My Journey

14 th October 2008 The night started of awfully. I desperately tried to turn off my reactions to the children's cries. The noise does eventually subside and eventually I must have dropped off. My phone has no signal now, which means no contact at all until I walk through the shanty village to the internet cafe. During my hours of trying to sleep, I hoped that if I put my phone on the window ledge it might pick up some signal. At 1am, my phone rang. Unknown. I only know one unknown caller. Hello?... Sign in to see full entry.

Addis at night silence unbelievable silence no dogs barking no cats meowing nothing apart from the odd monster it comes alive every now and then it roars and then roars some more and then chudders into the distance on its way to Djibouti back to the silence again silence Sign in to see full entry.

11 October 2008 Enjoyed another sleepless night and consequently peeled myself out of bed this morning, a tad on the grumpy side! Once up, I carried out my morning ritual and made my way towards the parked taxis. I could not even be bothered to haggle with the price so I just announced my destination, The Ethnological Musuem, and climbed in. I was intending to visit a handful of sites today each time hailing a taxi to take me to the next. Did I want a single or a return trip? Single please - I... Sign in to see full entry.

10 October 2008 Determined to achieve something today, I set my alarm! Once up, I made my way towards the taxis parked in the hotel grounds. I have no idea what the protacol is with order, but I find I am approached by a portly driver with a rather gruff face. He seems to understand english (wey hey!). I explain my intention. He is not happy with this. A tour? In a taxi? (Oh he is going to get his money's worth out of this, hey?) I persist. For 200 birr for 2 hours. He laughs and scorns at the... Sign in to see full entry.

I couldn't sleep last night resorting into getting up and going on the internet. Consequently, I didn't wake up til 11hrs this morning. I was annoyed that I had lost so much of the day. I ordered coffee, checked mails and had a bath. I remember feeling queezy in the bathroom and a bit too sweaty but assumed it was because I had not eaten. I took my papers, books etc and went for lunch down by the poolside. I ordered a large water (wu-ha tel-ek) and vegetabe rice. As soon as I took a mouthful of... Sign in to see full entry.

!-- @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } --> After ordering coffee to my room, catching up with emails and having a bath (yippee!), I decided to investigate the 'olympic' sized pool in the hope that I may be able to get rid of some of my apprehension! As I suspected, the pool is filled with men! Everywhere! I think there maybe one female swimming but upon closer inspection, she would have been swimming topless, so I realised it must be a male with long hair! I... Sign in to see full entry.

07 October 2008 First full day!! Ah! Arrived this morning at 05hrs Ethiopian time (which I believe is 03hrs UK time). The flight was delayed by 2 hours from Heathrow due to engineering checks. I managed to get my 32kg luggage on without further charge, despite the 20kg maximum, by playing the charity card, but was not so successful with the upgrade. The flight was absolutely full. We arrived and were directed to the correct baggage reclaiming gate and then I checked in with the visa office... Sign in to see full entry.