.

Southern Ethiopia Continued....

2007-07-14T14:11:00.001-05:00

So I left off arriving in Yabello and somehow scrambling on the bus to
the town. We originally thought Yabello and Konso were very near,
walking distance. In fact, it was over 150km away. We thought we
could get to Konso that day, but we quickly learned the only transport
was by cargo trucks that people pile onto the back of. So we figured
we'd stay the night, I've been following the travel philosophy told to
me by someone I met in Thailand that any town is worth spending a day
in.

It turned out that the day we arrived in Yabello (saturday) was a
market day. They set up a market on the one side of town and
villagers and tribespeople travel from miles away to come and
trade/barter at the market. We were able to walk around with our new
friendMelkius (i wrote his name wrong in the last entry). Of course,
we made it very clear to him in the beginning that we had no money to
give him, surprisingly he didn't care and just walked around with us
practicing his english and explaining some of the strange looking
things they were selling in the market (like mud and salt from the
salt lake 60km away). As were were leaving the market, we got a new
tag-a-along, a supposed student who wanted to be our guide (we have
now learned this is more than common in Ethiopia, there are at least 5
of these people meeting us in every town we've been in). He spoke
much better english than Melkius, and we made it very clear that it
would be great if he could show us around, but we had no money to pay
him (we had already started counting pennies not knowing when we'd be
near a bank). He had a pretty good sense of humor and said it was no
problem.

The town was really picturesque, it is in a valley surrounded by
mountains, so we hiked up to the top of one of the nearby mountains
with our two guides and were followed by children chanting "You You
You", "1 birr", "give me money", etc most of the way until our guides
finally shook them off. The view was very nice, then we took a path
the long way down through some villages who were all extremely
friendly and seemed very surprised to see us walking around the area.
We went back to our hotel, agreeing to meet up with our new guides for
dinner that night. Also important, the guide who spoke good english
had a ethiopian guidebook someone gave him as a tip...since we had
very little money, we paid him $5 for it...looking back it was a
pretty fair price since it's $20 new and it was 6yrs old (he
originally wanted $15). The book's been invaluable since...

After we got back, I go into the bar area for a coke and some drunk
guy named Abraham called me over and bought me a beer. Abraham spoke
very little english, but he was very clear that he loved white people.
Some Norwegian missionaries gave him his first job, and since then he
feels it his duty to help any white people who come along. He forced
me to drink 2 more beers and some snacks, and he showed us the 30
pictures in his phone of his family 3 -4 four times (forgetting that
he just showed us the same pictures 10 minutes before). The
conversation went pretty much like "I love white people, here this is
Abraham wife Mulu, Abraham house, Abraham daughter Melke, Abraham and
Abraham wife, etc." And us saying "o wow, beautiful wife, such a nice
house, aww so cute" He was incredibly sweet, and no doubt genuine.
Finally our one guide came into the bar and Abraham started buying him
drinks too and the guide was translated for us. He then had to go
home to eat but invited us for breakfast the next day.

We took our two guides out to dinner, woke up the next day and met
Abraham who somehow remembered to come pick us up. We met the one
guide who could translate and we went to Abraham's house and met his
family which we had seen so many pictures of. His house was very
nice, he was relatively well off in Ethiopia, and we sat down and he
showed us all his photo albums of the Norwegian missionaries, his
wedding, and his family. Was all very nice, a little awkward, but we
really appreciated him, he said if we ever come back we must stay at
his house, he will definitely be getting a holiday card, along with
Dennis in Tanzania...we left there about 9am then went back to find a
truck to hitch onto and take to Konso.

Stacey went to look for a truck, and I played our guide in ping
pong...of course the white guy playing ping pong attracted a lot of
attention around the town...within 10 minutes a crowd of 30 people
were watching us. He was no match for my skills and i beat him by
8-10 points 3 games in a row. Our "guide" had told us no truck leaves
till noon, but this was probably just a ploy to get us stuck there
another day or to get us on a truck that will pay him a commission
because stacey found one leaving at 10am and we somehow got the real
ethiopian price of $2/person with a little help from some other
passengers. We gathered our stuff and jumped in the back. This being
africa, 10am meant they pull out of the parking spot, then slowly go
through town stopping roughly every 10 meters for about an hour
picking up more passengers before really leaving.

The truck ride was a trip in itself. Everyone stared at us for most
of the ride talking about us (i counted about 22 people piled in the
back, with all sorts of luggage), then a couple people who spoke
english started talking to us. There was mix of tribespeople and
townspeople...everyone thought we were husband and wife and it took a
lot of convincing till they believed we were brother and sister. It
was a nice, scenic ride and relatively uneventful until we get near a
stream...suddenly, one of the guys jumps off the truck while it's
still moving and he runs into the stream strips down and starts
swimming. Before we knew it the truck pulls into the stream and all
the guys jump out, strip down to their underwear (one of them naked)
running around in the water like 5 year olds in a swimming pool
splashing and wrestling. Then someone produces soap and they all take
a bath. It was very surreal...i kept thinking "where the hell am I."
This lasted over an hour.

After 5 hours on the road/bathing, we arrive in Konso. Suddenly, a
huge argument erupts between two of the passengers. Everyone had been
sitting on everyone elses' bags the whole time and the one guy who
wouldn't let anyone even touch his bag was sitting on a woman's
plastic container the whole ride and had cracked the top. The woman
started screaming at him, on the verge of tears, and picked up his bag
threatening to throw it off the truck in the dirt. It's time for the
goofy looking foreigner to come in to save the day...I produce God's
holy instrument of repair, my mini roll of duct tape, patch up her
container and calmed the situation down...a few more words were
exchanged but she had a huge smile on her face and the crowd
dispersed. Stacey got a great picture of me introducing duct tape to
the locals and we went off to find some food and a hotel...

Enough excited blogging today...I'll try to finish our story
tomorrow...more hitchiking, skirting the law, and naked tribeswomen to
come.

A Long Adventure from Kampala through Southern Ethiopia - Verrrry Long

2007-07-12T11:41:00.001-05:00

Have had no internet access the last week as I travelled through the bowels of northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia. Been an incredible adventure though.

About a week ago we were trying to go through Kenya as quickly as possible; and we did it in record time, roughly 41 hours...everyone told us it would take at least 3 days.

We took an overnight bus from Kampala to Nairobi, arrived in Nairobi at 8am, found a bus to Isiolo (according to africans we talked to it should take 3-4 hours, but according to african time ((always multiply by 2-3x)) it actually took 6 hours), and arrived in Isiolo at 5pm. We were only in Nairobi for about 3hours, but that was enough time to see a thief get beaten up by a mob of people in a muddy street...Nairobi is notorious for thieves, the Kenyans call it "Nairobbery." Back to Isiolo, Normally people jump on the back of a cargo truck for the 18-36 hour ride from Isiolo to the Kenya/Ethiopia border, but we were lucky and got hooked up with a Land Rover who was making the trip leaving at 7pm. Negotiated the price from about $22 to about $15 a person and jumped in.

The driver flew...the road is one of the worst i've ever seen, 800km of rocky potholed desert, and he was going 100km/hr (~60mph) and almost fishtailing around every turn. To put that in perspective, normal trucks go about 15-25km/hour most of the way since the road is so terrible. I feared for my life at several points. Of course because of the speed we had quite a few flat tires...you would think driving 800km through one of the most sparsely populated stretches of land in Africa, and on one of the worst roads in Africa the driver would come prepared for flats, but he only had one spare tire and a spare inner tube...and a bicycle pump to pump the inner tube. It took 45 minutes to pump the inner tube in the 2nd flat...and the pump only worked because i had duct tape to fix the broken hose (thanks mom!). The third flat we had to whittle the hole down, cut the first busted inner tube (with my scissors, they had none) and use the other tube to patch the hole. From there we were only 3km from a small town, so we slept the night in the Land Rover, not having any money to pay for a room, we wanted to take as little money as possible through kenya, so many thieves. Next morning got a new spare tire, and set off for the border. Luckily, only one more flat on the way, and we made it into town...asses bruised from the bumps, but it only took 17hrs with 6 of that sleeping and about 4 fixing flats in the middle of the night.

Finally get into Ethiopia, we have no guidebook, no map, and only about $90 cash between us. We want to go to the Southwest where a lot of the native tribes live, they still live the same way they've lived for thousands of years, we read it is like driving through a museum. I trade $20 for ethiopian birr and get ripped off for $2 when he quickly runs away after shorting me on the exchange. As we walk children shout "You, You, You" from every direction, we discover that is what they shout to foreigners...a nice change from "Muzungu, Muzungo" everywhere in the Swahili speaking world. We find a cheap room in Moyale, the border town and ask around for a bus to Jinka, which we thought was north but is actually Northwest. We talk to someone and he recommends Yabello, so we go to Yabello the next morning because we don't have enough money for a bus anywhere else.

We get to Yabello and there is no place to change money. A nice guy befriends us, helps us get the bus from where we got dropped off to town, i have never seen such hysteria to get on a bus, pushing shoving, wouldn't be surprised if there was hair pulling and biting. The drivers helps us go through the driver door because he knows we'll never make it. Meleka, our new friend, takes us to a hotel for about $3 and finds someone to change anout $40 for us at 8.5 birr to the dollar, normally it is about 9, but we have no choice. We walk around town, it is a market day, so tribal people are coming from all around to trade in the market...to be continued, out of time here.

Jinja, Whitewater Rafting

2007-07-02T12:30:00.000-05:00

My last post was pretty long and I threw a lot of detail in because looking back it was amazing that it all worked out as planned. So many things could have gone wrong along the way, and we were almost ripped off several times, but travelling in Africa has taught me that things just seem to work out in the end. Would have been much easier to book the organized tour, but it was full. In the end we were able to return the tarps (unused) with no problem and got our $30 back.

Yesterday I went to Jinja to do what is described as one of the world's best places to whitewater raft. They picked me up in the morning and we went about 1.5hrs south to near the source of the Nile. After a quick lesson on the rafting commands we hit the rapids...4 level 5 rapids (the highest you're allowed to go down on a raft) and about 7 or 8 level 4 & 3 rapids. It was a great time, and when we flipped on the level 5 rapids I panicked a little after being dragged along and spun underwater for about 30 seconds. The only problem with the trip was the 2 hour long stretches of no rapids...got a little boring roasting in the sun paddling along until the next rapid. Overall we went 30km down the nile.

Now we need to get our ethiopian visas and make our way over to Kenya.

Kampala, Murchison Falls

2007-06-30T02:03:00.001-05:00

Arrived in Kampala 3 days ago after a 10 hour bus ride from Kigali and not having eaten all day. Met a Ugandan woman on the bus who told us we could share a taxi with her because it would be safer...as soon as we arrived the taxi drivers and motobike drivers had swarmed us, the motobike drivers literally circled us with their motorbikes and we couldn't move. We dropped the woman off and she invited us into her home for a minute, which was nice. Then the driver took us to the backpackers and ended up ripping us off for a couple dollars (the woman told us the price we would be 15,000 shillings and he demanded 20,000 when we got there), but he did do a great job darting around all the Kampala traffic jams. At the backpackers, for the first time since South Africa I was surrounded by mostly independent backpackers. Was fun to be in a hostel again. We tried to get on their organized Murchison Falls tour, which seemed like a good deal, but was booked for three weeks in advance. Found two other travellers who were planning to go to murchison falls and set off to do it on our own.

Since we'd be camping we went to a store to try to find a tent the morning before we left...couldn't find anything under $100 so after spending over an hour in the store exploring our options (including one of the sales people offering to sell us the tent then help us return it 3 days later if we kicked him $20, this was too risky for a $200 tent) we decided to buy two $15 tarps and we'd just sleep outside.

That decided, we went downtown to catch a bus, where I almost got pickpocketed on the street...slyly avoided. We caught a 4hr bus to Masindi where we were left with the next problem of how to get into the park and to the campsite we wanted, 90km away. Ended up finding another independent traveller and after a lot of negotiation got a taxi for $15 a person at 6:20pm, we were told by the driver the park gate closed at 7pm. We get to the gate at 6:55 and it actually closed at 6:30.

We start talking to the guard and he tells us how late we are, but he is very nice. He gets his boss. After him angrily telling us he shouldn't be doing this allows us to pay and go in at about 7:20. I asked the taxi driver if he knew when the gate actually closed and he said "I thought it closed at 6," so basically he was planning on ripping us off for the ride. Once we got in, he took us to the campsite, all 5 of us stuffed in a little toyota for an hour on a bumpy dirt road.

Finally, arrived at the campsite and one of the people we were with saw someone he had met travelling in Sudan and they had an extra tent. So four of us were able to cram into the tent. We booked a game drive for $20 a person and picked up 1 more traveller. The drive was pretty good, saw my first leopard int he wild! Also saw giraffes, elephants, buffalo, and a lot of birds.

That afternoon we heard we could camp right at the top of Murchison Falls, so we went on a cruise up to the falls and were able to hike to the campsite along a scenic trail. 5min into the hike a ranger stopped us and said we had to pay $10 each for the hike. Nobody told us anything about a fee and the hike was only 30minutes long anyway. We said we weren't going to pay, had a little discussion and he went away saying we'd talk at the campsite.

The falls were pretty, but not amazing. What was amazing was narrow it was. The whole 100+ ft wide river flowed out of a 10ft wide crack and the water just raged through it. Was very cool to water the water splash and churn through the crack from the top of the falls.

At the campsite we found a pavillion to sleep under, never needed to use the tarps. We called a taxi driver to pick us up at 8am the next day and take us back to town for about $75. He said he had a car that fit 6. The next day he arrives 2hrs late and in an SUV that 2 people had to sit in the trunk. We renegotiate the price because we were pissed he showed up so late (we missed the bus to Kampala) and that 2 people had to uncomfortably sit in the back. We get him down almost $20 on the price, get to town and find some other travellers to book a private minibus back to Kampala. Finally get back at 7pm.

We did everything the people on the organized tour did, including being able to camp at the top of the falls, which they didn't get to do. The tour was $145, and we spent $125. Saved $20 doing it on our own!

Goma Volcano Pics - Back to Kigali

2007-06-25T05:48:00.000-05:00

After Kibuye and one night in Cyangugu yesterday we tried to go to the Nyungwe Forest National Park. We talked to a minibus driver and he would take us to the entrance (2hrs away) for the same price as he charged to go all the way to kigali (7hrs)...$6 per person. So we take all our stuff with us and go to the park expecting to pay $20 for the park entry fee and hike around the forest awhile...maybe camp out that night.

We get to the park entrance in the middle of the forest and go to reception. It turns out you pay $20 just for the privilege being in the park and have to pay $30 for a guide on any particular hike you want to do. There is no way to hike alone through the park, not even along the highway that leads through the park without paying $30 for a guide. Rwandan citizens only pay $2 for entry and $4 for a guide. We were so pissed after going all this way...we read online and in brochures it was possible to hike along but this ranger would have none of it.

So we waited on the road for another minibus to come by and had to pay the full price to kigali again after deciding to just screw it and go to Kigali and catch a bus to Uganda. Couldn't find a cheap room (under $40 even) in the center of town so we went back to the sketchy hole we stayed at the first two nights and got the same $12 room as before. No problem though, we know our way around. Found the bus to Kampala and bookeda ticket tomorrow. Had to change money today, only had a 1996 $100 bill, and they charged me $5 commission because the bill was before 2003...i was only changing $30 too. Aside from the no ATM problems, Kigali is a great city, wouldn't mind coming back here.

See below for some Volcano pics...

More on Goma, Kibuye

2007-06-23T11:05:00.001-05:00

I didn't write about Goma itself. In 2002 there was an eruption from the volcano i climbed, it flowed into the city at 60km/hr and buried half the town under lava along with killing about 100 people. Driving through the town is very surreal as the streets are just lava rock...there are rocks piled up everwhere and some of the buildings are still half-buried under lava. The tour company I used, www.gomatour.com did a great job, they are new and just set up an office in town. Although they charged me $30 more per person than the rest of the group i was with i'd still recommend them.

Yesterday we took a bus down to Kibuye and had a very cramped ride on a packed bus, luckily someone helped us get a seat right when the bus left...people have been way too nice to us. They just kept picking up more and more people even when i thought the bus was full. The ride was only about 110 km, but it took nearly 6 hours due to all the stops and the horribly bumpy dirt road. We got to kibuye, which is beautiful and found a place to stay. The scenery is great there, though there is nothing to do. We paid way too much for our food at the guesthouse and left this morning for Cyangogu in the southwest of Rwanda. This bus ride was even more packed, but the first hour was great with the whole bus singing beautiful rwandan songs.

Tomorrow we check out Nyungwe forest.

Josh Vs. the Volcano

2007-06-21T09:30:00.001-05:00

It's been an interesting couple of days since the last post. In Kigali we visited the actual hotel from Hotel Rwanda, there was no plaque or exhibit or anything...we had to ask one of the waiters if it was the real hotel and he assured us it was. After that we tried to go to the Genocide Memorial but didn't know what time it closed (4pm) and we got there right as it closed.

Two days ago we took a bus from Kigali to Gisenyi. On the bus we met someone who spoke pretty good english, Emmanuel. He worked at reception at one of the hotels in town and volunteered to show us around town. Seemed like a nice guy, and he took us around for a couple hours...seemed to know every other person in town, so he was a good guy to know.

The reason we came to Gisenyi was one for Lake Kivu, which is nice, but I wanted to go into Goma, Congo to hike up the Nyiragogo volcano. It is an active volcano that you can climp to the top and look into a huge boiling lava lake. I asked Emmanuel how to go, and he introduced me to his cousin whose husband is in the Congo army, she wanted to send me with her brother as a bodyguard just to go look at the volcano...I knew there was a way to go up and camp out at the top, so she finally found me a tour agency that would take me up.

I didn't write on here about my plan to go to Congo because I was afraid my parents would flip out. So I booked the hike and crossed the border yesterday. I was in a group with an American family who were much more prepared with food, walking sticks, and warm clothing than I was (i had a fleece, sleeping bag, a tube of pringles, and some muffins for an overnight hike...they didn't tell me they didn't provide food until that morning). The hike was much more difficult than expected, 5hrs, 4 of them almost straight up. The peak was 2300 meters and I think we hiked around 2000 (~6000ft) in the 5 hours. We had a ranger with us who was packing an AK-47 so I wasn't too worried about safety, also had 5 porters carrying food, wood, and our tents.

When night fell we went from our campsite to the peak to see the red glowing lava lake at night...it was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen. Looking with my binoculars I could see the lava bubbling and frothing on the suface...lots of little mini-eruptions. I took a lot of beautiful pictures that i'll post on here when I'm able...but the pictures just don't do it justice. From about 500ft up I could feel the heat on my face. There was a huge plume of gas that from below glowed...really stunning.

The whole trip cost $230, including the visa ($30) and park fee ($100), it was priceless though.

Tomorrow we're trying to book a bus to Kibuye, Rwanda...another city on the lake. From there down to the Southwest and into the Nyungwe forest national park.

Kahama to Rwanda

2007-06-18T04:43:00.000-05:00

First, before I left Nomad they ended up giving each of us who went on the Ngorongoro crater tour $30 back due to us not being able to camp out on the rim of the crater as promised. We were hoping to get $50 but at least we got something.

Be sure to check out all the pics I posted below...

My parents sent me an e-mail flipping out about us going to Rwanda and Uganda, but it is very safe to travel here. Don't worry!

2 days ago Stacey and I took the bus I had booked from Arusha to Kahama. We almost slept too late, but we managed to get there about 10 minutes before the bus came by and picked us up at the entrance to our campsite 20km from Arusha. There was 5 people to a row, with about 75 people crammed in. There was barely enough room for my knees, overall it wasn't horribly uncomfortable...until we hit the dirt roads. It took about 7 hours to get from Arusha to Singida, including about 45 minutes stopped at a police checkpoint. 5 of those 7 hours were driving as fast as possible on a potholed dirt road that seemed to never end. It didn't make me feel any better when the guy next to us told us there was a bus crash on the road a few days ago were 18 people died and 60 were in the hospital (this was the reason for the long police checkpoint).

We had no idea how we were getting to Kahama because this bus was going to Mwanza, but the guy next to me, Henry, was so helpful and friendly, he found someone on the bus also going to Kahama, named Dennis. We had to get off at some random town and take a minibus to Kahama. Dennis escorted us the whole way and couldn't have been more friendly. He found us a nice hotel room in town (walked us there) and found a guy in town driving to Kigali the next day that would give us a ride (for a price). So we got a good night's sleep in a nice clean room for $10 a night, then Dennis skipped church that morning to help us meet up with the taxi driver and negotiate a good price. The final cost was $50, $25 each for a 450km ride in a nice comfortable Mercedes Benz to Kigali. The only problem was the border...

It turned out that guy who gave us a ride, Claude, was importing this car to Rwanda (it's a landlocked country, so he is driving it from the Tanzania coast to Rwanda). We get to the border, and of course customs takes 1.5hrs on the tanzania side and 1.5hours on the Rwanda side. So we wait 3 hours only to find out the car didn't clear customs on the Rwanda side and we have to get a ride into kigali with his friend George (Claude came along). George spoke english, which Claude did not, but we were getting a little worried as it was getting dark and they had to show their import papers at every police checkpoint...taking a long time to get to Kigali. Eventually we got to town and dropped Claude off...George had to drop the car off and pay the import taxes and we had to switch cars again to George's personal car.

We had a deal with Claude that he would take us to a specific address in Kigali...we get to the first address and the hotel charged $24 a night b/c there is some big conference in town. Too expensive and the reception guy seemed like an asshole, so George reccomended a place he knew for $10 a night. We go there, find a double room for $12. Finally, it's 8pm, dark out, spent 11hrs going 300 miles, get a room, then of course George starts asking for money for the ride. He wants $15, which is ridiculous, so I tell him I'll give him $5 for taking us from the original address to the new hotel and that satisfies him.

Hotel employees speak no english, only french...my horrible french from taking it 4 yrs in high school is failing me completely...i can't even remember the most basic things. This morning we went to a coffee shop in a nice little mall and bumped into an American doctor who's been working in Namibia for the last couple years. He's in town for the huge AIDS conference that's going here. We had a nice long chat with him and he treated us to breakfast, which was very generous. I was even able to change my $3 worth of namibian money with him for some Rwandan Francs. He told us, they've really cleaned up the city for the conference since it's the first major conference in Kigali. Plenty of perfectly manicured gardens and cops everywhere on the streets. The city is is in the mountains and everything is on hills, it's very beautiful. Most of the roads in Rwanda are very well paved too...it doesn't seem like the East Africa i've come to know.

Now the biggest problem is getting cash, there's no international ATMs here so I'll probably have to take a cash advance on my credit card to get funds. Might be able to western union myself some money also. This afternoon we'll be checking out the genocide museum which is supposed to be very well done and tomorrow we'll probably head to Butare then the Nyungwe Forest national park.

Pictures! Click to view larger ones

2007-06-18T04:08:00.000-05:00

Ngorongoro Crater

2007-06-15T06:04:00.001-05:00

Spent the day yesterday in the famous Ngorongoro Crater, home to all kinds of wildlife in a 300 sq km area. Saw almost every animal I ever wanted to see, Elephant, Buffalo, Hippo, Jackal, Hyena, Lion, Cheetah, a million Wildebeast and Zebras, Warthogs, Gazelles, and so many bids, all amidst the stunning backdrop of the crater.

Had a great time, but the tour itself was a huge rip-off and all 6 of us who went are pretty pissed about it. We paid our tour company $160 for a tour described as 1 night 2 days Serengeti and crater tour. Originally we were to drive through the Serengeti then camp the night at the rim of the crater. Next day take a long game drive in the crater itself. Then right before we paid, we found out we don't go near the Serengeti, but that was ok b/c i only wanted to see the crater. So the 6 people who wanted this option (the other option was 2 nights 3 days Serengeti and crater tour for !!$330!!) all paid expecting to camp on the rim of the crater.

We leave the next day at 2pm, drive 2hrs to a camp site 30km away from the crater and have to camp there. They sold us on camping at the crater, but we couldn't even see it from our campsite. We might as well have woken up early at the campsite we were already at then driven up to the crater directly. We basically paid $160 for a 1 day game drive and 3hr trip to the crater ($50 were park fees, so a $110 per person game drive). Everyone was really upset we didn't camp at the crater as described...we're trying to get some kind kind of refund but it's being sorted by our tour group company Nomad Overland and i have 0 faith anything will happen.

Brings me to Nomad...I would recommend people traveling africa go on one of these overland tours but I would never recommend Nomad...our first week was good, but everything since then has been horribly disorganized. Overall the trip was great, but almost everyone in the group is upset about how poorly organized the trip was and how many delays and easily avoidable annoyances we had to endure due to Nomad.

Very happy to be setting off with Stacey on our own tomorrow. I just booked a bus from here to Kahama, will spend a night there then take a bus from Kahama to Rwanda. We'll spend a week or so in Rwanda then go to Uganda before crossing Kenya to Ethiopia. That's the plan so far, might change any day.