Travel Report: Ethiopia

Sadly not as many air miles as I would have liked

I spent about 12 days in Ethiopia over the Christmas and New year period of 2016. In a word it was fantastic. I learnt so much about a country that I knew so little about.

The total cost for my trip was £1340 (approximate $1640 USD in Jan '17). This included the direct international return flight on Ethiopian Airlines (on a brand new A350), my 4 domestic flights, all food, all accomodation, everything.

 

Addis Ababa - Metropolitan Africa

 

Merksel Square

There isn't too much to say about Ethiopia's capital. it's about 130 years old, and home to 6 million people. It's has all the amenities that one would expect of a large city, but not much in the way of history. Of course being home to that many people, there are plenty of things to do, just not so many that could be considered uniquely Ethiopian. 

 

Bahir Dar - The closest thing to a beach resort.

 

Lake Tana

Given that Ethiopia is a land locked Bahir Dar is the closest thing that they have to a domestic beach destination. The main tourist attraction is the various monasteries dotted around the lake.

 

Gonder - African Castles

 

One of the ruined castles of Gonder

The highlight of Gonder are the numerous ruined castles that form it's center. The castles are mostly from the mid 16th Century, but vary in age due to the fact that they were built during the reigns of different Emperors.

 

Lailibela - Jeruselam in Africa

The rock hewn churches of this town were the highlight of the trip. The various churches of Lailibela were originally conceived as an alternative to Jeruselam in the 12-13 century. Apparently Ethiopian christians would take a piligramage from Africa to the Holy Land. I have no idea how long that would have taken 1000 years ago, but Google clocks it as 4000km.

Bete Amanuel

Each of the churches is made from a single piece of rock. Most of the churches are surrounded by rock, beneath surface level. UNESCO built roofs over many of the structures in 2008 to protect them from natural erosion, hence the modern looking structures you see in some of the pictures.

Bete Medani Alem, with worshippers for scale

 The cost of entrance was 50USD, and it allowed you to visit all of the churches over a 5 day period. It is important to understand that they are not only huge, but also still used. Pilgrims still travel from around the country every christmas to worship here, many of them walk.

The churches are below ground level and are connected through a series of tunnels and concealed entrances. I explored the churches without a guide, and was able to find most them, without a problem. However the sheer complexity of the entire system will leave you scratching you head as to how it was built to begin with, why it isn't a better known attraction.

 

Harar - The trading hub of Eastern Ethiopia

 

"Bad eyes" gate, one of the original gates of Harar

 Harar is  home to a walled city in the East of the country, between Addis Ababa and the Somali frontier. Unlike the other cities I visited Harar is a predominately muslim city.

A Indian style merchants house

Before the Derg, and troubles of that era the town was prosperous trading outpost host to merchants and Traders from around Middle & Far East. Modern buildings are banned within the city center, and so it's easy to imagine what the city would have been like during it's heyday.

 

Food

 

I often joke that I travel to learn, sleep, and eat. Teff is the main grain of Ethiopia. Wheat flour is available, and eaten by some but for the most part it's all Teff, all the time. The Teff is usually fermented and turned into a "Pancake" called an Injera. Then the Injera is served with everything and anything.

Goran Gorad - Raw meat

I forget the name of this dish, but it's essentially Injera, soaked in butter, served with a mild pepper

This was lovely Soup in Harar, made from a mutton stock, with mutton. The tradition was to tear up the Injera and allow it soak up the soup. possibly the best thing I had in the country.

Gomen Besiga - Which is a Lamb shank, wrapped in a spinich like vetagable.

Another delious meal, I only knew how to read meat, in Amharic so I just pointed at a meat dish and hoped for the best

Conclusion 

Bole, the cosmopolitan heart of Addis Ababa

I had avoided Africa for a long time during my travels, mainly as I didn't want to go on Safari, and I didn't particularly care to see tribes people dancing around mud huts. Ethiopia provided me with the type of travel destination I love; A long and interesting past, good food, nice people, warm weather & cheap amenties. It's not quite Colombia, but it now has a prominent place in my heart.

2014: Feliz Nuevo Año

A Kite Surfer in Cabo de La Vela, Colombia

While I doubt 2014 will mean that I suddenly start posting on a regular basis. For my millions of readers, Happy New Year.

Vida en Venezuela - Parte 2, Caracas

With our stamps in hand, we re-entered colombia (illegally) and got our bags and supplies for the bus trip. The bus was supposed to leave Maicao for the border at 4pm were we would then change onto another bus and then head for the capital. We didn't leave 7:45pm.

As soon as the bus left the carpark, which was located between the Colombian and Venezuelan border checkpoints the driver opened the door to the cabin and announced that if we wanted to leave quickly he would need 400VEF (US$12) bolivars so we could skip the queue of other buses ahead of us at the border checkpoint. A lady in the front row stood up and took a collection among the passengers, there were no complaints, just people requesting change for smaller bills.

Once the collection was complete, she counted the cash in front of everyone, took out 400 and counted the remaining bills, and announced the total to the bus, handed off the 400 to the bus driver, put the rest in her bag and took her seat. Just like the driver promised we whizzed past the other buses and started on our way.

I don't know what it was about our driver but he constantly had the look of someone who had a gun to his head. His eyes were wild, and his thin frame didn't help him appear any more settled with his surroundings. In retrospect if I had to drive a bus in the middle of the night to a city with 2700+ murders a year I would be a little gaunt too.

The money that was left over from the initial collection was not for the lady, but for the buses "bribe fund". I discovered this at the next checkout when the driver opened the door and requested the remainder of the funds from the lady. At the subsequent checkpoint he made a another request for funds , with our initial fund being exhausted he started at the back of the bus and worked his way to the middle before deciding he had a enough "lubricant" for this particular situation.

Just before we crossed the longest concrete bridge in the world we were stopped again. This time a for what ever reason a bribe would not work. We were ordered off the bus, and our identification and visa stamps checked to ensure we were there legally.

After this point I became extremely paranoid, I split my cash across my bags and wallet, I hid my USD in my underwear, and prepared a "disposable" wallet with about $40 and some debit cards. I had heard stories of buses being hijacked in safer countries than here, but i had never felt so unsafe during my time in South America until now.

Throughout the rest of the night, every time the door would open, which it did often as it didn't lock properly I would prepare myself to be stormed by paramilitaries with AK47's.

After 15 hours or so I found myself at La Bandera Bus station in Caracas, where the walls are papered with Nationalist rhetoric, like the "people are the heart of the country" and "Chavez said Maduro should be the leader". After a quick costume change we made a quick attempt to get a refund for our return ticket to Maicao, but either the tiredness or the complete lack of good spanish meant that we failed to get it. After a brief sweep of the Station we determined that we could not get to the east of the country from La Bandera. I was tempted to use our fake reservation at a Hotel in Caracas, but at the same time I was cognisant of the fact that this was Caracas. So we did the clever thing and got in a unlicensed taxi and made our way to Terminal de Oriente.

Hector, our cab driver gave us the quick low down on the city. He works in Caracas, but doesn't live there as it's too dangerous. Instead he lives 45 minutes away in a suburb. Traffic during the week is awful, but this was a Sunday so it was fairly clear. He also showed us the most dangerous barrio in the city. 200 (USD$8) Bolivars later we arrived at Terminal de Oriente. We found a bus heading to the south-east of country, Vladimir was heading to Santa Elena, while I was going to Ciudad Bolivar. The ticket was 200 Bolivars, which doesn't quite make sense given that the taxi ride was so expensive, but hey it's USD$8. We had to wait for 4 hours before the bus left so we settled in with some tripe soup and roast chicken.

An hour into our wait, Vladimir discovered that there was flight to Rio from Caracas for US$100 after currency tricky was applied and made a mad dash for the airport. I charged my phone, bought some water, and continued to wait.

That was Caracas.

Thats a lot of lines

My Journey(s) of the last two years

I arrived back in England this past tuesday. Almost a year since I was last here, and well over 2 years since I left. It's been two days, and quite frankly I'm dreaming about leaving again.

Vida en Venezuela - Parte 1, Colombia a Venezuela

While several services offered buses "directo" to Maracaibo, most of those arrived at night, which is a crappy even in the nicest cities/ countries, never mind Venezuela.

So I formulated a plan, that only really worked based on geography. I would do the long jaunt from Cartagena to Riohacha. Bed down there for a night and then set off early the next morning.

From the bus station in Riohacha I got a bus for 8000 COP to Maicao, the major border town. The journey took a little over an hour. As soon as I got off the bus in Maicao I was accosted by several people offering me a service to Maracaibo. Wildly pointing to a bunch of beaten up American gas guzzlers from the 70s & 80s, the "por puestos".

As I would discover later, there is no direct bus service to Maracaibo from Maicao, however you can reach other destinations deeper in Venezuela from here namely Caracas, a city that commonly has 20 murders a day.

I jumped in one of these beaten up Chevys and paid USD$12 or 20000COP and prepared myself for the adventure. The taxi stops at the Colombian immigration office and lets out those who want to get their exit stamp. Once at the office there is usually a line that takes anywhere from an hour upwards to navigate. As a result of this constant people presence there are plenty of people offering cambio services for both COP and USD, the rate for the latter being better than former. Having said that, both rates are no where near as good as what you would get once your in the country proper.

After reaching my turn at the head of the queue, things started to go off script. The Colombian immigration official suggested that I go over to the Venezuelan side first and see if they would let me in before stamping me out of the country. Strange, but ok this is Bolivarian Republic, strange is just the beginning of normal.

10 minutes later I found the Venezuelan immigration office, complete with a long line of its own. After queuing for around 30 minutes I again reached the head of the line, and shoved my documents through the tidy window and crouched down so the socialist AC could cool my capitalist face.

It took a while for the officer to respond to my documents as he was busy receiving documents with his left hand, and pocketing cash with his right hand. However after a minute or two he took my passport and began to analyse it. After a brief flick through he threw it back on the counter coupled with a loud "NO STAMP". Somewhat expected, to be honest but by this time my patience was wearing thin, and waiting in the Colombian border line again didn't seem like something I wanted to. So I decide I had 3 choices.

* Go back to colombia and get an exit stamp and try again.

* Bribe the Venezuelan immigration official

* Enter Venezuela illegally, and then come back tomorrow and sort this nonsense out.

There was also a fourth option which was entering illegally travelling across the country, without technically having left colombia, see angel falls and then return back across the same border crossing without visiting either nations immigration service. The problem with this is that i would need to bribe every single official i met, an expensive proposition in a country where I can't use an ATM.

I opted for option 2, the bribe.

Bribing is something I'm fascinated by but have no real understanding of in a practical sense. The thing that I really don't get is how does one calculate how much is required to make someone look the other way. Especially when you take into consideration that your bribe might be accepted but your wishes not carried out.

After a little self deliberation I determined that USD$5 was an acceptable amount of money to lose, while also being (just) enough to encourage someone to look the other way. Now the next problem was how to deliver it. While I knew that the officer could be bought, I didn't know if he wanted to maintain a legit appearance to his colleagues, so simply sliding some money across the counter might not only annoy him, but also the people in the queue behind unable to "splash out" in a similar fashion.

I wrapped the bill around my immigration form, inserted it in my passport and rejoined the queue. 45 minutes later my attempt was rebuffed with a firm NO, and a return of my money.

By this time it was about 2pm, I had been awake since 7am, barely eaten anything and had been standing in the sun for most of the day. I was dog tired.

I headed back to Colombian immigration to get my exit stamp and try again, with slightly more complete papers. Whilst waiting in line for the second time I spotted two gringos. Their pale skin and failure to adhere to the local dress code made them stick out, for the record I was wearing jeans, shoes, and a t-shirt the Colombian dress code. An hour later I had my exit stamp in hand, and had met the aforementioned gringos, a French girl and a Canadian boy.

Needless to say I was rejected again, the officer (the same one I had tried to bribe earlier in the day) had shown me a sign this time instructing me to have a notarised invitation or hotel reservation and land/ air tickets out of the country. By this time it was around 5pm. For one reason or another the French lady was accepted without any of the aforementioned documents, but the Canadian was also rejected, with the aforementioned documents. Since we were both wallowing in rejection, Vladimir (the Canadian) and I decided to get a taxi back to Maicao. With the intention of starting bright and early the next day.

We were out of the hotel by 8 am the next day and made a beeline for the bus station on the edge of town. Our plan was simple, we would buy a return ticket to Maracaibo and fabricate a hotel reservation in the city to please the immigration officers. We couldn't just book one, as paying for anything in Venezuela with bolivars not exchanged at the black market rate is 400% more expensive.

However at the bus station we discovered that no company offered service to Maracaibo, only Caracas, the most dangerous city in the world ... So we got a ticket that returned 3 days later for 70000cop and jumped on a couple of Moto taxis for the border.

We stamped out of colombia, again and then headed for the Bolivarian republic. After queuing in the nervously for about 30 minutes we reached the front ... Only to be greeted by the same official as yesterday. Seeing a only a handful of foreigners had used that crossing in the last few days he remembered as both. The guy said no almost immediately, but we insisted in the most broken Spanish ever that we had all the documents. Eventually he told us to move to the side and enter the immigration office using a side entrance.

Once inside we explained to the Jefe (The boss) that we had reservations along with bus tickets. It wasn't going too well until we explained that we also had return tickets to maicao leaving the day out reservation ended. Suddenly the mood changed, "yep that's great, I'll go stamp them then." And with that we were in.

ITAP: Inca Trail edition

Somewhere in Andes

Tiger Leaping Gorge (虎跳峡)

One of the last big things i did before i left china was to visit Tiger Leaping Gorge (虎跳峡). This had slipped off my agenda when i heard about the fantastic trekking opportunities that were to be had around the town Deqin (德钦), however i cannot explain in words ho cold it is 3600m up near the Tibetan border. So needless to say my time in Deqin was extremely brief.

The lack of a proper excursion in the foothills of Tibet meant that Tiger Leaping Gorge was back on the agenda. One of the reasons that this wasn't especially high on my agenda, is having trekked around Hawaii, and Australia by myself, i've found it really is more fun with company. Especially when you get into that classic "Do i go this way, or that way" situations.

My company came in the form of Peruvian woman that i met in Shangri-la (香格里拉) called Alessandra.  Together we walked the 18km from the upper gorge to the middle gorge. The whole trip took about 7-8 hours including a stop at one of the guesthouses half way to eat and pick Snickers bars (巧克力) for the trip.

The trail's configuration is a mixture of public roads, dirt trails, and steps hewed out solid rock. One of my favourite bits, and one of the most interesting is this waterfall (Image left). The gorge sits between two Gigantic mountains, both reaching well over 5000m at there respective peaks. As result melting snow running down the mountain(s) provides these amazing features. There is essentially no path at the waterfall, the water from the waterfall runs over the "designated" path and off the edge of the cliff.

While the water isn't a deep, it's not particularly dangerous (well as long as you don't lose your balance while taking HDR photos), it is an awesome experience to be perched between this falling fresh water and a 1000m drop down into the gorge.

So i have a disease, i'm an addict, a Computer addict. As a result of my disease i see it necessary to carry my Macbook everywhere me. Well in this case, i didn't feel comfortable leaving it at the starting Guest house, so i thought i really ought to bring it with me. The fact that i had a new episode of Family Guy, and had been doing quite well in my FM12 game did not influence my decision in any way shape or form.

Needless to say after a few kilometers it began to dawn on that i really needed to somehow make the fact that i was carrying a 3kg laptop with me 18km, worthwhile, The below was the result.

In many ways it actually sums up my trip quite well, travelling the world, glued to my laptop. Sometimes a consumer, others a contributor, but most importantly a creator.

But i digress, after the trek i was well and truely shattered. My legs hurt and while the pain did subside over the next few days it was still fairly taxing. Nothing that would have me advise people not to do the trek, but make sure you don't plan on doing much afterwards.

Anyways if your interested in seeing my route in additional detail, i've used my billion dollar GPXShare app to upload my GPS trace, which you can enjoy here.

To close, Tiger Leaping Gorge was impressive, the views amazing, however from the short amount of time i spent in Tibetan hinterland that was Deqin, and the feilai temple (飞来) i'm confident that even better trekking is to be had there.

Dinner Diary - Banh Mi

One of the fascinating things about travel for me is learning about how history has influenced the food of a particular county. The french colonisation of "Indo-China" has resulted in Cambodia and Vietnam being quite good at making bread. Something that is extremely unique in south-east asia. Generally the bread is awful, 5 months in i think i get to say that.

As i highlighted in a previous post, Cambodia has it's "Cambodian sandwich", Well not to be out done, Vietnam has it's own, the Banh Mi. From my limited understanding of Vietnamese, Bahn mi translates directly to "bread".  If you approach one of the vendors and just ask for a "Banh Mi" you'll be given a baguette. However if you ask for Banh Mi Ga, that is "Bread with chicken" then the fun starts. Ideally you should ask for everything ... i don't know how you say that in Vietnamese, however a circular motion near the various meats usually does the trick.

Banh Mi 'Everything'

Inside the everything option is usually beef, chicken, sweet chilli sauce, soy sauce, carrots, cabbage and more. They are quite easy to find in the south of Vietnam, (Ho Chi Min, Da Lat, Nha Trang etc), and can cost anywhere from 10 000(US$0.50c) to 25000(US$1.25) Dong.

Banh Mi Op La

But wait, there's more. Banh Mi Op la is another variation. What's the difference, simple it's egg inside the Banh mi. Usually these are fried "Sunny side up", and with the yoke still fluid so that you can enjoy some yellow goodness.

Acquiring a Chinese visa in Cambodia

In recent times the Chinese Immigration services have become more and more particular about the procedure required to get a chinese visa. My application was denied twice in Bangkok, Thailand for not having proper proof of my entry and exit into China. This was an issue as i want to travel into Southern China via Vietnam overland on a Train. And my Vietnamese isn't exactly conversational (read non-existent), so buying train tickets over the phone from bangkok isn't really an option.

However there is some light at the end of the tunnel. Turns out that the Chinese Embassy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia is a little bit of a rebel and doesn't ask for any of the aforementioned details. You turn up, fill out your form, and 3 days later you get the best sticker in the world. The other plus is that a single entry, 30 day Chinese visa in Bangkok costs around 1650 Baht for the regular service, that's about US$55 or £33 (Jan 2011), while in the "Kingdom of Wonder" (Cambodia's tourism tag line) it will cost US$30/£20.

On a side note, i highly recommend going to the Chinese Ambassador's residence in Phnom Penh, it's on street #380 at the bottom of street #51, like most things that involve the Chinese government its massive!

Hawaii: Oahu & Hawai'i (aka The Big Island)

To be completely honest i knew very little about Hawaii as whole before i came here. But i've learnt a lot in the last 5 days. Mainly that i need to learn to drive. So thats definitely on the list for when i get home (finally).

View Larger Map

Having flown into Oahu, i spent most of my time in Waikiki, Honolulu. As i was warned it was chock full of Japanese tourists showing off their Canon's and Nikons. I have nothing against my friends from the land of the Rising Sun, however i do suffer from a serious case of Lens envy.

After 6 days in the Japanese version of the Costa Del Sol, i've  flown to Hilo, on the big island, aka Hawai'i. Today, i felt like an idiot for even spending more than two days in Oahu.

Firstly the big island, is well, BIG. The road that runs around the entire coast is almost 300 miles long. I spent today in the car with some good people from Holland, we barely explored a quarter of the island. This place is huge.

What really stuck me is the differences in the flora in various parts of the island. In some places it looks like a Rain forrest, while in others it looks like the surface of Mars. The above is the beautiful rainbow falls.

This is an example of the rainforest like terrain. It even has a canopy that the Brazil Rainforest would be jealous of. Really makes me look forward to the day i finally set foot on the continent of South America, Un dia, un dia.

Then there is the black volcanic rocks. While i know the landscape was formed by magma, it almost seems as if it's been scared by it. I've been fortunate enough to see some amazing things. But this is truly fascinating.

The Golden Gate

After years of just seeing it in photos i got the opportunity to photograph it myself. It was the culmination of a fantastic day; the end of WWDC and an excellent talk by Buzz Aldrin.

Many people have asked during my journey if i keep a journal. While i don't in a conventional sense, photo's like these will help me remember this experience for a lifetime. 

What isn't always obvious is that the Golden Gate is essentially in the middle of nowhere. There is no easy way to get there from downtown San Francisco without a car, so i had to get my bike on, by chance i was able to rent one at a bike shop near 4th & Harrison. The $400 deposit scared the crap out of me at first, but it was alright in the end.

San Francisco is hilly place, so my plan was to cycle along the Embarcadero, which runs parallel to the shoreline (read: nice and flat). The previous link goes to my little weekend project. I built an app called gpxshare which allows people to upload and share GPX tracks for free. 

This was some what of a rambling post, but i just wanted to share some of these awesome pictures.

Coming to America

So after managing to avoid the states in all forms for well over a decade it's time to go back. I'll be able to enjoy the benefits of naked body scanners, and requests to show my papers.

Anyways the trip is split into 4 parts, over two months.

A. New York city
B. Jamaica
C. Los Angeles
D. WWDC in San Francisco.

Interestingly, I have no return ticket, not because I'm planning on becoming an illegal (please note TSA) but because I'm not sure if I'm coming back to the UK or if I will carry on heading west, and reunite myself with the Chinese people (they miss me you know).

The first leg is booked for April 18th, so as song says I'll be "new York da da da dada da new York" HOV ...

While WWDC should be a blast the most emotional part will be going back to Jamaica almost 10 years to the date that I left.

Bon voyage

From Russia With Code

I had the privilege of travelling to Kiev, Ukraine for Business. For me this was first trip to eastern europe. Thus far i had only been as far as Hambug, Germany. Which even at it's height was in West Germany, and i believe in the UK control area, so it wasn't even that different. I'm writing this on the plane but i expect the culture difference to be close to that of china, but with out the squat toilets ...

In a way this is good prep for me as i've always wanted to ride the train from Moscow all the way to 北京, and maybe even on to Pongyang, DPRK (insert joke here).

The Standout things

* Everyone seems to like drinking tomato juice, in lieu of fruit juice.

* Haven't seen a samovar yet.

* Yes, they drink a lot of vodka.

* You never drink vodka without eating ... unlike the UK

* It's not as destitute as you would think

* A lot of people speak english, especially in service industry.

* My Russian is awful

* It kinda looks like that level from Call of Duty 4 modern warfare, you know, this one, seriously.

Sad i was only there for three days, three cold days, where i didn't go outside much. But hopefully i should go back in the summer so i'll have more to say and show then.

Beijing Bitches

It's booked i fly out on the May10th

My route is:

Beijing > Shanghai > Xi'an > Yichang > Three Gorges Dam > Yangshuo > Hong Kong

I've even started a podcast. The Only Negro In China Podcast. I recorded the first episode yesterday, expect to see it online soon.

Exciting times