Day 100 - Museum Overload

Istanbul - Orient International Hostel

First off today was the Turkish and Islamic Museum – lots of carpets there! Then to the Archaeological Museum, which was huge – we were there for hours and towards the end we were just skimming the exhibits – museum overload had set in! The museum had a lot of relics from all of the civilizations and eras important to Turkey, and it certainly helped give us a much better sense of the country’s history and complexity.

Next stop was the Spice Market – including (of course) shops with coloured spices in little piles – very similar to the sort of thing we’ve seen in India. Then over the bridge and up the hill to climb (with the assistance of a lift) to the top of the Galata Tower, one of the oldest towers in the world.

After heading back over the bridge and finding ourselves on the wharf wondering what to do next, we jumped onto a 90 minute cruise of the Bosphorous, the straight that separates Europe and Asia, and connects the Sea of Marmara to the Black Sea. Although there was no English speaking commentary, it was still a very nice way to spend the early evening.

Day 99 - You want to buy a carpet?

Istanbul - Orient International Hostel

This morning we visited the Grand Bazaar (the largest covered market in the world) where K wanted to buy everything in sight (maybe because of three months deprivation in Africa) but in the end only purchased a scarf, which will come in handy in Turkey.

We visited Topkapi Palace with all of its royal and religious relics including the Staff of Moses. Along with the largest emeralds and diamonds we’ve ever seen, to individual hairs from the Prophet’s beard, and also the harem attached to the palace.

We then walked across to the Blue Mosque (which apparently is the only mosque in the world with six minarets), dodging numerous carpet sellers on the way in (do we look like we need a carpet?).

After the mosque it was off to the Basilica Cistern, originally used for water storage - now making good money as a tourist attraction. Around the Sultanahment and Bazaar district in Istanbul everything is so close together, you don’t need to plan the sights you’re going to visit, you can just wander around and the must sees appear on every corner!

Dinner was a nice meal at a rooftop restaurant, with views of the sea on one side and the Blue Mosque on the other.

On another note it is so great to have access to a washing machine, our clothes are finally clean again! It’s been about 3 months since the last machine wash, which would have been in Namibia.

Day 98 – Hello Europe!

Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) to Istanbul (Turkey) - Orient International Hostel

Inside the Hagia Sophia

After an overnight flight to Istanbul (during which the guy sitting next to M tried to convert him to his church), we arrived at the hostel about 8am, where we were given a room to rest in until early afternoon when our room became available.

We headed out after lunch for a walk down to the sea shore and then up through the Topkapi Palace grounds, though we decided not to go into the palace today. We then paid a visit to the Hagia Sophia (called Aya Sofia in Turkish), as well as the mausoleums next door, before returning to our hostel. The hostel is in a great location, walking distance to all the major sights, restaurants everywhere, and shops galore.

Day 97 - Goodbye Africa!

Bahar Dar to Addis Ababa, Turkish Airlines Flight 677

We’d arranged a trip for today to Blue Nile Falls – near the source of the Blue Nile as it flows out of Lake Tana. There were six of us in total, including one of the friendly Ethiopian couples we’d been on the boat tour with yesterday.

After an hour’s drive we stopped in the town closest to the falls, and started heading  across the fields. Early on we had to cross the river in a small boat that was used to ferry locals and their goods across the river, after which we passed a small chat plantation. Chat is a mild stimulant that is commonly used (legally) in Ethiopia – K decided to chew a couple of leaves, but there was no obvious effect (or so she says - we later found out that she would have needed to chew leaves all afternoon to achieve any effect).

The falls themselves were underwhelming – as it turns out (and just our luck) the hydroelectric plant upstream was undergoing maintenance (starting today) and so the river had been dammed. The resulting “falls” that we saw were just two dirty brown streams of water tumbling over the cliff. Supposedly they get much bigger, but we also understand that they are still nowhere near as impressive as they were before the hydroelectric plant was built.

There were a lot of locals there to see the falls, as well as the usual people (including children) that made a beeline to us faranjis to try and sell us their wares. After a trip over the new suspension bridge over the river (just two weeks old), we headed back to our car and drove back to Bahar Dar.

We had lunch in a local restaurant with our new Ethiopian friends, who insisted on paying for our lunch, and also on ordering a second plate of food for M (without him knowing) because they thought the portion size was too small! They had also paid some of our monastery entrance fees yesterday as we hadn’t brought enough cash along …. their reasoning was that we were guests in their country and they had to look after us!!

We flew back to Addis late in the afternoon, and waited from about 6pm at the airport for our flight to Istanbul, scheduled to leave at 1:15am. Today was our last day in Africa after being here for more than three months – so goodbye Africa, hello Europe!

Day 96 - Men Only!

Bahar Dar - Summer Land Hotel

We headed off in the morning for a boat ride to a few of the island monasteries of Lake Tana. On our trip we met up with two Ethiopian couples living in Minnesota who were holidaying in their homeland, as well as an American couple from Texas who were here to pick up their new adopted daughter as well as seeing some of the country.

The boat was incredibly slow (not much faster than the oar driven boats that were carrying wood to market) but we managed to get to three monasteries on different islands. The first monastery was a “women only” monastery, but men were still allowed to visit. The second was men only and women couldn’t visit – a bit unfair if you ask K! While M was up in the church leaning about the various treasures owned by the monastery (the usual stuff – crosses, crowns, incense burners, old books made out of goat skin, paintings), K was hearing first hand from a monk about how the monks live their entire lives on the same small piece of land, never leaving, never seeing their family, fasting regularly, and surviving on donations and entry fees paid by tourists like us.

The third church was decorated with brightly coloured depictions of scenes from the bible – it was quite impressive and we spent quite some time there. A we didn’t have a guide, one of the Ethiopians on the tour did a great job of translating for us faranjis (there were five of us)!

A long boat ride back through some light rain, lunch at a restaurant on the lake, then an afternoon spent walking the tree lined streets of Bahar Dar, a visit to the most expensive resort on the lake for a quick drink, then back to our hotel for a disappointing meal (the Ethiopian food we had for lunch was much tastier than the bland western style food we had for dinner).

Day 95 – Nightclubbing - Ethiopian Style!

Lalibela to Bahar Dar - Summerland Hotel

We awoke to get ready for our day's travels to no water! We’re now used to regularly having no hot water, but no water at all was really difficult – at least we had a good excuse not to put ourselves through a cold shower!

Our direct flight between Lalibela to Bahar Dar had been cancelled as we were the only people booked on it, so we had to do our trip in two stages. We had to spend a few hours in Addis, meaning our trip took up pretty much the whole day.

While waiting to board the plane in Addis we met a very nice Ethiopian woman now living in Amsterdam (and running an Ethiopian restaurant), and after chatting for a while she invited us out for the evening.

Shortly after checking in to our hotel in Bahar Dar we headed off to a lovely new restaurant on the shore of Lake Tana called Dasset House, owned by a friend of hers and which had only been open two weeks. We had a very nice time sitting by the edge of the lake having dinner and drinks, K occasionally providing (tactful) advice to the owner on areas where the service could be improved!

After dinner, we then went out to something called a “cultural club”, where people sit and drink while being entertained by traditional singing and dancing. Being the only faranjis there we were very much the center of attention and the butt of many jokes that we couldn’t understand a word of, but the locals found quite hilarious! They managed to convince K to join in the local dancing (to the locals’ delight!) – M however was able to avoid the same fate! It’s amazing where a holiday can lead you if you just go with the flow…..

Day 94 – A lovely view isn’t enough

Lalibela – Seven Olives Hotel

A nice easy start to the day - we decided to go to the up-market Mountain View Hotel to see the view, have lunch and hopefully use some wireless internet. The view was impressive, the internet not working and after an hour we hadn’t received a drink or even a menu for lunch so we left and had lunch back at the Seven Olives.

As our church tickets were valid for another three days, M headed off for another look at the churches, managing to navigate the tunnels without a guide this time and see the second group from a different vantage point to yesterday, and also get another set of photos of Bet Giyorgis. Meanwhile, K spent the afternoon doing some of her Spanish homework.

We watched the sun go down from the garden at Seven Olives, as people arrived from other hotels. As it wasn’t raining tonight, there were a lot more people dining, it was as if every farinja in Lalibela had come to Seven Olives. As a result we ran into a few people we’d met in other towns on our trip – tourists in Ethiopia pretty much traverse the same route within Ethiopia (Addis-Gonder-Lalibela-Axum) so it’s inevitable that you keep running into the same people!

Day 93 – What’s the capital city of …......?

Gonder to Lalibela, Seven Olives Hotel

Another train (oops, plane) trip, with the strange Ethiopian security. There were very few people traveling so they took the opportunity to peruse M’s luggage. Special interest was taken and explanations asked for of  K’s migraine nasal spray, a cable lock & finally the solar powered torch. The same staff then attended the next security check point – just to make sure they didn’t miss anything on the first round – and yes we still flew with a 2 litre bottle of water!

We arrived in Lalibela to be met on the tarmac by someone holding our names on a board – first thought was, wow that is a hotel service first. However it was an Ethiopian Airlines rep telling us that our next flight had been cancelled as we were the only people on it and we needed to check with their local office for alternative arrangements. After checking in at our hotel we picked up our new tickets for Bahar Dar, as we needed to re-route back through Addis (instead of a direct flight).

We bought our tickets for the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela and headed off with a guide. It would be very difficult without a guide to find your way around as unlike other tourist attractions there aren’t any signs or arrows. It was an enjoyable trek through tunnels - although K is still walking strangely (read that to mean in agony) after the Tigray monastery rock climbing, and we also had to brave some pretty heavy rain for a while.

We made sure we engaged a licensed guide, who helped us navigate the maze of tunnels and paths that interconnected the different churches, but after talking later to other tourists we were definitely shortchanged, as we were given a lot less info and even abandoned before the last church.

The churches are incredible - either partially or completely carved out of the surrounding rock. The last church we saw, Bet Giyorgis, is arguably the most impressive, as it’s in the shape of a cross and has been carved into the ground. When M asked the guide how the churches were made, the best he could get from the guide was that “angels helped King Lalibela” – not exactly the answer we were expecting. There are 11 such churches in total, of varying sizes and states of preservation (many are now covered by large canopies). We found the whole site very reminiscent of Petra in Jordan.

On the way back we managed to collect a young boy who had the most amazing memory for capital cities of so many countries. He entertained us all the way back to the hotel so K decided to give him an Australian dollar coin, thinking he was such a studious type it would be interesting for school and maybe a nice treasure. Unfortunately he was not impressed and asked what else we could give him - not even a thank you!

Day 92 – Staying dry in Gonder

Gonder, Goha Hotel

Finally – no alarm clock required after so many early starts! After breakfast we booked a taxi and had a leisurely tour of the rest of Gonder’s main sights. This included a visit to the Kuskuam Complex, where we were given cloth tapers to hold while we viewed a glass topped coffin containing the bones of Empress Mentewab and her two sons, and also were able to witness a trainee priest practicing his singing.

Fasilada’s Bath was another interesting site – when we visited it the bath was empty, but around January 10^th each year the bath is filled, blessed, and then used as a swimming pool by hundreds of locals and tourists.

We had timed things pretty well – shortly after we arrived back at the hotel Gonder turned on the rain - welcome news for the locals and their crops, and a good excuse for us to have lunch and laze around all afternoon (as if we need any excuse …..).

K is really enjoying the Ethiopian way of getting a waiters attention, you just need to clap your hands once – hopefully she won’t keep doing it once we leave here!

Day 91 – Wherever there's a castle, there are also wedding photos ......

Axum to Gonder - Goha Hotel

We flew out of Axum at a civilised time, and arrived in Gonder where we had to bargain hard to get a taxi the 23km into town. We checked into our hotel just in time for a lovely lunch - the Italian attempts to conquer Ethiopia appears to have left the country with some lovely pasta!

We had time to walk down the hill into the town and visit the Royal Enclosure (also known as Gonder Castle) with its many ruins. As it was Sunday there were a few wedding parties there getting their photos done. After wandering around for a while we headed back to out hotel with its lovely view and another bowl of pasta!

Day 90 – 3 months on the road!

Aksum, Africa Hotel

Scaling the rock wall to get to Abuna Yemata

Today we had arranged to visit some of the famous Tigray churches in the mountains to the north of Axum. We left our hotel at 5.30am to drive the 3 hours to the first site, Abuna Yemata Guh. Along the way we stopped to have some breakfast - in Africa we have become used to having dogs and cats begging and hanging around our table, but this place was a little more rustic as our eating companion was a big fat sheep!

We arrived at Abuna Yemata and were quickly joined by some guides, so we commenced the trek to the church. The going was fairly steep but then we reached a sheer rock face – time for some rock climbing! K looked at it with horror and said “as usual …. I get myself into things that if I had known what they entailed beforehand I would never have agreed to”.

The ledge leading to the church

The guides were amazing, not only did they explain where every hand and toe was to go but where required they also held you on the wall and pushed and pulled from above and below. Eventually we made it to the summit and were told to remove our shoes to walk along a rock ledge to the church. This is the point where the Lonely Planet says was really scary, but it was an exaggeration, it was nowhere near as nerve-wracking as they described.

The church is set into the rock with rooms and incredible paintings that are hundreds of years old and have never been retouched. The descent of course was almost harder than going down, but once again the guides were very helpful and supportive. They also told us that as the mountain is so holy, no one has ever fallen doing the hike (which to us is a little difficult to believe).

Back in the car for the long drive to Debre Damo. This monastery is another “men only” – just as well as the only way to get in is via a rope (made of what seemed to be goat skin) tied around your waist as the monks help you scale the rock face, and of course the same way back down. On top of the mountain is a small community of monks. K stayed down the bottom entertaining the local children with her iPhone (who after enjoying many of its functions were disappointed that it didn’t have a TV!) while M scaled the wall, and enjoyed a walk around the monastery and a visit to the small church.

M trying to get into Debre Damo

Unfortunately we had run out of time to visit any of the 120 other churches in the area, so we started our long drive back, much of it on a nice new bitumen road built by the Chinese. For many of the children in these remote areas the only foreigners they see up close are Chinese – which explains why we heard children yelling “China!” as we drove past!

Day 89 – So who do you think you are, the Queen of Sheba?

Addis Ababa to Axum, Africa Hotel

Security at Ethiopian airports is quite strange, they go for the overkill. When we entered the airport they made us open a locked suitcase to examine a pocket knife, then told us to make sure it goes cargo (which is why it was in the suitcase in the first place!). Check after check after check, multiple body searches and shoe removals – but no problems taking a two litre bottle of water onboard!

The flight was like being on a train stopping all stations rather than a plane. The plane flies a continual loop through Addis, Gonder, Lalibela, Aksum and then goes back again, We were going to Axum, so we had two stops on the way.

We arrived at our hotel around 11am and joined a hotel tour taking in the main sites of Axum, including the (supposed) Queen of Sheba’s palace, her swimming pool, some underground tombs, and of course the stelae fields, which were large monuments erected to mark the burial places of the old Axumite kings and upper classes. The stelae were quite reminiscent of the obelisks we saw in Egypt.

Is this where the Ark is?

Our last stop was a couple of churches. This was the men only part of the tour, so while the girls waited outside under a tree, the boys continued with some secret men’s business!

Black Mary?

One of the churches that can’t be entered, and only approached by foreigners to about 20 metres distance, supposedly contains the real Ark of the Covenant (which is the chest that with houses the original tablets upon which the 10 Commandments were inscribed). Every Ethiopian believes this is where the original is (it was brought from Israel by Menelik I, the son of the Queen of Sheba and Solomon). However, there is a catch! The Ark is looked after by a single monk, and only he is ever allowed to see it, not even the bishop of the church can see it. When the monk dies, another monk is selected to take his place. Every church in Ethiopia contains a copy of this Ark – but in all of our church visits we haven’t been allowed to see these copies either ………

The nearby church, one of the oldest churches in Ethiopia, contains three copies of the Ark (or so M was told), and some interesting paintings, including two paintings of the Virgin Mary – one with white skin, the other with dark skin (which has fuelled speculation that she may have been black)

Day 88 – Don’t go there, don’t take any money, don’t take your camera!

Addis Ababa, Lion’s Den Hotel

Against the advice of our hotel’s manager we headed off to the market, the way she spoke we'd be lucky to arrive back with our shirts still on our backs. From our perspective though it was very similar to many markets we have seen and managed to navigate and escape without being robbed (we didn't buy anything though)!

We visited then visited a couple of cathedrals in the area, and then off to find what we’d been told was the best Italian restaurant in Ethiopia, if not all of Africa. Just as we were trying to find it we were caught in sudden downpour. Everyone tried to take cover where they could, while we watched a beggar who continued to sit in the middle of the road in the rain, just pulling a sack over her head.

We were about to abandon our search for the restaurant when K spotted it – it was the doorway pretty much next door to where we had been sheltering for 15 minutes! After a nice lunch we spent the afternoon walking around Addis, and in the evening we headed off to an Ethiopian “cultural restaurant” for dinner.

We entered the Yod Abyssinia restaurant and were a little confused about what to do next. First problem - the place seemed full, every seat was occupied. Secondly, there didn’t seem to be any order to the restaurant – just a room full of people sitting on very small chairs with tiny tables at their knees. Eventually we were rescued by a waitress who found 2 chairs and a tiny table, and a small space on floor to place them. We seemed to be the only couple, everyone else was in larger groups, maybe a couple of hundred locals and about a dozen farinjas like us.

The floor show consisted of men and women singing and performing traditional dances from the different regions of Ethiopia. Some of the audience were right into it and also got up on stage to dance, it was very enjoyable and lots of fun to watch.

Our food arrived on what appeared to be a traditional Ethiopian serving table, and we managed to eat with our right hands in the Ethiopian style without making too much mess.

Day 87 – A visit to our ancestors?

Addis Ababa, Lion’s Den Hotel

First stop the Hilton to buy our tickets for the rest of our travels in Ethiopia, Ethiopian Airlines have a great deal – 5 flights for US$220 – stopping at four other cities in northern Ethiopia, and then back to Addis. When you consider that some of the bus trips between the places we're planning to visit can take up to two days, then we had no qualms about choosing to fly!

From there we walked to the National Museum, where we saw an interesting exhibition on human anthropology, including a model of the famous “Lucy”. Then on to the Ethnological Museum at the University, which also happened to be the old palace of the last Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie. There were some great displays there - information on the different Ethiopian tribes and their customs, and different memorabilia (paintings, crosses, bibles) from the various Ethiopian churches dating back to around the 4th century.

A taxi back (we had walked a long way today, most of it uphill too!), followed by dinner at the same place as last night (the Greek Club across the road from the hotel - which also happens to be near the Greek school and the Greek Consulate!).

Day 86 – These redeye flights are a killer!

Addis Ababa, Lion’s Den Hotel 

The flight from Kigali to Addis took off around 45 minutes late – so we were in the air around 2:15am. The Entebbe leg was short, a lot of people disembarked there, and were replaced by another set of passengers. We touched down around 6:45am, very tired and bleary eyed as sleep was elusive for both of us.

We were taken by bus to the domestic terminal, which wasn’t geared up to issue us a visa on arrival. After some delay we were herded onto another bus and taken to the international terminal. Then of course, as our luggage was still at the other terminal we had to wait for it to be delivered, so when we finally exited the airport and met up with the driver arranged by our hotel, it was 8am – our poor driver had been waiting two hours for us!

The hotel didn’t have a room for us yet, so we managed a bit of breakfast before catching a short nap in a temporary room provided by our very accommodating hosts. After that, a walk up the street to find an ATM, which gave us our first proper look at Addis.

Back at the hotel our room was ready, and as we were so tired the rest of the day was pretty much a write-off. We did manage to go across the road for dinner, but that was about it. Hopefully tomorrow will be more exciting!

Day 85 – Waiting, waiting, waiting ......

Kigali (Rwanda) to Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) – Ethiopian Airlines flight ET81 

Didn’t do much today, other than hang around to wait for our 1.30am flight to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. Because we didn’t need to leave our hotel in Kigali until around 10pm, we paid for half a day’s accommodation.

Some culling and rearrangement of our luggage to make sure we don’t have to pay for excess baggage, then a lazy morning/early afternoon at Bourbon Coffee – the good coffee and the free internet makes it a real hangout for muzungus like us.

More time back at our hotel, then off to the airport for the long night traveling. The flight will be in two stages – Kigali to Entebbe (Uganda), then from there to Addis, where we expect to be met at the airport by a driver from our hotel, some time after 6am tomorrow morning.

Day 84 – Never Again

Kigali, Okapi Hotel

The good thing about the Okapi hotel is that it’s close to the centre of town – but the downside is the street noise – which is often the case with downtown hotels anywhere. However we still managed to sleep reasonably well regardless – and at least there are no 5am prayer calls or crowing roosters here in this part of Kigali!

Today’s plan was to visit the Kigali Genocide Memorial, which we’d heard was a must-see. We both hopped onto the back of a couple of moto-taxis (the only way to travel in Kigali!) and arrived at the memorial at what seemed to be a relatively quiet time.

The memorial was interesting and also incredibly moving. There were three areas – the first was an account of the events related to the 1994 genocide of the Tutsis, before, during and after. This included some engrossing video footage of people recounting their stories – most of the people were still young, so they would have been children at the time.  Accounts of how they witnessed their family being killed, friends and neighbours turning against them, and of how they felt ten years afterwards. Very sobering stuff.

The second part was a burial site with mass graves, strewn with many wreaths, some carrying statements such as “Never Again”. We headed down to this area at around the same time as a church group arrived, dressed almost identically.

The final section was an overview of other genocides through history, including Armenia, Cambodia, Namibia, Germany, and Bosnia, and of the organizations and efforts working to detect and prevent such atrocities from reoccurring.

As we were leaving we passed a room with a number of mattresses piled outside, and the sound of sobbing coming from within – it was a place for people to grieve. That shook us a little, but we then heard some intense crying coming from outside the memorial, then witnessed a very distressed woman being brought in to the grieving room. We both pretty much lost it at that point. When you consider that the genocide happened just 17 years ago, and realise that almost everyone you come across in Rwanda would have been involved and/or affected in some way, you come to understand how amazing and resilient the Rwandan people are. We both agree that the memorial is one of the most intense and moving “museums” we’ve ever been to.

The rest of the day was uneventful – back onto the motos and into town for lunch, and an easy afternoon of working on our planned Ethiopia trip and various other internet based activities (including uploading one of our gorilla videos), while sitting in one of the better coffee places we’ve visited in Africa, before sundowners at Hotel Des Mille Collines ("Hotel Rwanda"), and dinner.

Day 83 – Back to civilization?

Gisenyi to Kigali, Okapi Hotel

After breakfast and checkout from Paradis Malahide, we caught the bus back to Kigali, retracing the route we had originally taken to get to Gisenyi, via Musanze.

First task after arriving at our hotel (which has decent wireless internet) was to book some flights to Addis Ababa. We’ve decided to fly for a couple of reasons, one being that if we went overland we’d have to retrace a lot of old ground and it’s a long way, and the other that we’ve heard that the Kenya-Ethiopia border is a little unsafe.

After that important business was out of the way, we took a walk up and down the hills of downtown Kigali. We dropped into the Hotel Des Mille Collines, the hotel that was the subject of the film “Hotel Rwanda” (which neither of us have seen yet).

We found a nice looking restaurant strip on our walk, so we selected one of them for dinner, much to K’s relief, who finally managed to get a decent steak with béarnaise sauce!

One of the things to deal with being a muzungu in Africa is that you’re a target for people trying to extract money from you. For some reason, we seemed to see much more of it today than at almost any other time (in recent weeks anyway). While waiting for the bus in Gisenyi we were approached by two different one-armed men (though not at the same time). While walking through Kigali today we had one of the most direct approaches yet - a young guy came up to us and just said “give me money”. A more heart wrenching example today though was a young child, about 4 years old, who must hang around the road leading from our hotel. We walked up and down there twice today, and every time we went past this young child came up and asked us for money. In the background we could see the child’s mother, and occasionally she seemed to call out “instructions”. As we’re here for a couple more days, we’re sure we haven’t seen the last of this particular child, who is way too young to be put to work.

We will miss leaving Swahili speaking countries as we have become used to being called “muzungu”, and the surprise and delight when you let them know you understand that they are talking about us! They often seem surprised that we understand, but when you’ve heard it as much as we have it its pretty hard not to – and since you can also buy t-shirts with the word on it, they should know that we know anyway!

Finally, now that we have decent internet access for a couple of days, we’ve been able to upload another album of photos, this time of our travels in Tanzania, as well as the video of giraffes fighting that we took in Serengeti.

Day 82 – See Day 81

Gisenyi – Paradis Malahide Hotel

Just like yesterday, but sunnier and warmer!

Day 81 - You know muzungu?!

Gisenyi – Paradis Malahide Hotel

The hotel is in a beautiful spot with really pretty gardens and a small sandy beach with sun lounges. After breakfast in the gardens as we watched the fishermen come in to shore, we headed to the sun lounges, even though it was only about 20 degrees, to catch up on our “paper work” We lounged around all day, with a break for lunch (of course!), followed by more lounging, then dinner by candlelight on the shores of Lake Kivu

Day 80 - Waking up to torrential rain.

Kinigi to Gisenyi, Paradis Malahide Hotel

How lucky are we that we are not going trekking today! As we lay in bed listening to the rain, we were thinking of all the people about to start their gorilla trekking. Given that it’s the rainy season, we were so fortunate with the beautiful day we had yesterday. The trek would be so slippery and so much more difficult and miserable in this weather.

We caught a taxi to Musanze followed by a bus to Gisenyi, then another taxi onto our hotel. We have decided to stop moving around for a few days, and take a break on the shores of Lake Kivu (on the border between Rwanda and Congo), to relax and recharge the batteries, sort out photos and fight over who gets to use the Kindle!

Lake Kivu

Once we arrived at our hotel we needed to go into Gisenyi to do some shopping, so we both hopped onto the back of a couple of motor cycle taxis (also known as “boda bodas”), wandered around the market, spoke incredibly bad French while trying to bargain, and waited under awnings until the rain stopped long enough for us to take a moto-taxi back!

Day 79 – Taken down by a gorilla (a birthday K will never forget….!)

Kinigi, Kinigi Guest House

We arrived at the PNV headquarters before 7am, along with many other trekkers. We were hoping to visit the “Susa Group” – the largest gorilla group, so our driver spoke to the guides there so we could get into that group. We were told that the group was too far away, so no one would be visiting Susa today. The group we were given was “Amahoro” which means “peace”.

After a briefing on what not to do (don’t touch them, don’t sneeze on them, don’t stand too close to them, speak only in whispers) we were driven to the village at the starting point of our trek, which included a long stretch on probably the worst and bumpiest road we have ever been on in our life!

Our group of six trekkers plus gorilla guide then headed up, past fields of potato and pyrethrum daisy crops, to the edge of the park, where we were met by an armed ranger (the gun was for poachers and wayward buffalo). Our guide was constantly on the radio to the gorilla trackers inside the park, so the location of our gorillas was known.

The trek there wasn’t too bad, but at times quite steep. The track went through thick vegetation, lots of stinging nettles (which the gorillas like to eat), bamboo thickets, and every now and then we came to a clearing and had some great views of the nearby volcanic peaks.  

When we finally arrived at the trackers after nearly three hours of trekking, we left our packs with them, and went to meet the gorillas. There were a couple of groups lying on the ground having a siesta, they had just been eating bamboo shoots, which apparently can make them “drunk”.

We had only been there less than five minutes when they started waking up and moving about, so our guide said we should follow them. K was at the back of the group when a lone male silver back walked past. As she watched him he ran at her incredibly quickly and started tugging at her coat, she pulled a couple of times and he pulled back harder each time, then pulled her so hard she was pulled off her feet and towards him. He then brought his other arm up and pushed her down. K says she has never felt strength like that, so she decided to just go along with (we hadn’t been prepped how to handle this situation!). By then the guides had realized what was going on and arrived back, making gorilla noises and beating sticks, so the gorilla let K go, and moving toward the rest of our group. Everyone started running away (including the student guide, who got into lots of trouble for it) – the only people not running away were the head guide, and M right behind him running towards K.

The gorilla  then came back for another go and this time the guides got really aggressive with machetes & sticks, and kept him away. Gorillas don't harm or attack humans, but as we were later told, about once a year one of the males tries to “play” with a tourist after they have had “too much bamboo". After this dramatic start, the rest of our hour with gorillas was uneventful as we followed them around and watched them eat, climb trees, sit around, and carry babies on their backs.

We then headed back up and down the mountains for the 3 hour trek back. We had been warned how wet and cold the weather could be on the mountain, so we were surprised by the beautiful sunny day, and we ended up getting quite hot on the way back.

By about 4pm we had arrived back to our starting point, and our guide told us that the trackers who left around midnight to locate the Susa group still hadn’t found them - just as well we changed to another group. As we approached our car the rain started – so we were very lucky to avoid getting cold and wet today!

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We had originally intended to go on to Gisenyi immediately after our trek, but as it was so late and we were pretty tired, we decided to stay another night in Kinigi.

Day 78 – Tell the gorillas we’re coming!

Kigali to Kinigi, Kinigi Guest House

A view of Kigali from our hotel

There are many ways to go and see the gorillas that live around the Uganda/Rwanda/Congo border. What a lot of people do is pay a tour company to do all of the work i.e. arrange gorilla permits, transportation and accommodation. The gorilla permits for Parc National des Volcans (PNV) in Rwanda cost $500 per person – the tour quotes we received ranged from $1025 per person (with one night’s accommodation) to $3822 per person (3 nights). As a result, we decided to do it the cheap way and arrange everything ourselves!

We booked a taxi to take us to town, and we arrived at the Rwanda Tourist Board office in town around 8am to see if there were permits available – as this is the low season we secured permits for tomorrow, but we’ve heard it’s common to have to wait a few days, and in high season they need to be booked months in advance. Cost so far - US$500 per person.

We then purchased our bus tickets for the 12pm bus to Musanze, the closest major town to PNV. These cost us just 1700 Francs each – less than US$3 per person. The taxi to and around town to get all the tickets, cost us another $8 per person (which is a bit on the high side). If we’d stayed closer to town we could have avoided the taxi altogether.

We returned to the hotel for brekky, and booked accommodation close to PNV at Kinigi Guest House. The very pleasant and helpful hotel manager drove us to the bus station – so that cost us nothing. We had a little trouble with the bus – the minibus we’d booked didn’t have room for our luggage, but we only had to wait five minutes for the larger bus.

The country around Kigali is very picturesque, with terraces all over the hillsides with various crops – it’s as if no space has been left uncultivated. The day was also beautiful and sunny, so the trip was quite enjoyable.

PNV as viewed from Kinigi Guest House

In Musanze we quite conveniently ran into a driver who had just brought someone into town from the guest house we were staying at – so we had an easy trip to our guest house in Kinigi near the PNV headquarters, which cost us 7000 Francs – about US$6 per person.

The guest house is a budget place, but still nice enough for us, and situated very close to PNV. Cost was 25000F – about US$22 per person. Many of the staff speak French (Rwanda has a Belgian/French colonial history)  – but our Form 2 French was done so long ago that it was completely useless to us, it didn’t even help us with translating the dinner menu! Dinner was French inspired and quite nice. Overall, including drinks, it cost us about US$16 per person.

 It’s not possible to enter PNV without a vehicle, and these need to be arranged separately. We’ve organized one through the guest house for US$80. That’s $40 per person - so, all up our gorilla trip is costing us (in addition to the gorilla permits) just $95 per person.

Day 77 – Don’t believe everything the guide book says!

Kampala (Uganda) to Kigali (Rwanda) – Step Town Motel

Quite a civilized departure time for the bus today of 9am, so we were waiting patiently at 8:15am for the taxi we’d booked the day before. As we should have known it didn’t arrive as expected, and after much mucking around we managed to convince someone at the hostel to drive us there (even though we kept being told the taxi was “coming”). Lucky it wasn’t far – we made it to the bus with about 10 minutes to spare.

We found out en route, at around 12:30pm, that what we’d read in the Lonely Planet about being able to get a visa at the Rwanda border was no longer the case - so we spent the next three hours worrying and working out what we’d do if we couldn’t cross the border.

On arrival at immigration our fears were confirmed – visas aren’t available at the border any more, and we were meant to have applied in advance and had a letter with us. Fortunately the officials were very nice and allowed us to get our visas there, but they did make a point of telling us not to do it again! As a result of the delays, we missed out on the customs inspection that was still going on when we made it back to the bus – so maybe we could have kept our plastic bags after all.

We finally made it to Kigali, and headed to our pleasant hotel and had a dinner while we looked over the city from one of its many hills.

Day 76 – To the source!

Jinja to Kampala, Kampala Backpackers Hostel

Jinja is close to the source of the Nile River where it comes out of Lake Victoria, so after breakfast we walked from our hotel to the Source of the Nile Gardens. The gardens were quite nice, with a series of steps, lined with tourist stalls, down to the bank of the river. The actual source of the Nile wasn’t directly opposite the gardens but a little further upstream, so we walked out onto some steel beams over the river to look towards the source (we chose not to take the boat ride that was on offer). There was also a statue of Gandhi there, as some of his ashes had been scattered into the Nile.

Back at our hotel we booked a taxi to the bus station, at the last minute we decide to get him to take us all the way to Kampala. We had to haggle for a while to get a fair price, having to pay extra for air conditioning, but petrol prices in Uganda are very high so we though it reasonable.

The drive was quite comfortable, and it was a warm day (a real contrast to the rainy day yesterday) so the aircon was very welcome as we approached Kampala. We managed to arrive at the hostel around 2:30pm, pretty good timing and much earlier than if we’d taken the bus.

We took a walk to the bus station down the road to purchase our bus tickets to Kigali (Rwanda), then spent the rest of the afternoon taking advantage of the free wireless to catch up on a few things, as well as getting rid of as many of our plastic bags as possible as we’d read (and heard from other travellers) that plastic bags aren’t allowed in Rwanda.

Day 75 – How’s your wife …. and my two daughters?

Jinja – Timton Hotel

We phoned the rafting company, Nile Explorers, first thing this morning to check on a few things – they offered to come and pick us up, even though we were only a five minute walk away. The service given by this company is extraordinary, driven around, free shuttles, great food, and a great time rafting on the Nile – we can’t recommend the company enough.

There were eight of us rafting today (two rafts of four people, plus guides) - we were all fitted with lifejackets and helmets, and given an initial briefing as well as breakfast. We then hopped into the back of a large truck and driven to the starting point on the Nile. Once there we had further briefing for our Grade 5 rapid adventure. In hindsight it was just as well we hadn’t youtubed “rafting Nile” as some of our companions had (and terrified themselves) – it’s worth checking out – here’s an example!

Grade 5 is only one grade less than the highest Grade 6 – and there were a couple of Grade 5 rapids on this trip. We did not expect it to be so exhilarating and scary, being dumped from the raft time and time again into these huge rapids. Ignorance is bliss – hindsight a wonderful thing. Our guide was a real larrikin, who entertained us constantly – which made the longish paddles between rapids go quickly. Knowing full well that a local fisherman didn’t understand a word of English, he asked him the question that we’ve put as this post’s title!

The trip was brutal in more ways that one, the rain was so cold and hard we left the raft to swim/float down the Nile as it was warmer than being on board. Quite unreal to find ourselves floating down the Nile in Uganda, in torrential rain!

We rafted 8 rapids in all – another one was too dangerous so we walked around it (we were told it was Grade 6+) – and our guide told us the story of the dodgy rafting company that sent some Japanese tourists over it, resulting in many broken bones. The eighth rapid was the one where we were all dumped very violently – K was quickly picked up by a safety kayak, while M ended up running the rapid in his lifejacket!

With a little luck we’ll have some photos to upload to the blog, but not yet, as we need to wait for some of the photos taken by the rafting company to be sent through.

We were met on shore with a great BBQ lunch, after which we were taken back to Jinja. A nice dinner at restaurant near our hotel, and then an early night as we were both quite tired after our Nile adventure!

Day 74 – Over the equator and into Uganda

Nairobi (Kenya) to Jinji (Uganda) – Timton Hotel

Another bus trip today – this time we had booked the Akamba Royal bus for the long trip to Jinja – and very comfy it was too. We’ve been on large buses in Africa that seat 5 per row (very cramped) and 4 per row (not too bad) – this bus had just 3 seats per row. The seats were like armchairs, there was plenty of leg room, and there were even power points – however there was no air conditioning.

It started pouring rain just as we got on the bus to leave – and the rain seemed to follow us all the way to Jinja! We drove through the Kenyan highlands, past huge tea plantations, and then down into the valley where it warmed up considerably and the lack of aircon became a problem. However it was bucketing down as we crossed the border – so we had to walk and stand in the rain on the Kenyan side while our passports were stamped. The Ugandan side was much better though, as they had a decent office to wait in.

Shortly after the lunch stop in Kisumu, we crossed over the equator – so we’re now in the northern hemisphere. There wasn’t much to see really – but the shops on the side of the road gave it away – Equator Bar, Equator Restaurant etc.

We arrived into Jinja around 7:00pm – very late due to a number of problems on the way, including a couple of truck accidents. The bus didn’t go into Jinja proper, but dropped us off at a petrol station on the highway – with not a taxi in sight. There were plenty of motorbikes though, who all wanted to take us and our cases. As we had no other option, our two cases were loaded onto one bike, while we both sat behind the rider on a second bike, and were taken to our hotel.

When we got off the bus it wasn’t raining – but drops started appearing as we rode through town and we made it to the hotel with about 2 minutes to spare!

Day 73 – Why is everyone driving using up petrol to look for petrol?

Nairobi - Upperhill Campsite and Backpackers

Last night we’d met up with some travelers who’d been to Uganda, so after hearing about what they’d done we decided to modify our Ugandan itinerary slightly. Originally we were going to use Uganda as a transit country as well, stopping only in Kampala, but we’ve now decided to stop off for at least a day to also check out Jinja, which is where the source of the Nile is, and also a prime white water rafting destination.

We caught the taxi into town, bought our bus tickets for Jinja, wandered the streets of Nairobi for a while (only had to endure one scam attempt – "Hello, I saw you at my hotel this morning", laughable when we had stayed at a backpackers and the only locals were staff.  We expected many more based on what it said in the Lonely Planet!), and then headed back to catch up on washing and shopping. Traffic was pretty bad once again, we’d already heard there was a petrol shortage (only diesel available now) – so why were there so many cars on the road?

Day 72 – Kenya via Kili

Arusha (Tanzania) to Nairobi (Kenya) – Upperhill Campsite and Backpackers

We were picked up at 7:30am and driven to the Nairobi shuttle bus that had been booked for us by our hotel – the grand distance of about 300 metres – if we’d known it was that close we would have walked!

The roadworks out of Arusha made the trip very rough for quite a while. Not far out of Arusha we were able to see Mount Kilimanjaro out the window, fortunately there wasn’t too much cloud at the time, but by the time we reached the Kenyan border Kili was no longer visible.

We arrived into some very bad Nairobi traffic. Our bus driver tried to drop us off in town rather than takes us to our accommodation, fortunately the drop-off was written on our ticket so he couldn’t get out of it that easily. Too bad he didn’t know the way though – between that and the traffic it took him more than an hour to get us to Upperhill Campsite and Backpackers, where we settled into our 6 bed room (just the two of us though!).

We are only using Kenya as a transit country, so we spent the evening researching our onwards trip to see the gorillas in Rwanda, and picking up travel tips from some of the others staying at Upperhill.

Day 71 – All safari-ed out

Ngorongoro Crater to Arusha – Le Jacaranda Hotel 

A cold, foggy, drizzly start to the day as we drove down into the crater to come very quickly upon a pride of lions. One of the male lions was feeling most amorous, but at every aborted attempt he copped a swipe and a growl.

As we drove through the crater, we came across the endangered black rhino as well as so many lions they have now become rather ho-hum – towards the end of the drive we even stopped taking photos of the lions we saw, we feel we have now seen enough animals in Africa and it is time to take in other sights.

Lunch was eaten in our car as it isn’t safe to eat outside. Not because of the lions and the buffalo but rather the monkeys and the birds. Our guide told us that one lady had 7 stitches in her face last year from being swooped on as she ate. We had also experienced the quickness of the monkey when one evening in Serengeti a window of the car was left slightly down and a monkey jumped in, opened our lunch box and took a left over roll, and jumped back out in an instant.

We arrived back to Arusha’s traffic jam in the afternoon feeling that we had enjoyed the experience but for us it was probably about a day too long – we had pretty much spent the best part of five straight days driving around looking for animals!

Day 70 – Stared down by a lion

Serengeti to Ngorongoro Crater - Ngorongoro Sopa Lodge

Our drive to Ngorongoro started with another safari through Serengeti, this time we came very close to a large male lion and a pride that was just finishing devouring a female zebra and her foal. It is remarkable how you can drive right up close to them and they vaguely look at you uninterestingly or don’t even acknowledge your presence, though at one stage M tried to climb onto the roof of the jeep to get a good photo – one of the lions stared directly at him, and the driver told him he should never get on the roof of the car! On the way out of the park there were hyenas on the side of the road just finishing off gazelle road kill.

Out of the park, we stopped by Olduvai Gorge and the museum to view replicas of the old hominid skulls and tools that were found nearby, and also saw replica footprints of three hominids trapped hundreds of thousands of years ago about 25km from the gorge. We were also given a lecture by one of the guides there, where we heard more about the remains found at the gorge, and the related similar “Lucy” remains discovered in Ethiopia. We also learnt that the gorge was incorrectly named, it should be “Oldupai”, after the plant that grows in the area.

After the gorge we continued our drive through the Maasai grazing lands, which are shared with any wildlife that ventures outside of the parks, and we stopped by the edge of the rim of Ngorongoro crater, which was originally a mountain before it collapsed millions of years ago, to look over where we would be descending to tomorrow.

Our accommodation was the lovely Sopa Lodge which had the most wonderful view of the crater. Our room was massive and after dinner we had to be escorted back to our room by staff because of the chance of wandering hyenas, buffalo etc. You are continually warned that buffalo is one of the most dangerous animals you can come face to face with in Africa - the lone buffalo is particularly aggressive as they are older males that have been ejected from the herd, and must always be kept at a great distance.