It's been quite a while since I wrote anything in my blog. We're back in Montana after our 4+ month long African Overland Adventure. We've been busy since we've been home, seeing Elisha's family, I was terribly sick for over a week, and other excuses. I didn't write at all while I was in Africa because we didn't have much spare time or good access to computers as we were mostly camping; however, I did keep a written journal, which I will use to help me keep up-to-date on my blog. It may take a while for me to get through all of it, but I plan to also write about my trip while in Antarctica, so have patience with me. This won't include many photos, but be on the lookout for my photos on facebook next year!
A couple of interesting statistics from the trip. We spent 77 nights camping in a tent on the trip. All told, the trip was 124 days, 114 of those days being with Dragoman, the overland company. On the overland trip, we drove a total of 13,007 miles. On our own (in South Africa), we drove 525 miles, for a total of 13,532 miles. We actually drove more miles than that, this was just miles calculated on going from where we spent the previous night to where we would spend the next night. It didn't include things like game drives or driving to attractions if we weren't moving to a new place that night.
Again, sorry if this isn't great prose. I'm basically going to transcribe my journal notes so that I can get this all down and not spend too much time. For personal reasons, I use my blog mostly to remember dates, places, etc.
4/3/19 This evening, we drove from Heron, Montana to Spokane, Washington. Grandma Dorothy treated us to a tasty Vietnamese meal, and then we stayed at a really nice Air BnB in Spokane.
4/4/19 Very early flight from Spokane to Chicago where we had a layover and then an overnight flight to Paris, France
4/5/19 We arrived to Paris early in the morning and took the train into the city as we had about 13 hours of layover in the famous city of love. We walked around the city exploring--we walked by the Notre Dame (before the steeple burned a few weeks later), walked hand-in-hand along the Seine, and up to the Eiffel Tower. We walked down the famous Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triumph. We noticed all the broken windows and such from the riots and looting that had been happening the week before. We went by the glass pyramids of the Louvre, but didn't go inside. Throughout the day we snacked on panini sandwiches and nutella crepes. After a lot of walking and a falafel, we boarded the train and headed back to the airport before our overnight flight on Ethiopian Airways to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
4/6/19
We arrived to Addis Ababa airport. This was the first time we got a glimpse of our soon to be good friend Norbert from Germany (he is the only person that joined us for the whole trip from Gondar to Cape Town). He was at immigration saying "I'm Norbert Wilhelm and I have an e-visa". We later learned he hardly knew English, so the airport in Addis must have been scary for him. It was quite an unorganized airport. No info boards on what gates flights were at. We were constantly asking what gate our flight would be out of, and they said to keep waiting. Eventually our flight finally boarded and we took the short flight in a small plane to Gondar.
We were picked up and taken to our hotel, where we took a nice long nap. In the evening we had our group meeting where we met our Dragmon guides, Louise and Nick and the 20 other people on the trip. For safety, logistical ease, and cost savings (compared to private tours), Elisha and I had decided to join an overland group to travel through Africa. The company is a British based company that does Overland trips all over the world, and is known as Dragoman (it means translator in Arabic).
Then evening we all went out to a very nice Ethiopian restaurant. It was buffet style, where we got to sample all sorts of traditional dishes that go along with the injera (sourdough flatbread with a spongy texture made out of a grain called Teff). It was so tasty! Looking back, it was probably our best Ethiopian meal we had on our entire Ethiopian trip. We also got to watch traditional dancing (that had crazy body pulsing) and got to join in.
4/7/19
We did a half day tour of the ancient Gondar sites, visiting the Gondar castle complex, the Debre Birhan Selassie Church (with its famous painted murals), and the Fasilades Baths. These baths they fill up once a year for a holy day and thousands of people go in. All really cool. In the afternoon we ate more tasty Ethiopian food and walked around the city. And we had more yummy Ethiopian food for dinner.
Ethiopian, at one point was a powerful ancient civilization on par with the Romans, known as Abyssinia. It has lots of interesting history, very Indian Jones Style. It's been mostly Christian throughout history, and they believe that they have the Arc of the Convenant within the country as well as being the place of the Queen of Sheba. Currently, Ethiopia is 85% Ethiopian Orthodox Christian, 10% Muslim, and 5% Catholic/Protestant.
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