Trip from South Africa to Egypt - and beyond?

Detailed Journal

Lilongwe (Malawi) to Addis Ababa (Ethiopia)

Friday 5 December 2003

I reached MA Motors garage at 08h00, and by 09h00 they had the engine out, and stripped out all the parts needing replacement - this took the Lichinga garage at least a day to do!

We knew that the power steering pump needed replacing, as well as the diesel pump supplied by South Africa - it was the wrong one, and the whole clutch - which we found to be cracked in Lichinga - and I suspect I had been driving with it since I bought the vehicle 3 years ago. I also needed a new fan belt - and a new timing belt - somehow it had been worn down in the drive from Lichinga from 3 cm wide to under 1 cm - how it hadn't broken was a complete mystery. Of course, if it had, then I would have needed the tow!

By 11h00, all the parts had arrived, and by 16h00 everything was back in place and running smoothly. It was a pity I couldn't have moved the vehicle to Malawi earlier - but it wouldn't have been practical until the engine was rebuilt. The drawback of Malawi is it is not cheap - the parts and repair cost US$ 1 600.

Since I didn't expect the repair to be completed so quickly, I had already checked out of the Lingazi Inn, and checked in to the Kalikuti Hotel which was situated just behind the garage, but stayed at the Kalikuti anyway.

Saturday 6 December 2003

I decided on an early start, and managed to leave at 05h00. The Landrover was running smoothly, and by 10h00 I had covered about 300 km - I was taking it easy to ensure everything was OK. But just before I reached Mzuzu, the engine died. After a bit of investigating, I was pretty certain that the timing belt had broken. I still had the phone number of the garage, so waved down a passing motorist to borrow a cell-phone. Typically, though, I had managed to break down in a place where there was no reception. So I wrote down the info I needed to pass on to the garage, and asked him to contact the garage when he could get reception - I also asked that the garage tow me back so we could fix the problem. Just in case, I did the same with another vehicle. Andrew received both messages.

It was then a long wait, hoping that the message got through - I had no way of knowing of course. At 15h00, the Landrover arrives, and we try to see if we can change the timing belt - but a quick look inside the engine stops that - one rocker is broken, and the push-rod badly bent. So we set up the tow, and started off.

The tow went very well, until about 18h00, when the sun set. Then it became much harder, even though we were using a 5 m tow rope. In daylight it is quite easy to see when I needed to brake, but in the dark, that became very tricky indeed. Nevertheless, we got back at 20h00 - which was actually as fast as I had gone on my way out - on reflection, perhaps we were travelling a bit too fast!

An extra problem was that even with two batteries in the Landrover, the lights struggled to last, and I lost the main-beam headlights just as we entered Lilongwe (the garage was on the south side), and the side lights finally gave up the ghost literally as we turned into the garage - so perhaps it was necessary to keep the speed up.

I spent the night at the Kalikuti Hotel.

Sunday 7 December 2003

Andrew arranged for the mechanics to start work at 08h00. The damage was relatively minor, as the belt-guide tension wheel on the timing belt had broken, hence cutting the belt to ribbons - presumably the guide was damaged by the previous belt - it was unlikely to have caused the previous damage as the failures were totally different - in the second case the belt simply disintegrated and snapped - but was still the original 3 cm thick.

So Andrew replaced the timing belt, the broken rocker and all 8 push-rods, and the engine was back running smoothly by 11h00 - except now there was a diesel leak. On inspection, some of the webs of the belt had wrapped around the diesel injector pump bearing - causing fuel to leak onto the timing belt. So we pulled the whole thing apart, replaced the bearing in the diesel injector pump, cleaned the timing belt - and it was OK again - we hoped.

For the tow, replacing all the parts and labour, Andrew refused payment, saying that it was his fault, and he should have fixed it right first time. However, I suspect that he couldn't have guessed what was going to go wrong, but he was adamant.

This time I decided not to take a chance so left the garage at 14h00 to go to Dzalanyama, a good bird-watching reserve about an hour's drive from Lilongwe. If anything went wrong, Andrew could easily get to the vehicle, and I would bring it back on my return for a check-up.

I reached the reserve at 15h00 and just had time to get the tent and awning up before it rained.

Monday 8 December 2003

I spent the whole of the day bird-watching near the camp, although I did drive out to the (dry) waterfalls around mid-day.

Birding in the miombo (Brachystegia woodland) is always hard work, as birds are generally totally absent, until one comes across a "bird-party" where between 20 and 40 species of birds feed together, and the party wanders about the woodland. The trick is to find a party and stay with it for half an hour or so to identify all the birds, and then wander on to find the next. Some people say it is possible to find bird-parties while driving around, but I find that it is much easier to find them on foot - there are actually a surprising number of such bird-parties if you listen out for them.

During the day I found about 6 bird-parties, and found one of the species I was really hoping for, Stierling's Woodpecker. However, I failed to find the Olive-headed Weaver (Ploceus olivaceiceps) I was also looking for.

Just as the sun set (according to the clock anyway), another major thunderstorm struck. Luckily, the wind wasn't too strong so I kept dry under the awning.

I finally got stuck into my next "scientific book" which I knew was going to be heavy going, and will probably keep me occupied for the next few months - if I can keep on reading it. It was written by a "colleague" at Eton. At the time, Stephen Wolfram was hard to classify - nowadays he would be an archetypal nerd. By the time he started at Eton (as a scholar at 12) he had already had several articles on particle physics published in major scientific journals. At Eton he had great fun fooling around in the science labs causing absolute havoc - because no teacher knew what he was up to. He also spent time messing up the school's computers, running massive programs that ran to many hundreds of metres of ticker-tape (before disks, etc, everything had to be typed onto tape to be read by the computer). I remember him being caught once when he had just finished running the program with a heap of paper about 3 foot high, and managing (God knows how) to smuggle it out under his jacket without being seen. Anyway, after managing 5 O-levels at 14, he left - you only need 5 O-levels to get into university. However, Oxford wouldn't allow him in until he was 15. That didn't seem to affect him much, and by the time he was 20 he had already got a PhD from Caltech in the US. Anyway, after 20 years research, he has written a book called "A new kind of Science", where he basically says everyone has got it wrong in the past, and he has found a new way of explaining everything. As I suspected, although he says the theory is simple, I am not so sure. We will see as the weeks go by. (Actually to be fair to Stephen he never was a "nerd" - he always had a great sense of humour, and was a great person to know).

Tuesday 9 December 2003

I started off the morning by going out for another walk, and after a couple of hours had found two bird parties, with another Stierling's Woodpecker - but still no Weaver. However, I left at around 07h30 to return to the garage.

In the garage we once again removed the radiator and checked the timing belt - it looked perfect. Again Andrew refused payment, so I was almost ready to go. I stopped off to do some shopping and check my e-mail - but that took 30 minutes to read just 6 messages - so I didn't bother to try to send any. By 11h00, I was driving north again.

I was targetting reaching Karonga by sunset so I could make quick time up to Ethiopia. I did finally reach Karonga a few minutes after sunset, and it was very hot and humid - partly made up for by the fact that I was camping on the edge of Lake Malawi - which with a full moon is always beautiful.

Wednesday 10 December 2003

I left the campsite at 05h45 - which was half an hour after sunrise - and so rather later than I intended. I reached the border at 06h30, which was half an hour after it opened. Both sides needed a lot of paperwork, and I finally got out at 08h00. However, this wasn't as bad as it sounded since there is a one hour time difference between Malawi and Tanzania. The bad news was that Tanzania had increased its visa cost, so it was US$ 30 for the transit visa, and $5 for the road tax, and then another $20 for the insurance.

A minor scare occurred after a couple of hours when there was a loud pop - but this was just a hose coming off the turbo-charger - the clamp had failed after being removed so often! It took about 10 minutes to change - mainly because the spare was quite well hidden, and I had to work right next to the very hot exhaust pipe.

Even so I reached Iringa by 13h00, and rather than stop off to see David Moyer, decided to carry on as far as I could go. However, there is a serious lack of campsites after Mikumi until close to Moshi, so I was committed to a long drive. I reached Mountain View campsite an hour after sunset - which was solely due to me marking the turnoff on my GPS when I passed on a previous trip - the signpost had been removed 6 months previously, and never replaced.

Sadly they had a severe water shortage, so I couldn't have the shower I desperately wanted. After an hour, the power failed as well - a common occurrence due to the lack of water (for the hydro-electric generators). The owner said he owned some land near Amani and wanted my advice for mining the area - obviously I was a bit concerned due to the ecological damage such mining might occur in this area of Tanzania which hosts a variety of very rare and endemic species.

Thursday 11 December 2003

Another dawn start - at 06h00 this time, and I was again driving north. I passed Mt Kilimanjaro and reached Arusha by 10h00, and drove north again to the Kenyan border. This was quite quick to pass through, having to pay US$ 40 for the vehicle permit - no visa is required for South Africans. Unfortunately there was a large crowd of Kenyans trying to sell all sorts of things such as insurance, stickers indicating maximum speed, etc - all of which they claimed (quite plausibly) were legal requirements. However, they were all fraudsters - which luckily I knew, so didn't waste lots of money with them.

The area north of Arusha was very dry and over-grazed - but I couldn't remember if the rains were due at this time of year (the rains are very complex in this area).

From there I reached the outskirts of Nairobi by 14h00, and quickly stopped off at the airport to try and change some traveller's cheques into US dollars - this being one of the few places it can be done - however, they would only change $600 - and I wanted to change $5 000! I will try again in Ethiopia, but don't hold out much hope - after that I will try in Egypt. I have enough dollars cash to last till then.

Nairobi traffic was it usual self - but having visited Cameroon, I no longer viewed it in such bad light, and actually found it not as bad as I feared - it took just 30 minutes to get through.

However, the state of Kenyan roads has not improved much, and there are still plenty of nasty potholes, so that while I could average 90 km/h in Tanzania, I was only able to make 60 km/h in Kenya. The problem is that the road foundations need to be replaced, but all they do is fill the potholes (occasionally), leaving an incredibly bumpy surface, with dips of up to a metre all over the place - and this is based on driving along the road named "A2" - the second most major road. The "A1" from Nairobi to Mombasa is (apparently) in a far worse state!

One curiosity was a lot of (very used) rally cars were driving at incredible speeds along the road - they had sorts of foreign registration plates, so I assume there was some major rally taking place - but I was surprised it was on public roads. There was even one old Porsche, but they must have done something clever to give it sufficient ground clearance to navigate the tar roads - I can only assume it didn't go off-road.

Anyway, I reached the target of Isiolo just before sunset. I stopped off at the Range Lodge, where I had stayed on my last trip in January - and they welcomed me back. It is convenient because it is just 10 km outside Isiolo, but high enough not to be as insect infested as Isiolo. I was also pleased to discover that the army convoys have been stopped - and you don't even need to sign in along the way. The downside is that the rains have started here, so the road, which is dirt right through the desert is liable to get very muddy, with the big trucks getting stuck and making it very hard to get past them - because the next truck invariably gets stuck alongside as it tries to pass!

I wonder if the rally cars are also going to try to cross the desert - because if so, I will be busy pulling them out - I doubt any of the cars I saw could get through the mud I am expecting.

Friday 12 December 2003

Set off at 06h00 - about 20 minutes before sunrise. The road was as usual - dreadful. The first 100 km were full of potholes and mud, since it had rained there in the previous few days. That took about 3 hours to get through - tiring, but quite easy - with speeds ranging from 20 km/h up to about 60 in places. The next 100 km to Marsabit was actually quite good, and one could travel consistently at about 80 km/h. Hence I reached Marsabit at about 10h30, without any mishap.

However, it is the next stretch of 250 km to Moyale on the Ethiopian border that is the real strain. It is a rocky desert road, meaning the road is quite wide - the equivalent of a four lane road. It was also very dry (first photo) unlike when I passed almost exactly a year before. However, there is only one usable track which meanders across it, and even that track is very rocky, with occasional deep potholes. Speeds on this vary from 10 km/h for distances of a kilometre up to 70 km/h - but which often end with a very bumpy section, so you cannot relax for a minute. After about 50 km  I had a puncture - nothing too surprising, but it showed up two problems. First my jack wasn't working properly - only one of the two pistons was functioning. This could be due to lack of oil (which is easy to fix) or a defective pump, which means replacing it. The other problem was that the tyre was punctured in the inner sidewall, with a sizeable hole caused by a rock that must have got caught up in the brakes, and so sliced a hole. Sadly, the tyre was irreparable, and with only 7 000 km on it, a serious loss - a new one would cost $300 in SA, and who knows what in Ethiopia. I will have to replace it, as my three spare tyres are all somewhat old, and the tyres won't last the whole trip. I hope I can replace it in Addis Ababa. Getting the wheel off became a bit of an effort, since I had to use the high-lift jack to lift the rear of the vehicle very high - you can't position it to raise the axle, so you have to lift the whole vehicle until the suspension is fully extended, and only then will the rear wheel lift off the ground - this means lifting the back about 1 metre off the ground.

I finally reached the border at 16h00 - a 10-hour drive covering just 500 km. Very tiring, but I was very glad to get it over with. This is the worst stretch of road I know in Africa - other than the route between Angola and DRC that I did last year - but that hardly counts as a road.

Anyway, it took about an hour to get through all the formalities, Kenya was quite quick, but there was a bit of a queue on the Ethiopian side, and they have increased their paperwork. You used to have to fill a full page form in quintuplicate ?? (well 5 copies!). Luckily, they do have carbon paper, but you must sign, date and put your address on each page. That was OK, but now, they need you to do it twice - one copy to be kept until you leave the country. Hence the paperwork does take time. The strange thing is that the total payment required by Ethiopia is the same as it was 5 years ago - 1 US $. Corruption or seeking to raise money by traffic fines is not something that has reached Ethiopia yet (as far as I am aware, anyway). It makes for a great feeling of safety when dealing with officials here.

Since it was now about an hour from sunset, and I knew I needed to do some work on the Landrover, I decided to stay in the local government-run hotel (Ethiopia has never privatized the vast majority of its hotels - meaning that there are reasonable hotels in every town; only where tourists are likely to congregate have they privatized them - meaning those ones are very expensive). The hotel in Moyale costs $3-50 for a room with toilet and shower - which really is excellent value.

Anyway, on inspection, I did have some problems with the Landrover. This was always to be expected at this point, although one is always surprised at what goes wrong. I had four problems.

The first was a design fault of my own. When I added the roof-rack (which I had never previously used for a trip like this), I decided to fix the awning to it, as this would provide a fourth bracket to hold it in place. However, I forgot that the other three bolts supporting the awning were attached (indirectly) to the load-bed part of the pickup, while I was putting the fourth bolt onto the roof-rack, which forms part of the cab. Now in order to allow the Landrover to "flex" over rough ground, the cab and load-bed are effectively independent. Hence something had to break when I joined the together. Since I had bolted the awning to the roof-rack with an 8 mm bolt, but the roof-rack was only held onto the cab by 6 4mm bolts, it was the smaller bolts that failed. Luckily, I had seen what was happening as I was driving, and so replaced some bolts when they broke, but by the time I reached Moyale, the movement was so great that it had broken all the bolts on one side, and the roof-rack had dropped a few inches off the cab. I - and about 4 helpers - were unable to lift it back up, so I decided to use a bit of ingenuity and put the high-lift jack in the doorway of the cab, and jacked it up - which seemed to work fine, with no sign of damage. So I then removed the bolt from the awning, so it can move freely against the roof-rack. I am fairly confident that has solved that problem.

The next problem was totally unexpected. The lock on the Armadillo (the aluminium roller-shutter door that keeps everything safe in the load-bed) had broken. This was a major hassle to access, and by sunset I had not fixed it. After removing the rear-wheel holder, I was able to drop the tailgate, and so access the lock - but that simply showed me I needed to cut off the offending steel bar. This was not going to be easy, so I thought I would leave it till tomorrow and get a garage to help me cut it.

The third problem was that the rear shock-absorbers had failed. This was distinctly frustrating, since I had fitted the expensive Old Man Emu shocks for my last trip, and one had failed then. Since it was under guarantee, it was replaced free of charge - the first time that dealer had ever had to do it. Now two more have failed. Sadly, I doubt that there will be a dealer in Addis Ababa who can change them under guarantee, so I will probably have to buy two more. When I get back, I will try and find out why they fail - perhaps there is something about the Defender 130 geometry that causes it.

The fourth and final problem was easy to fix, but no less serious because of that. The plug had come out of the freezer, so my beers weren't as cold as they should have been!

Saturday 13 December 2003

It took a garage about 5 minutes to cut out the broken part of the lock, and then I was on my way again.

The road was reasonable tar for the first three hours, with some stretches of bad potholes - I was aware that they weren't bothering to fix them, because after that I met the road building team, and from there on it was excellent new tar.

Even so, driving in Ethiopia is not as straight-forward as in other countries. Roads are only occasionally used by vehicles - their primary purpose is to provide places for people to walk sit and meet, as well as drive cattle, donkeys and goats to market. And since Ethiopia is not that large but has a very large population (well over 60 million by now), there is always someone or something in the road. It is a rare event to get into fifth gear - especially since the country is so hilly. On this route I started off at the border at about 500m, climbed up to 1500m, dropped down to 700m then up to 2600m on the edge of the rift valley before dropping down to 1800m at Lake Langano - and those do not indicate the ups and downs in-between.

During the trip over the last few days, I didn't stop much for bird-watching, but still managed to see some birds.

Anyway, by 16h00 I had reached the Lake, which has a reasonable campsite next to a hotel on the lake edge. It is also an excellent area for birding, so I spent the remainder of the day around the cliffs nearby, hoping to find the as-yet undescribed Ethiopian Cliff-Swallow that has been seen here a few times.

Over the next two days while I am in Addis Ababa sorting out the Landrover and various visas, I hope to have the time to write up a bit on the Landrover and other items that may be of interest.

Sunday 14 December 2003

I had a very rewarding morning's bird-watching, spending 4 hours at Lake Langano.

Before leaving I photographed the Landrover with the tent up (first photo) and then as it was for travelling (second photo).

After that I drove to Lake Ziway and spent an hour finding some really nice birds.

From there it was a short two hour drive to the outskirts of Addis Ababa, and then another half hour to reach the Gedera #3 hotel - another relatively cheap ($15 per night) government run hotel with all facilities.

Once there, I got hold of the telephone directory and started searching for motor dealers. However, the Addis Ababa phone book is one of the most concise I have ever seen. Everything is alphabetical, with the name of the person / company (no indication given as to which, followed by the PO Box number, followed by their telephone number - no address of any sort. The same was true in the yellow pages, with no box adverts or anything indicating what service each company provided. However, they did had a business directory, which listed some companies, and I was able to get a small list of companies that might help.

Monday 15 December 2003

First stop was the Sudanese Embassy - which was only going to open at 10h00. Having at least found that, I went on to the first of the Landrover dealers - Ultimate Motors. They had no shock absorbers in stock, but directed me to the only other dealer - African Lakes. They also had no shock absorbers! In the end I was able to track down a pair in one of the small shops near the city centre - it is quite amazing what they stock. Also, they were fairly reasonably priced at about $60 each. However, they were not the heavy-duty shocks that the vehicle really needs - so I will probably have to buy another set in Cairo. At the same time I also bought a new jack.

Amongst all this to-ing & fro-ing, I stopped off at the Sudanese Embassy at 10h00 to extend my visa - they could only supply me with a validity of 2 months in Pretoria, and that had already expired. However, the Embassy here was unable to extend it, but asked me to apply afresh. However, they also needed a letter of recommendation form the South African Embassy. So having tracked that down, I found every one was out for the day - the Deputy President and two ministers were visiting the African Union which is based in Addis Ababa, so the embassy staff were out helping them. However, the only person there (manning the reception desk) said I should drop by at 14h00 as someone might be back by then. Curiously, one of the ministers was Ronnie Kasrils, who I knew well from my days in Shell House when I worked in the Organizing Department - Ronnie was one of the 5 leaders at the time (although I generally reported to Steve Tshwete). Ronnie was due to fly out at 16h00, so I wouldn't have a chance to meet him.

So next I set off to buy a new tyre - and quickly discovered that no BF Goodrich tyres ever reached Ethiopia. The best alternative was Bridgestone. Buying one was easy (and not too expensive - $200). When the garage fitted them, they also tried to repair my old tyre, and I am keeping it as a spare, as the mechanic thought it might be OK - I put it as a spare for the remainder of the day to let it settle, but will fit it back tomorrow to see if it is worth keeping.

Finally I got back to the SA embassy at 14h00, where my letter was waiting, but one of the "ministers" (foreign affairs staff) wanted to see me. Henry Short is also an inveterate traveller, and had come across my name from my previous trips. So we had a chat about travelling, and I also mentioned that I previously worked at the Gauteng Legislature. He then surprised me by asking if I knew of Start Excel a consultancy who worked very closely with the Legislature, to which I replied of course - to discover he had just married one of the three partners, and she had just joined him here in Addis Ababa (he had only arrived a few weeks before). He also mentioned that another ANC colleague - Jessie Duarte - who was also an MEC (provincial cabinet minister) in Gauteng and who I saw a lot of, was also in Addis Ababa. South Africans are definitely wandering around a lot at present. If I have the time, I will try and get together with Henry before I leave Addis.

Anyway, after all this I returned to the Sudanese Embassy, which was officially shut by then, and they kindly took my application and said it would all be ready by the following afternoon. On leaving I met an American visitor who was trying to do the same, but he had already been waiting for 4 days, and they wouldn't tell him when he could have his visa! I guess no-one does like George Bush's compatriots anymore.

Tuesday 16 December 2003

I started off the morning by getting the shock-absorbers fitted. While doing this we noticed one of the bushes on the torsion bars was worn as well as the front shock-absorber housing being loose, so took the opportunity to change that as well. [Note - both were to fail later].

After that I returned to the hotel and contacted Hassan Dahir, who I had spoken to from Johannesburg. I took a taxi to his office (I wouldn't have found it otherwise), and he kindly issued me with the visa for Somaliland. Very quick and easy, and it only cost US$ 25.

From there I went to an internet cafe, but after one hour had only managed to read two e-mails, and not sent a single one - the line was so slow. However, it was very cheap at about $ 2 for the hour.

After lunch I went to the Sudanese Embassy, but they were in a complete panic - their President had decided to stay an extra day after his African Union meeting, so everyone was roped in to help - the visa section was closed. However, I was told my visa would be ready at 12h00 the next day.

I checked back into the hotel, and then decided to try another internet cafe. This one seemed much better, and I managed to send off 7 e-mails in about 1 and a half hours. This was despite the fact that I had already typed them and the addresses onto disk, and only needed to copy the contents - which should have taken only seconds. Curiously, uploading the new info onto the website was very quick, and took about 10 minutes - for about 30 files of 400 Kb. Not sure why that was so fast.

That evening I decided to return to a restaurant I had visited with the Spawls on my first visit to Addis Ababa three years ago - the Blue Tops. The food was still excellent.

Wednesday 17 December 2003

This was to be a quieter day, since the only thing I had to do was to fill up with fuel before going to the Sudanese Embassy. However, somehow I developed a bad nosebleed, which took up about an hour.

I arrived at the Embassy at 12h00, but they were still tied up in meetings, and so I was asked to come back at 15h00. I then wandered off to the Hilton Hotel, and had a nice salad - not something that is always easy to find in Africa (one that is good and safe to eat anyway). There were a variety of vary tame birds that joined me at the table.

On returning to the Embassy at 15h00, they had the visa ready. However, I asked if I didn't need another permit for the vehicle. A look of horror - they had forgotten, and the only person who could sign it had already left. So I would have to return the next day!

That evening I returned for the third time to the Canapé restaurant close by the hotel. Again I had excellent food and some good (local) wine, all for about $10. How the restaurant survives is a mystery since on all three nights I was there, I was the only person. However, I managed to get another nosebleed there.

Thursday 18 December 2003

The morning started off badly, with yet another nosebleed. I am not at all sure what is causing them, but they take about an hour to stop. Let's hope that they don't continue for too long. At 10h00 the Embassy opens, and my permit is waiting for me. So I head off back the way I came in (for the first 80 km or so) and then start off east towards Awash National Park.

The road to the park passes through some wonderful scenery, with lots of little volcanic cones (first photo) rising out of the lava beds - however, they proved very hard to photograph. Once I reached the park, it was much hotter (since the elevation had now dropped to 1 000 metres), and I spent some time wandering round the park remembering where everything is, and setting up the armed guard who has to accompany me for the trip up the big volcano tomorrow.

I then wandered off to see what the park was looking like, finding Beisa Oryx, Swayne's Hartebeest and Soemmering's Gazelle.

In the late afternoon I found myself (not by chance) at the Kereyou Lodge, where cold beers are served. It also has a patio right on the edge of the Awash river gorge (photo), and this is another place where the Ethiopian Cliff Swallow has been seen - but not by me.

I left there just after sunset, giving me the excuse to drive back in the dark, and managed to fit in a couple of detours, ensuring the trip to the campsite took well over an hour rather than the 15 minutes it should take.

Friday 19 December 2003

Getting up a bit before 06h00 (sunrise was at 06h30) I reached the gate just after 06h00, and collected the (compulsory) armed guard. We immediately set off for Fantalle Crater (photo), driving west about 15 km along the tar road before turning north onto a reasonable track. After another 10 km we turned east onto the very poor track up to the crater rim - the road crosses many areas of bare rock, but generally it is not too bad. We started off at an altitude of about 1 000 metres, and had reached 1 500 m when an ominous screeching noise started.

Another disaster - but on reflection, one that didn't surprise me too much. The rear load-bed had come loose, and I am not sure what was holding it on. It hadn't actually moved much, so I guess one or two of the rear mountings were still holding. However, there was no way of strapping it down, so there was no choice to turn around and crawl back very slowly. It took four hours to get back to the tar road (it had taken about 1 hour to get up). After that, driving was OK - so I dropped of the guard and then returned to Addis Ababa.

However, during my brief stay in Awash NP I had seen quite a few birds.

On arriving at Ultimate Motors again, we had a better look. It wouldn't be too difficult to repair, but I would need to unload everything from the load-bed. I went to the National Hotel in central Addis, and the porters there helped unload the 13 ammunition boxes, 4 steel trucks and various other stuff - the rest fitted into the cab area. Then I drove back to the garage, and spent an hour removing the tent, the awning and all the other steelwork. Then we emptied the water containers, and drained as much fuel from the spare tank into the main tank. Then I left the vehicle at the garage so they could start work on Saturday, but they would probably only finish on Monday.

The reason I said this was not too much of a surprise was that Peter Healey and myself spent some time checking the load-bed after the Angola trip, where one bracket was broken (we replaced it) but we could see several supports which were basically hollow square tubes had been crushed. We could see no other damage, and these still seemed OK, so we left them. However, there must have been more damage, and over the last year metal fatigue must have slowly weakened the supports until they decided to fail. The garage won't just repair the existing brackets, but also put in additional reinforcing.

Saturday 20 December 2003

Not much to do, except re-organize all my packing in the boxes, and finish off the web information. There is also an excellent business centre in the hotel, that allowed me to plug in my laptop, and download all my e-mails. I forgot however, that it also sent off all the e-mails I had already sent manually - so everyone will have a got a duplicate.

Still getting nose-bleeds, but they are not as bad now - perhaps they will clear up in a few days.

Sunday 21 December 2003

A continuation of Saturday. That evening I had a drink with Harvey Short from the South African Embassy, who has also done some travelling around Africa, and wanted any info I could give.

Monday 22 December 2003

On arrival at the garage at 08h30, I discovered that the mechanic had also worked on Sunday to make up the necessary new brackets, and get them painted. The vehicle was looking very strange without the load-bed on. We all carefully checked to see if there was any other damage, but it was only necessary to replace the six brackets with strengthened ones. By the end of the day, the load-bed was back on, but there was still some welding to do, so I drove back to the hotel, to return the next morning.

During the morning, I had taken the opportunity of walking over to the UNMEE offices - they monitor the peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Harvey Short had warned me that things weren't going that well, so I had better check. It was lucky I did, because if I drove north from Djibouti, I would have to cross a 40 kilometre ceasefire line, and they were currently not happy with tourists crossing the line. However, the bigger problem was that recently a British geologist had been killed in northern Eritrea, and the Eritreans were unlikely to allow me to travel from Asmera west to Sudan - so even if I did get in, I would have to return the same way. So it looks like I won't get to Eritrea on this trip - my first major blow to the trip.