South Omo is ticked off and we are on our way North. The road conditions have been pretty good after what we had in the South. Tar all the way. Our average speed is only about 50 km per hour because one is constantly competing with pedestrians, tuk-tuks, herds of sheep, cattle or goats and a million donkey carts which transport anything from water to people to whole hay stacks of teff. Our next stop over was in an average hotel in Arber Minch called Mora Heights. We were able to catch up on our washing and had traditional Ethiopian food for dinner. At least we had wifi and an electrical connection for our fridge. (bonus!!!)The next morning we left at 5:30 because we had a long haul up to Addis Ababa. The road again was very good and uneventful passing through a very arid dusty region as we got closer to Addis. Again the roads were crowded. We chose Sunday to drive into Addis because the traffic seems to be a little less on a Sunday. To our very own surprise we had booked a hotel in a very accessible part of Addis where we even had parking for Mog directly outside the hotel. That is a bonus in Addis. We even managed to procure electricity to plug into our freezer. We spent a full day doing a walking tour of the city but we were very disappointed in what we saw. Even the National Museum was a great disappointment. But we did however see Lucy the 3,5 million year old skeleton discovered in 1974 in the Addis region.
The following day we headed off northwards towards Bahir Dar on Lake Tana. It would take us about two days to get there.The route took us through the most spectacular Nile Valley Gorge. The drop of about 1300 m to the valley floor made for breathtaking views. After the Nile Gorge the scenery changed again. Hill after hill covered in either teff, wheat or maize. It is harvest time at the moment and it is all done by hand only using a sickle.
Tom started hearing a knocking noise coming from the left front wheel. After topping up the oil in the reduction gear the noise seemed to get worse so we decided to pull into a service station that was still under construction only a flat cement fore court and a few brand new petrol pumps. We knew this is where we would have to spend the night so Tom started to strip......... ( the front bearing) . As he had predicted he had to replace the lower front bearings. 11 hours later with a sleep in between we were ready to leave.
Tomorrow is Christmas in Ethiopia and it is the year 2008. New year is in September. Ethiopian calendar.
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