capetown2cairo

[capetown2cairo]

reality bites

9 march 2019

Best greetings to my dear Paul How are you?

 I was really thinking about you since you left my town Gondar as there was revolution in kartoum like here. Have you finished your tour in Africa & arrived at your country great briean well?

 Sorry big sorry! 

For I am late to write you earlier . you know that every thing has reason to be or not to be The main reason why I didn't write you  was I hadn't your email address for long time . the other reason was, the  worst war begunin after you left Gondar at the borders metema. 

So many people are killed as well as many youths, include me in bad prison as they cuptured us in revolution & srongan on the street. Sorry for telling you bad news. I am fine and they realased us after  we stayed in prison for 1 month and 3days. So then I asked you. Your email address.

 Obviously many houses burned out beside my small supple marhet shop is robed by robberies & I don’t  know who burned my shop out , I heared about  it after  I come  out  from prison as it was  not allowed any one to visit us (the prisoners) in the prison.

 the good think is I met my little daughter   and my wife safely and I am happy; how ever, things are  not like   before as I know life is full of challenges. 

So I have planned to start small business venture, selling goods on the street  in hopping that peaceful situation will be continue & feeling my little daughter & my wife.

 Don’t worry this moment it is peace. How is the situation in your country England? 

Any ways I do hope all is well around you & I just want to hear from you. How is your son in Australia?. All the best will lots of love.

 Long live Paul 

Your’s Tomas from Ethiopia

[capetown2cairo]

Last push down\up the Nile

Khartoum was evacuated on 24 jan and our depleted force headed North by rail to Atbara. It's the Crewe of Sudan and is famous for its railway construction by the British in 1898.

We will follow the nile by bus to wadi halfa and then cross the border and head to abu simbel in egypt.

a quick swoosh to Aswan and it will be a race to Cairo and the sea. Home in the first days of February, English weather permitting.

ps I get confused about which way I am going along the river!

[capetown2cairo]

Mr Bean rides again.

I have bumbled my way round Africa rather than swashbuckled it. 

+ I buy four paracetamol tablets in a khartoum shop. £5 ( 7p uk )please . I hand over £50 (70p ) and walk off . The shop keeper laughs and calls me back to give me the change. I can't get my head around the money.

+ My khartoum hotel has a lovely embroidered mat in the corner rolled up. It's ideal for use as a bath mat for when I come out of the bathroom. It takes me three days to realise it is a prayer mat. Oops.

+ My Ethiopian friend takes me to a small bar which we had visited two nights earlier without incident( but looking back there was a conversation that I thought was a bit strange at the time).

 There are six girls and two chaps. I note that's a bit unusual but think nothing more of it. A friend of my host comes to join us and my chum friend says the girl would like to come dancing with us. Yes no problem I say. ' she is a good country girl he adds not like the city girls.' A strange thing to say but I agree country folk are better than city dwellers. ' when you sleep with her just give her a little money ' he concludes.  Ah. Despite my man of the world appearance I did not see that one coming. And yes the bar was populated by girls for a reason.

[capetown2cairo]

Cheaper than chips

Great value for money here. 

Hotel with air con, tv, cold shower and proper toilet £6

Slap up meal... £2-£3

Everything else...let's just say 40p tops. 

The handiest note is a Sudan £50 note. This is 70p in UK money. It's a pain when I get fifty UK pounds changed and receive it back in sudan £20 (30pence) notes.

it costs as much for a taxi to the station (£2uk) as it does to get take the six hour train journey to atbara

[capetown2cairo]

Khartoum kapers

Great five days here...army on every street corner , tanks by the bridge, protests what protests ?

Went to see the Sufi dancers. Met a dancer chap and a student. At the end the chap says to me ' don't meet the student again he is secret police!'

Hired a taxi to visit meroe pyramids. A local tourist policeman asked if he could come too. I would be doubly safe as he had a gun!

visited Honduran battlefield of 1898 . Policewoman comes to investigate . So we give her a lift in the taxi back to town

take me to the souk.. I say. Not today they say. There are protests.

[capetown2cairo]

on the radar

The government in khartoum is onto me. They are jamming my messenger and Facebook pages. Internet cafes hard to find too. More updates later.

[capetown2cairo]

Relief column repulsed

Intense fighting has forced the Gordon relief column backwards. With no road open from Ethiopia to Sudan we have been forced to wait the equivalent of 130 years until air transport has been perfected.

the journey took two hours rather than two days.

we parachuted in but Gordon's body has been long dead  and buried. Oops sorry!

[capetown2cairo]

David Wagner big in Ethiopia

Having breakfast in a small local cafe yesterday, there is a small Tv on in the corner. Ethiopian music is played on it then the news follows. When sports news comes on the lead item is David Wagner leaving Huddersfield. They play clips from all the best moments of the last three years.

[capetown2cairo]

Gordon relief column delayed

We have ground to a halt in Gondar, this time through no fault of our own.

It appears I have walked into the middle of a minor war zone. As a visitor to the town itself you would not realise it. There is the occasional convoy of armed men driving around but nothing out of the ordinary.

But from what I can tell, in the last week or so things have hotted up in the countryside. To the north there is minor insurrection against the government. Roads are closed and houses burned. 4000 people are said to have come to Gondar this week after their houses were burned down.

To the east, in a separate conflict, on the road to metema a bus driver was shot dead at the start of the week. The road to the town on the border with Sudan is shut.

This morning, Wed 16 Jan, Thomas and I went to the bus station at 7am to be told the road is still closed. There maybe an armed convoy going this afternoon and we will be notified. Thomas lives in Metema so needs to get home.

So, at present I am grounded in Gondar and Gordon will have to wait.

Having checked with the travel agents there are 5 flights a day to addis. If i cant get out of town tomorrow i will either stay for timkat or fly out. With correct timings I can fly to addis and then fly straight onto Khartoum the same day

Am slightly worried about my sudan visa as it says it lasts for 2 months but in numbers it says end date of 23 jan.Ihave amended the visa to show 23 feb so I will see what happens at the border if i make it.

So by this time tomorrow I could be  stuck in Gondar, on the road to Sudan or in the air flying there. Fying seems like cheating (400pounds in total to addis and khartoum) but who knows how long the road to Metema will be shut?

i do hope Gordon can hold on.

[capetown2cairo]

Fleeced with a smile

With nothing to do in town all day I simply wandered to find a beer. As usual a local lad tags onto me and shows me to a beer garden. I say I am on my way to Sudan and he introduces a friend who had Sudan money and is going back to Metema on the border shortly.

We begin a long day of cultural and financial exchange. We attempt to change money into Sudanese but the chap doing the transaction tells us to come back in the morning.

I am then invited by the two lads to visit a local house and eat Chatt. We spend three hours ‘doing chatt’ and then the lady in the house perfoms the coffee ceremony followed by showing me how to make enjera..

Then the financial fun starts.. pay the lady 6 pounds for the enjera ingredients.. seems high but will pay her for the coffee. Five bags of chatt, top quality, at 5 pounds each... oh i am buying it all?

“because you have paid here, tonight we invite you to as special place and smoke ganga. You will be our guest. It will cost 25 pounds but we just need a fiver now and we will pay the rest.

Cue the evening. We go to a couple of bars.. can you lend me 20 quid one says and I pay back tomorrow? Fine. Admittedly the rest of the evening I dont spend any money but we worked our way through around 60 pound through the day and evening.

After the bars we go to a shisha ‘den’ A dozen locals sat in a small room smoking shisha. Then to visit Thomas’s mother. 

Its getting into mid evening and we then go to a traditional dance venue. A performance is underway of ethiopian dance watched by a full house of around 100 locals... no white people.Its a remarkable evening

Finally we end up at a night club in the heart of Gondar, another  10 pounds goes in Thomas pocket for ‘entry fees’.

So, an amazing day of cultural exchange. It has been worth the money but at all times I feel there is an undercurrent where they try to line their pockets at my expense.

On the up side the lads find me a cheap hotel so i have moved from paying 45 pounds a night to ten.. so the savings made have paid for today’s activities.

we never did get the ganga and i never got the money back which i lent Thomas.

[capetown2cairo]

Gondar conundrums.

An uneventful 14 hours on the bus from Addis, except for driving passed an empty bus wreck down a ravine, and I arrived in Gondar on Sunday evening 13 Jan.

The town is getting ready for Timkat, a Christian celebration, on Saturday but I don’t think I will stay that long. Sudan beckons. All I need to do is get the bus to the Ethiopian border town of Metema and walk across into Sudan.

But my hotel gives me the news that the road to Metema is shut due to insurrection. It may reopen anytime.

I decide to worry about it later

[capetown2cairo]

whoops typo

I arrive Khartoum on 16 jan not cairo as mentioned below. 

No new pics as internet is too slow to load them

[capetown2cairo]

The party’s over

Resting up in Addis for a few days has helped me reflect on things. It is clear I have been distracted by spending too much time with local people, dancing and drinking.

I need to get back to what this holiday was about - visiting dusty, dry, places in the desert looking at dry bones and dry stone walls over 3000 years old.

Good news is at hand. I travel to Sudan next. There is no drinking or dancing there ! As long as civil war does not break out in the next week i can get back on track and put all this merriment behind me. 

I should arrive in Cairo on Wednesday 16 Jan (via Gondar, Metamet and Gadaref) Five days there and then to Wadi Halfa, Abul Simnel, Aswan, Cairo and Alexandria by the end of the month 

[capetown2cairo]

Addis or China town?

It is a big, dusty, sprawling city. Tower blocks are going up everywhere. All constructed by the Chinese. I see quite a few chaps in town. yet every buiilding is the same. Not in design but in situation. 

20 storeys high and concrete everywhere. But no outer walls and still covered in scaffold. On several buildings three men are lifting buckets or tapping with axes. Yet not one building appears near completition. It is a sprawling city filled with half built tower blocks with no end in sight.

Maybe wait five years before you visit!

[capetown2cairo]

Christmas comes but twice a year.

Ethiopian christmas is the 7th of Janaury so it turns out i get two bites of the cherry this holiday.

Christmas eve we go out to celebrate. In the UK after a night out drinking and dancing, most of my friends want to go for a kebab. Not in Shashemane. Here they cut out the middle man.

We roll home down the back streets at 12.20am. I have been trying not to drink all evening but to avoid offending my hosts i do have to have the occasional tipple.

I am slowly aware of a crowd forming and long knives being brandished outside my accommodation. Suddenly a cow is brought from behind a gate and forced to lie down at my feet. “Whats happening?” I ask. “It’s the christmas sacrifice” is the reply.

With a quick swoosh and swoop the knives slash the cow’s throat. The blood runs over my shoes as the cow breaths slowly and softly.

Ten minutes later they pick the tail up. Its legs kick. twelve minutes gone and it kicks again as they prod it... By gum put it out of its misery.

15 minutes and they begin to skin it. Am sure it moves before one last breath. Powerful stuff and very sobering.

The next two hours are spent skinning it and cutting every piece of it into tiny chunks.The 12 chaps then sit down to eat the meat raw. I decline the invitation.

Finally the meat is divided into four piles and lots are drawn amongst the participants to see who gets to take the meat home.

Merry christmas Ethiopian style. Bringing out the fatted calf will never quite have the same ‘remote’ meaning again.

[capetown2cairo]

It had to happen. Kidnapping!

Many of my friends made it clear that A. I would be kidnapped on the trip and B. they would not be paying any ransom.

As the bus rolled into Sheshemane at 10 at night after the 16 hour journey I was hauled off by several persons unknown and taken to a place for the evening. My cell was no bigger than the small bed i was given. Washing facilites were a bucket and don’t ask about the toilets.

For the next 48 hours i was subject to treatment designed to break me and wear me out. I would not wish it on my worst enemy ( and i have one or two)

The kidnappers first decided they would break me financially. They forced me to buy all their drinks at a local bar. At 30p a beer and spirit shot we all realised it was going to take some time before i gave in.

They then resorted to forcing me to eat locally grown leaves. When that did not work more local produce was given to me to smoke.

i seem to be more relaxed than they expected so they gave me locally brewed spirits to test my stamina. At this point I worried for my eyesight but if i could find a car then i knew i could use the drink to power it instead of petrol.

In the ultimate humiliation I was forced to enter darkened rooms with loud music blaring out. They pushed me into the middle of a crowded circle and I was made to perform strange ethiopian dances whilst the onlookers laughed and cheered.

After my long journey and two nights and days of this inhuman torture I knew i had to escape before my resistance was broken. At 5am on the third day i was able to creep from my compound as my kidnappers slept. I jumped on the first bus out of town and succesfully made it to Addis, barely able to keep my eyes open. The recollection is hazy but my daring escape will live long in the memory. 

[capetown2cairo]

Chatt all afternoon

The 300 mile journey to Shashemene in deepest Ethiopia is schedule to take 12 hours.

We start at six and the morning drive takes us on a tarmaced roads through armed police check points on numerous occasions. They are looking for goods smuggled from kenya. Electonics and lap tops on which tax has not been paid. 

We pass herds of camels and through many small towns. It’s a wonderful ride and as the honourary white man I have been promoted to sit with the staff at the front of the bus.

Lunch is at a hotel in some town. The waitress are all in traditional costume and look very fetching. Bar owners are the same the world over in who they employ.

I am invited to sit with the driver and crew and they buy me dinner. I skip the first course of raw meat which is eagerly devoured.

After lunch there is a long drive ahead on rough dirt roads. To keep the driver awake.. yes one driver for the journey... the chaps break out the chatt. Leaves are pulled from twigs and chewed. They have some ‘magic’ properties.. stimuants possibly. It is all the rage in Ethiopia.

I am invited to partake. It would be rude not to. The whole bus breaks into laughter as I begin to chew.

Ten hours later, after a 16 hour journey we arrive at our destination. A puncture and road closed by accident have delayed us. I am buzzing. Is it the chatt or the fact I do enjoy long bus journeys into the unknown?