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23 February 1999

The Kingsmill's Trans-Africa Overland Trip, Part 11: Ethiopia and Sudan

Geoff Kingsmill
2006-04-25 21:21:46

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G'day Folks,

Very warm (45 degrees) greetings from Khartoum, Sudan. Yes, since our last newsletter we have crossed from the cool Ethiopian Mountain climate to the very hot and dry Sudanese desert weather.

Since leaving South Africa we have been running into Gunther and Ulrike, an Austrian couple travelling the same route and schedule. We had arranged to meet in Addis Ababa and then travel together to the Middle East.

Ethiopia is the first country where we have needed to drive on the right hand side of the road with a Right Hand Drive vehicle. Having driven in the US, the transition was very easy.

When we arrived in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, we looked into the best way to cross from Africa to the Middle East. It is possible to drive from Ethiopia to Djibouti and then ship to Jordan however this was very expensive and time consuming. We were told that the Ethiopia/Sudan border had recently opened so we successfully applied for a Visa to cross from Ethiopia into Sudan and Egypt. These two visas took five days to be processed much to our delight.

After getting our visas we headed east towards the Somali border to visit Harer, the fourth holiest Muslim City in the world. The countryside was very scenic and mountainous however the road was very rocky and slow and its here that we got our first puncture. Driving in Ethiopia requires a lot of attention as its necessary to avoid people walking on the road, people sleeping on the road, children darting across the road, goats, donkeys, cows, camels, rocks, potholes, broken down trucks, buses constantly stopping and passing on blind corners etc. etc. Sometimes the loads trucks carry are very amusing. For instance, we've seen fuel tankers with a goat riding on top or a taxi carrying goats, or fish hanging off the rear vision mirror.

The town of Harer was not as interesting as the drive itself. It is a stone walled city with a very Muslim flavour ...

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dizainseo, 2010-01-01 21:56:02