From Larry & Sharon

Thursday 24 March 2011

We left the Oasis International Hotel early Saturday morning for our drive to the Bale Mountains. We were very pleasantly surprised that the road was a brand new road (Chinese built) for about 85km and lots of road works for the next 80km with bits of tar in between. The mountains are spectacular and we climbed to a height of 3600m and it started getting cooler all the time. We arrived at the Bale National Park and went to Dinsho Lodge, this was very disappointing, the lodge was fairly large and obviously someone has spent a lot of money there fairly recently but nothing has been maintained and nothing works!! One non working toilet for about 30 beds and two non-working showers, the geysers are there but no water. A very nice newly built sauna, also not working! The entire complex was dirty, floors not washed and lots of littler lying around. We were very disappointed with the facilities but were pleasantly surprised at the amount of game in the actual reserve. There is a small fenced in section around the camp site, about 100 hectares, with lots of Mountain Nyala, melenic bushbuck, bohor reedbuck and warthogs. These are all tame and come close to the camp all the time.
The bracket on my pannier, where is was welded had broken on the rough roads and we went into the village to find a welder and get this repaired. Ethiopia, like most other African countries has problems with electricity and the welder could only sort out later that night once the power was back on. I just hope that this repair lasts until we get to Europe.
No-one is allowed to move around the park without a guide and so we had to hire a local guide and we decided to hire horses to get into the main section of the park. The horses are tiny and just plod along at a steady pace, we did try to trot at one stage but not a good idea with a broken rib. The park is totally undeveloped and there are lots of animals and all very tame. This appears to be one of the few areas in Africa where poaching is not a major problem. The area was very pretty with lots of open grasslands and also some large forests.
There is also a program run by a young Ethiopian (worked at Shamwari for a few months) for the Ethiopian wolf, we decided that we would not go to the area where the wolves are because of the bad roads and it would take about 3 hours there and 3 hours back for an hour walk.
We left the Bale mountains on Monday morning to get to Addis Ababa late that evening so that we could apply for the Schengen visa on Tuesday morning. We arrived in Addis late Monday evening, after riding 403 km in 8 hours, and checked into Wims Holland House. Here we met two Bristish couples, Rory and Lucy and Ven and Anita and we spent a couple of very pleasant evenings with them. We hope that we will see both couples in South Africa later this year.
Tuesday morning we were up bright and early and walked to the Swedish Embassy, we spent the morning on the pavement, from 9am until 12.30 when the visa application section closes. At about 12.40 we were suddenly shown into the Embassy and a lady had a look at our documentation and told us we needed to pay the visa fee and be back there at 3pm for an interview. We rushed around getting the money paid to the right people and were back by 14.30 and went straight in for the interview. One form missing and sorry we can't do your application. After lots of backwards and forwards they agreed to take the application forms and let us know when it would be ready.
In the meantime we decided to apply for our Egyptian visa, but they won't do anything until they see the Ethiopian visa which is in our passports at the Swedish Embassy!!
We have just been phoned to say that the Schengen visa is ready on condition that we extend our travel insurance for one month and we can collect it this afternoon - fantastic service at the end of the day. The red tape with all the visas has been exhausting, but we should be near the end of visa applications now.
Friday 25
We collected our Schengen visas yesterday, and immediately went to the Egyptian embassy, where we left our passports. This normally takes 4 days, but the kind and efficient lady said we could collect them today, at 1 pm, god willing!! So, tomorrow we will probably leave for Dessie, further north, en route to Lalibela. From there to Bahir Dar and lake Tana, then to Sudan, probably in about a week's time.
The British couples left yesterday, both heading south. In the meantime, the other 3 (Harry, Linda and Angela) on bikes arrived in Addis, and are also frantically busy applying for visas, but I think we will probably be ready to leave a few days before them, so will carry on and maybe see them ahead. We are also looking at the possibility of taking a ferry from Egypt or Israel, to Greece or Italy, to avoid some of the current problem areas in the Middle East.
Internet is difficult at the moment, so will continue to update whenever possible!

L&S