Larry and Sharon McGillewie's travels

Monday, May 29, 2017

The stark beauty of the Somiland country side

Saturday, May 27, 2017

27 May 2017

We are currently in Moyale, the border town between Ethiopia and Kenya. Wifi has been shocking, we will get the next report -typed up and posted as soon as we get decent wifi. Hope to spend the next night at the Marsabit National Park, not sure if staying in the lodge or camping so won't have any comms there. We spent one night at Hawassa and then we were heading to Yabela National Park, couldn't find any accommodation so headed for Moyale. First 160km took us 4 hours.
Want to get through the border post so chat again from Kenya.
Sharon

20 - 24 May 2017

20 May 2017

We arrived at Berbera Port, Somiland on 20 May slap bang in the middle of the Independence Day weekend, 3 days of celebrations!! Somiland is an autonomous region of Somalia, not recognized by the international community, but has its own government, police force, parliament, etc. The Somiland passport is issued but not accepted by the rest of the world. They are currently celebrating 26 years of independence and the country is working, but hey let’s keep them basically excluded from the rest of the world.

Once the bikes had been unloaded we thought that we would be able to start with clearing them from customs, but customs was closed because of the public holidays, so with a fond farewell to all the crew from all three boats parked at the quay Nafaar took us to our hotel, a place on the beach just outside Berbera called Maan Soor Hotel, clean rooms very basic with a functioning bathroom. Larry and I had a wonderful cold shower, the heat and humidity was unbearable.

The following morning Nafaar collected us from the hotel and the clearing process started, backwards and forwards from one official to the next. Apparently because our bikes were not commercial cargo they were not on the ships manifest so they could not give us a DOD (Document of Delivery) eventually out of the port back to Berbera and the manager of the shipping office made a plan and we had our custom stamp, back to security, they weren’t interested in letting the bikes out of the port, back to the safety office and eventually we seemed to be making headway. We rode through two of the three controlled check points and at the last one we were told to park over there and we needed another piece of paper, Nafaar started getting hot under the collar and next thing we knew the bikes were clear and we exited the port and headed for the hotel.

21 May 2017

We re-packed the bikes and soaked our cooling vests, had something to eat and we were ready to head for Hargesia. Our biggest problem has been with our Ethiopian visa, we had to apply for it in Dubai while we both still had residency there and so the visa expires on 29 May. We had hoped to visit Djibouti but believe that the road is really bad with a section of deep sand! We set off behind our security escort, Nafaar in his Land Cruiser with an armed security person. There are approximately 16 security check points between Berbera and Hargesia and as soon as they saw us coming wanted to pull us over, but our escort ensured that we sailed through them all. The road is basically good, with some patches of bad potholes.

We stopped at a local tourist spot near Las Geel, where we were shown some very interesting rock paintings in some caves dating back about 4500 years BC (apparently). On our way to the caves we spotted 3 different dikdik, a new species for us called Salts Dikdik. We also spotted a tiny little chameleon, some very colourful lizards and a large tortoise.

The ride to Hergesia was hot and relatively un-eventful trip with some starkly beautiful scenery. As we arrived in the actual city a policeman on a Honda motorbike was waiting for us and rode with us to the bottling plant for Coke where the bikes spent the night. The policeman had a wonderful time escorting us through the city, sirens blaring and riding next to us chatting away. There was a large group of people waiting to meet with us at the bottling plant which was a really great welcome. We each took a small bag and we set off for the Hotel. We were put into a bedroom and I had an icy cold shower and then reception phoned to say that they need to move us, as that room was occupied, after two attempts at different rooms we eventually settled into our room. A clean bed and a decent en-suite with hot water, if you switched the geyser on. Osman, another contact from Gavin, collected us from the hotel and took us to a restaurant across town. The streets in Hargesia are horrific, dusty, potholed and collapsing, we crawled across town. We met with Jay (Gavin’s nephew) Fred and Muhammed. We enjoyed a wonderful evening of chatting and joking and some serious conversation.

22 May 2017

The next morning we were once again escorted to the border between Somiland and Ethiopia, road conditions not great and lots of security check points. The roads through the city were horrific, we can’t even call them gravel because that has long since disappeared and so they are a mixture of dust and animal droppings and litter. Once we got to the border town of Wajale, and had been stamped out of Somiland, our security escort left us and headed back to Hargesia. The litter within the towns was unbelievable, it was piled alongside the road in places to above head height! We continued to the Ethiopian immigration section and then I headed to the customs to try and get our Carnet stamped. I was lucky that I managed to find one official there and he phoned and called the entire office back to help with the stamping of the Carnet. Eventually there were 6 men, all scratching their heads and sucking their gums, un-sure of what to do with a Carnet. I had left my specs in my tank bag and was battling to read the fine print but eventually managed to tell them where to stamp and what to do. Larry and I were now on our own in Ethiopia, we had been warned of some check points further ahead.

The landscape changed as soon as we got out of town, there clearly had been some rain, as the ground was wet and the grass had just started growing. The road improved, a long straight section of tar with just about no imperfections crossing the plateau. We passed through two check points where they checked out passports and then arrived at the customs check point. We were pulled over and an official ran off to call some-one to help check our bikes. A suspect looking character with dirty dreadlocks and scruffy dirty part uniform, part casual clothes, came across. He one started with Larry’s bike and the more reasonable looking one started on mine, they were extremely unpleasant and aggressive. They unpacked my clothes pannier, so I had my bras and knickers lying on the road and then they found the Sat Phone and it was with great triumph that he pulled it out and place it on my seat. Meanwhile on Larry’s side, they found the SD cards for our cameras and wanted to bite them to see what they were!! He didn’t have a clue what he was looking for. They then both started on our tank bags and pulled out our cameras and binocs, once again was clueless to what the binocs were, looking into the wrong end, etc. All these items where place on the seat of my bike and we were told we were not allowed to touch them. In the meantime we were trying to re-pack our panniers (when traveling with such limited space everything has its place and is neatly and tidily packed in order to get everything in) everything was shoved back in and they were trying to pull our tank bags off the front of the bikes, by this stage we started getting angry and told them it was no way to treat tourists!! The guy with dreadlocks went off and suddenly the other official told us to pack our bikes and we could go. Much grumbling we managed to squash everything into the panniers and headed off.

The road was still good as we got into the mountains, but the villages became more frequent, people, goats, cattle and donkeys seem to have right of way. The villages are small and the poverty is unreal as is the filth and litter that infests the entire area. The natural beauty of Ethiopia must have been amazing before the radical over-population. The main crop of the area is Chat, the green leaves chewed by most of the male population of Somiland and Ethiopia, apparently it is a aphrodisiac and some men eat up to 10kg of this a day. They walk around with rotten brown teeth and green slime around their months, the other side effects must be horrific. This is one of the biggest sources of income for this area and it is exported to Somiland and other neighboring countries. This is a legal drug and legally exported all over the region!

After lots of twisty and winding roads, riding slowly because of the villages and obstacles in the road we eventually arrived in the city of Harar and managed to find a very nice hotel called Grand Geto. We had only just settled into our room when a vicious storm started, the wind blew over power lines and trees (luckily I had just finished a nice hot shower, Larry decided to check his GoPro footage and so missed out on the shower) and then the rain started, not lots but a good downpour. The generator eventually came on and water was restored to our room. We had supper in the hotel restaurant which left a lot to be desired, hamburger patties tasted like they had been made from afval (tripe). We went to bed very early and had a good 12 hour sleep!

23 May 2017

The next morning we set off in very cool conditions, which made riding a pleasure. We had lots of mountain roads ahead of us and an extremely populated area. Because of the very slow riding and some birding en-route our progress was slow. We only had about 340km to ride to our next destination of Awash. Finding fuel in Ethiopia is also not guaranteed and when we do find a petrol station they are normally grubby affairs and the locals swarm around the bikes. We rode through the tail end of a storm, changed into our rain gear, rode through a lot of heavy rain and wind, this made visibility very bad and our progress was slowed down even further. We saw evidence of a really violent storm, trees had blown over and were lying across the road, there was a river of water on each side of the road. My fancy Garne Italian made leather boots which are advertised as water proof are about as water proof as a tea strainer!! As are the BMW rain gear. We soon had wet places where we would rather be dry.

We eventually were about 15km from our turning point when we arrived at another check point. This time is was a bridge which is not allowed to be crossed by foot, bicycle or motor bike. Very quickly the customs official organizes us a truck for BR500 (about 30 USD) to take us across this bridge. Larry was having none of this and said how are we going to pickup 400kg of bike and put into the back, we all traipsed across the road with the truck and he backed up to a bank and said ok we must load it onto the back. Larry would not budge! We are not loading the bikes!! So that driver gave us back the money and the next vehicle was stopped and told to load us, this was a mini bus, and the bikes much too tall to load into the back. Eventually they phoned Addis and got permission for us to ride across, nothing wrong with the bridge and road!! This took about an hour and a half of negotiations on Larry’s behalf, I said let’s turn around and go back and find another way across. Same thing - suddenly we can go. The reason for this debacle is still unclear. All traffic was stopped, and given slips of paper. We initially presumed the road crossing the gorge in front of us was damaged, but once we crossed, we realized it was highway quality. So, this is possibly a population control, as no bicycles or foot traffic is allowed?? We never did find out the reason!!! Certainly a load of BS, and obviously not much tourist traffic passes. The road is through the Awash National Park and is used by heavy truck, we think from Djibouti and other ports, maybe Sudan, every 500m there is a serious hump in the road so the traffic doesn’t move steadily. We arrived at the gates of the park just before 6pm and were lucky enough to find a mini bus from the privately run Awash Falls Lodge at the gate, after paying our entrance fee we loaded all the gear into the bus and headed for the lodge, the quoted rate for a bedroom is $80USD and it is very basic. We decided to camp and make use of the restaurant and ablution facilities. There are government camping sites which are really pretty but they have no facilities at all. The ablution blocks are all there but completely derelict!

Apparently hyenas are common in Ethiopia and so far we have see 4 dead ones alongside the road, one right in a city. We have also seen plenty of vultures around each village, both eat carrion and must find this in and around the villages and towns. There is plenty of road kill around here.

24 May 2017

The privately owned camp is rustic, but we have everything that we need. Electricity is down because of the storms that we rode through and the falls are flowing very strongly with chocolate brown water. We counted 8 large crocodiles lying in the pool and on the rocks at the pool at the bottom of the falls.

Tomorrow we will leave here and head for Hawassa Lake and then hopefully onto Yabela National Park, this will take us to 28 May and we will then head for Moyale and get into Kenya.

We have zero comms or internet, so blog reports and pics will be a bit behind. In the meantime, we go for walks, always with camera and binocs, birding!! And resting. And Laundry. Beautiful spot.

S & L

Sunday, May 21, 2017

18 May 2017

We have been travelling on the dhow since Monday, 15 May, nearly 3 days now, and still have nearly 450km to go. We have stopped for about an hour while the engineer does a repair to the main diesel pipeline, the captain came to ask if we had any tubes that could be cut up to effect the repairs. Larry went down into the engine room with some duc tape and between them they have got it running. Good old duc tape. We will use the tube if we really have to but we won’t be able to find another tube until at least Nairobi and then we may have to courier it up so that is our last resort. While stationery a call comes over the radio, the first one that I have heard in English : Security Security – Code Red – pirate activity in the area of XXXXXX and co-ordinates. Please report any suspicious activity on channel 16. Larry told the captain and the Indian flag was un-ceremoniously raised at the back of the dhow. We have seen lots of ships on the horizon and one military looking boat with a huge helicopter on the back, hopefully the pirates stay down south of us! We only started seeing ships today, before that we saw the occasional Yemeni fishing boat.

The food is very basic and fiery hot, my lips and belly burn for about 2 hours after eating it. It is prepared in the most basic of conditions by a young Indian guy. Always has a pleasant smile. The crew have all gone out of their way to be kind and treat us like royalty. I have found the lack of ablutions to be difficult but once again the crew have been great. It is hot and sticky on the dhow so a good bucket bath after dark is great. Fresh water is limited, two large containers strapped to the deck and a cup to get it out, the level is dropping quickly and you really have to lean in to reach the water. There is more fresh water below deck that can be pumped into these two containers. The captain speaks very little English and the owner slightly more, so lots of hand signals to try and get ourselves understood. Dominoes and cards are played by the crew most of the day and we taught them how to play spoons, Larry played while I showed them how, lots of laughter all around. All the crew chew beetle nut, this comes in a tin and looks like a large nutmeg and they chop it up and mix it with some other tinned stuff and then I think they use it like snuff, lots of spitting overboard and badly stained rotten teeth.

There is nothing for us to do on board, so lots of reading and playing silly games on our cellphones, Larry has done some birdwatching, seen a few new birds. A couple of pods of dolphins have been seen off in the distance, the first pod the dolphins looked very small while the second pod they were huge. There has been little to no wind which has made the sea extremely flat and it looks inky. It is a brilliant blue and looks crystal clean. Humidity is very high but we have been lucky with slightly overcast skys.

The crew run fishing lines behind the boat, where they supplement daily fresh meat, with fish. In total, 5 fish were caught, 4 large dorado, and 1 tuna. There was also a live goat on board, which was slaughtered on day 2 of the voyage.

20 May 2017

We arrived in the port at about 4.30am, just as the sky was turning pink. We were told that we would be tying up next to some other dhows, when we arrived at the designated place we would have been dhow number 4, but the captain who we were to be next to was having none of that, lots of shouting and eventually he pulled a knife out and threatened the crew on our dhow. He started up and moved to next to a large container ship. Good riddance to bad rubbish and lucky for us as well, the dhow right at the wharf was a Dubai registered dhow and the one in between was a Pakistani one. Much fascination to see two expats on board. Now the waiting game started, nothing could be done until our clearing agent arrived, we phoned Satish at about 6.30am and he was at the port before 8am. This was more of a wonderful favour that Gavin (a South African living in Djibouti) had arranged for us. We now had the problem of getting the bikes off dhow number three (thank goodness rubbish had moved) to the wharf. There were cranes on both of the other dhows, and the bikes were lifted from dhow number three to dhow number one by dhow number two and then dhow number one lifted them onto the wharf. Lots of help from all three dhows and we had to scramble across all these dhows. Grannies are not made to do this and I was a lot slower than everyone else, but had lots of encouragement and help – hold on here, pull that, put your foot here!

Once both bikes were safely on the ground we had a group picture with the crew that helped, port security arrived and I was shouted at and told to get back on board, lady must be fully covered. Larry and I were called by the immigration people and I descended the ladder with bottles of waters and my camera and was once again told to get back on board. Nafeer, once again thanks to Gavin, took us to immigration where a fully covered lady helped us, we were given a 30 day visa for Somialand. Nafeer then drove us to the Maansoor Hotel on the outskirts of Berbera, very simple accommodation but clean with an en-suite bathroom and an air-conditioner. We have been planning on riding to Djibouti but believe that the 420km journey will take more than 16 hours in a Land Cruiser, not sure if we want to do this on bikes so looks like we will head to Hargeisa once we have cleared the bikes through customs tomorrow, apparently there was a three day holiday here. (Without the amazing help from Gavin I think that we would still be stuck on the dhow until tomorrow). So we may skip Djibouti and head straight for Ethiopia, about 160km to Hargeisa on a good road and then 90km to the Ethiopian boarder.

Good internet has allowed us to catch up with family and friends and I know that there was particular concern about out crossing of the Gulf of Aden, so thanks for all the well wishes.