Today day 13 we took of for the border about 100 kms away, for a pretty efficient crossing.
It is amazing to see the difference from a desolate , and muslim country like Sudan and the somewhat restrictive Saudi Arabia, to arrive in a country where you can both see woman and they are free. The border crossing is a dry creek or river bed, and the other side in Ethiopia was vibrant and colourful, and what we have seen since of Ethiopia a country of very happy friendly people, and of course the country side changed dramatically to moist and fertile land.
After the border crossing we drove some 500 kms to where we are now in Bahir Dar.
We had beautiful roads and beautiful scenery and 2x what I would call reliability trials, penalised for being early and penalised for being late. Sam nailed the first on time and the second we were 2 minutes late over 60 kms, after passing 4 other cars. The altitude has been an issue with climbing for all. It’s a pity we messed up the first night then had the issues in Greece and Egypt .
During this we climbed to 7,000 feet onto what they call the Ethiopian Plateau and the town (still quite high) we are in is beside a large lake. Along the way the government had installed both police and military, well armed, in the towns about every100meters, and outside every few kilometres, all the way from the border, and we had large crowds and whole schools lining the roads. Quite a day !
At the hotel we have met the deputy mayor, and a few others, a senior guy in the special forces, and it seems the whole country has gone out of its way to help welcome us.
We continue to have major issues with the car, we have had a stereo failure since the first day in France. Tonight we managed to find a replacement, but we had to rush of to change money at the bank, and the bank we found didn’t change money so we missed out. We’ll have to wait no till Nairobi.
We have 2 more days in Ethiopia which we are all looking forward to, with hopefully the great driving roads we have had to date.
We have a couple of tough days to get across the north of Kenya to Nairobi where we hope to tie the front of the car to a tree and pull the radiator cross member back into place so we can refit the fan.
Some general info
The blue 2 door merc took off on a bump and tried to do the tv thing of flying high in the air, which did not turn out well. They got to Sudan but have since disappeared trying to find a timing chain tensioner, which has disintegrated. The other 4 door is plugging away but we haven’t seen them as they are at a different hotel tonight.
One of the Datsun 240s had a big prang in Greece and has been patched up and flown into Jeddah and that cost US$ 8000 we think. Not too bad really so they are back with us.
There are some great photos floating around the other blogs and websites of cars flying but i haven’t seen them yet
A big day tomorrow, 700 klms and leaving at 6:30am
