Queens Hotel Gonder

... br>A cote se trouve les derniers felachas, juifs se trouvant en ethiopie, la plupart ayant migre en israel. <br><br>Et pas tres loin se trouve le parc de simien qui offre un paysage halucinant avec des sommets a plus de 4000m. Si vous faire du trekking en afrique, il s agit la un des plus beau endroit en afrique.<br>

... but maybe it'll come to me. In Laos, the only other place I've spent much time without electricity, the lights went OFF at 10pm. What the Hell, roll with the flow. After all, it IS romantic. Share Ethiopia with a friend. Next thing I know, kids are playing on the street and the cocks are crowing. I go out for an early walk, best time of the day considering the air quality. Pickpockets tend to sleep late too, so I don't worry about ...

... 18th<br>century) and the Fasiladas Bath where the Holy Water ceremonies takes<br>place. <br><br>We also went on a one night camping<br>trip up the Siemien Mountains to see the wild baboons and Ibyx. <br>Unfortunately it rained all night and we couldn&#8217;t see much because<br>of the fog but we did get to see the ibyx from a distance and lots of<br>baboons.<br>Saktophe's Highlights ...

Ok, it's more like "Castles in the Dust" (it's dry season, after all, and dust is everywhere!), but "sand" sounded much nicer . . . Our second stop in the North was Gonder - a town known for its 17th century castles, thus living up to its nickname of "Africa's Camelot". Gonder is also the stepping off point for visits to Simien Mountains National Park - an incredibly striking landscape of mountains and plateaus, created by numerous volcanic ...

Away from the hospital, I met up with Steve Brown from uni who was up from Bahir Dar for the weekend - we did a near complete circle of the town stopping at the busy bars on the way. The local ones are great fun with a man playing the local, violinesque, instrument, a drummer banging out the beats on goat skin drums and a women in traditional dress belting out the numbers! As the faranji (foreigner) you quickly pulled up to dance ...

On the only day we had in Khartoum we were both crook with flu-like symptoms and did not feel like going very far. We did, however, hire a taxi to drive past the heavily guarded presidential palace, as you are not allowed to walk past and vehicles are not allowed to stop. Taking photographs is strictly forbidden on pain of being ...

... to Gondar helped us to locate the garage and we had immediately about 6 mechanics surrounding the truck and crawling underneath (Where would you find that in Europe?) They repaired the broken spring and even checked the one on the other side which also had a broken kingpin/centrebolt. They also cleaned the air filter, all of this for 600 Birr (60 Euros), but it did mean losing almost a whole day. We decided to still proceed towards the Simien Mountains and camp on the way. The ...

... high I fear patients writhing in pain will fall and be immediately whisked off to the emergency surgery outpatients department! There are no facilities there -the simplest of things, found in the back of an ambulance or a GP's car, are not present in an emergency department serving the nations 2nd largest city. No oxygen, no ECG, no pulse ox, no immediate meds, no glucometer and no KY jelly! There is just the intern doctor, and they do so well ...

... the alternative ? I would be gutted to get this far and not actually make it to our final destination. The mechanic would still want paying for the work done so far and the bus isn't moveable now the old, damaged seals have been ripped out. We were at the mercy of the mechanic. He could offer us what he wanted for a non working bus in his yard and we would be obliged to accept what he offered. An alternative solution was to get the seals shipped out ...

... exiting passengers were still walking across the tarmac while we took off again! Upon arrival, disembarking the plane was just as quick as boarding. We watched as they unloaded the bags to shuttle them 50 m to where we were standing. Seems as though we could have saved everyone a lot of effort by just grabbing our own bags off the plane. No fancy luggage here. Carry ons were recycled plastic bags, and checked where cardboard boxes.