Giseny & Goma

From Kinigi we headed towards the Rwandan "beach ressort" of Giseny. It's a small village at the shores of Lake Kivu and has beautiful hotels along the lake. Despite being a holiday ressort it's not safe to swim in the lake as there is a large gas deposite at the bottom of the lake and sporadically bulbs rise to the surface which is lethal. Giseny is also a border city to DR Congo. 5km across is the Congo counterpart of Goma which unfortunately made it to the news these days due to the plane crash (this happened a couple hours after we had left Giseny).

Mountain Gorillas

Visiting the Mountain Gorillas is not easy (there are only 8 permits a day to protect them and these are typically taken by large international travel agencies - getting one as individual traveler was pretty difficult) and very expensive (500 USD per person). Nevertheless, it's worth the pain as it's a wonderful experience.
Once you have the permit you take a bus from Kigali to Ruhengeri (2.5h). There you change to another minibus to Kinigi where you jump onto the back of a motor bike which brings you to the camp at 2300m in a wonderul setting in the Rwanda - Congo border area with several volcanoes around. The highest is over 4000m and snow covered.
The next morning you meet your guide at 7 and drive a good hour on a bumpy road with a solid 4WD. There the Gorilla trackers as well as an army patrol waits. With an Army guy in front and the back you start to hike. After about an hour you reach the boundary of the jungle and it gets really interesting. It takes you another hour of climbing over bamboo and other plants till you reach the Gorillas close to 3000m. There you are in the middle of the jungle and in front of you is the Susa group (the largest Gorilla group with 39 animals). From the 1 month old baby up to the huge silverbacks gather there. It's an amazing experience and the hour with them just flies by.
Btw this is the area where Diane Fossey studied the Gorillas.

Gorillas

What are you doing here?

We are walking through Kigali on the way to the bus station when a white guy approaches us and asks "What are you doing here?". Well, traveling. "Yes, but what is the purpose of your visit?". Mmmh, holidays. "No other reason like business, just for holidays you come here?" The guy, which turns out to be from Kiev, doesn't feel comfortable at all here and apparentely wouldn't come here on his own. He was sent here for business and it's his first day in town. The next question is even better. "How do you handle security here? Do you carry a weapon?". Mmmh, probably not... (To put this into perspective. Kigali is a small city on cool 1500m above sea level and one of the most relaxed capitals in Africa. Guess it was his first visit to Africa.).

Kempala - Kigali

From Kempala we took the bus to Kigali (Rwanda). We "splurged" and took the VIP bus (15 USD instead of 10 USD for 9 hours) although I coulnd't really figure out what VIP stood for. The bus was pink, that must have been the P... . No in fact VIP means 4 seats in a row while normal would be 5 seats in a row. It's a pleasant 9 hour ride through wonderful green countryside. Entering Rwanda is a bit special. In Rwanda plastic bags are forbidden, yes - no joke and they inforce it. You have to open your luggage and they take away any plastic bag. There was this lady who had her shoes, shampoo etc all neatly packed in seperate plastic bags. She had to unpack everything. Luckily we had our plastic bags at the bottom of our backbag and they only looked at the top... Once that's over you enter hilly Rwanda with it's tea plantations, a wonderful countryside.

Entebbe & Kempala (Uganda)

We decided to skip Kenya for security reasons and fly directly to Entebbe (Uganda). The first thing you realize when flying into Uganda is that everything is green! A wonderful view. The second thing you spot are the huge amount of UN planes and helicopters at the airport. Beyond that, Entebbe is a tiny little "village" while Kempala is a lively city with a huge Chinese and Indian influence. They say Kempala overtook London in terms of Indian restaurants and they might be right. On the other hand traffic is crazy in Kempala and smog like hell...

Entebbe & Kempala (Uganda)

Bahar Dar

Between Aksum and Addis Abeba is Bahar Dar. A small city at a wonderful lake which gives it a rich vegetation. It's completely different to the dry north and it has kind of a beach atmosphere, also fersh as still on 1800m. The highlights of the lake are the monastries which are spread over many islands as well as the fact that the water of this lakes forms the source of the blue Nile. Another highlight is a night at a local bar... . We went to this bar with only locals (and us) where a men was singing improvised songs (that's the tradition, they sing about everything) and men and woman were dancing the local dance - best described as "shoulder shaking". Guess the locals had good fun that night as the singer kept on singing about us. Unfortunately we coulnd't understand anything as it was in Amharic but the laughter of the others showed that it must have been funny...

Bahar Dar, Ethiopia

Lalibela - Africa's Petra

What Petra is to Jordan, Lalibela is to Africa. 11 massive churches completly built into solid rock are an impressive sight. Besides the churches there is not much here. It's nice and fresh as it's on 2600m in the mountains. Only few people live here and it's mainly farming they do. Therefore donkeys are the main 'machine' used in the area.

Lalibela

Aksum - nothern Ethiopia

Ethiopia is a large and hilly country. Consequentially the ground transport takes quite a while. Eg Addis to Aksum would be two days by bus one way... . Therefore we decided to fly up there. Aksum is in the very north towards the borders of Eritrea and Sudan. It's a small village at 2100m above sea level which used to be a large ancient city. Today it's a relaxed little place with camels and the ruins of this city.

Aksum

Getting a Chinese Visa in Addis Abeba

As we intend to travel through China towards the end of our trip we took advantage of the time in Ethiopia to apply for a Chinese visa in Addis. Well, applying for a Chinese visa in Addis is pain! Why? China tries to keep the number of job seeking Ethiopians low and therefore makes the process lenghty and complex. So there I stand in front of the embassy at the end of a line of about 20 people. Nothing happens for 10 minutes, 20 minutes,... half an hour. Not one single person moves in. Interpolating how much time it would take me to get in (rather days than hours) I get a bit worried... . Eventually the door opens and one person is allowed in. I take the chance and talk to the guard who just replies with WAIT! Seems like there is nothing to do. But then he sees my passports and says, "ahhh Red Cross, please come in". I hesitate for a second as it's not very fair but then decide to take advantage of his colour blindness and move in as it's the only chance for us to get the visa. 30 minutes later I applied for the visa. A week later I'm there again waiting to pick up the visa when a young chinese guy walks out for a smoke. We chat together and it turns out that he is a Chinese Army representative at the Embassy. After an interesting chat he leaves with the words, wait here. He returns with a self burned CD ROM with a PDF file of a scaned China Lonely Planet on it that I can read a bit about China. Great isn't it? Applying for a visa and even get a copy of Lonely Planet?

Traveling cheaply?

Ethiopia is one of the cheapest African countries to travel in. Therefore it's definitely a good start to travel there if you're on budget. If you want to reduce costs even more then you can book a flight with Ethiopian airlines... We already mentioned the trip Lusaka - Mumbai earlier. Afterwards we booked some domestic flights in Ethiopia. You won't believe it but we are now up to 3 free nights (Hotel paid by Ethiopian Airlines) plus 200 USD compensation as they keep on missing connections, canceling flights etc. For us it was no problem as we planed with some spare time and it gave us the opportunity to stay at much nicer hotels than we would usually stay at. (Saila, please don't travel with Ethiopian Airlines. Their reliability combined with your travel luck...)

Agonda (Goa)

From Hosped we moved no by train towards Panaji and then Agonda in Goa. Agonda is a small village with more cows at the beach then people (yes, that's true). We enjoyed very relaxed days including Yoga with a "Guru", delicious fish, Dolphin watching etc.

Agonda (Goa)

Different time, calendar,...

Due to the orthodox influence Ethiopia uses the Julian calendar which is 8 years "behind". We therefore had the unique opportunity to go back to the Millenium year 2000! It's a huge party here! The year consists of 13 months and it starts on 13. September, simple isn't it? To make it even "simpler" they have a different time format. Sun rise is at 12 (our time it would be 0600), sun set is again at 12 (1800). Due to the global influence they now mix "our" and their time and you always have to check...

Ethiopia is different

Yes, it's really quite different to the other African countries. One of the reasons is that it was pretty much the only African country which was never a colony. The Amharic is a very unique language, the food (injera, fir fir,...) is totally different, they use different time as well as calendar and the people are quite different as well.

Goa - Mumbai - Addis

From Goa we moved on by Jetair to Mumbai where we stayed for one night and had some nice experiences (eg Taxi drive who gets lost after confirming he knows where the place is, book shops which are closed but still sell a book after long negotiations etc) - in short it was fun! From there we went back to Ethiopia and everything went fine on this flight.

The shortest night...

... of my life. Backtracking slightly to Mysore. After visiting Mysore we bought a ticket for the nightbus to Hospet, since there is no other public transport connection on this route. The only bus doing this 10hour ride is a semi-deluxe (yes it sounds good but it's actually 3rd class behind Volvo and Deluxe - they just use nice words for this class). Well, the bus wasn't too bad, it had 4 wheels, chairs and windows and we didn't change one tire along the route! As we were waiting for the departure a police men came to us and said 'take care of your luggage on this bus'. We followed his advice. Finally neither the bus nor thieves were a problem but the driver combined with the roads! We have driven quite a bit in Africa and other countries but this one was special. He drove like crazy and the roads were obviously unsealed making it really bumpy. You can imagine the feeling of waking up due to a huge bump and seeing two headlights of a truck a couple of meters in front of you...! In short, we arrived.

Swiss colonies...

We have now seen the Portuguese influence several times on this trip (Mozambique, Goa) plus many more times on earlier trips. On one of the long bus trips (yes, there is plenty of time to think about many things...) we thought through a Scenario of Swiss colonies. How would the world be like if not the Spanish and Portuguese (and other countries) set off to found colonies but Switzerland?
Could you imagine that most of South America as well as parts of Africa and Asia would speak Swiss German, eat cheese fondue and sell pocket knifes and watches as souvenirs? Well, frankly speaking I think it's better the Portuguese did that...

Hampi & Goa

We had a great time in Hampi and later on in Goa, which we reached by train and bus. In Panaji (Goa) we enjoyed the Portuguese food and the nice little roads before we relaxed at the beach in Agonda (Goa). It was wonderful!

Hampi

Panaji & Old Goa (Goa)

Mysore

A beautiful city with a wonderful palace, a colourful market and a relaxed atmosphere with a lot of cows on the roads. Last but not least delicious food!

Mysore

Swiss scenes...

We were on the bus from Bangalore to Mysore together with Roman and Tobi - two ABB guys who were also at the wedding - and had a good laugh when we saw this Indian music song with the video clip showing Bern, the Swiss capital. We had a good laugh at this while the Indians had a good laugh at us taking pictures of the TV...

Wedding Aravind & Vidya - Day 2

What a day! A huge party starting with breakfast followed by ceremonies, lunch, further ceremonies, coffee, more ceremonies and a cake to finish in the evening. THANKS a lot Aravind & Vidya, it was wonderful!

Wedding Aravind & Vidya - Day 2

Wedding Aravind & Vidya - Day 1

The first day was mainly to greet and take pictures with the guests while the ceremonies were held on the second day. Overall there were 1600 people there that night...

Wedding Aravind & Vidya - Day 1

Visiting Srikanth in Bangalore

We had two great evenings with Srikanth and his wife in Bangalore. Clubbing at Fuga, delicious dinner at Hotel Imperial and watching the latest Bolywood movie (in Hindi obviously, without subtitles - thanks for the translations). Thanks a lot!

Visiting Srikanth in Bangalore

Lusaka-Kigali-Addis Abeba-Mumbai-Bengaluru

Our flight from Africa to India was a unique experience for us. I'll try to explain it. 1. Booking - We booked the Ethiopian Air flight Lusaka-Bangalore, Goa-Entebbe in Switzerland prior to departure. Everything went just perfect. 2. Flight confirmation - Typically we don't reconfirm flights these days (haven't done it for yeras) but somehow we felt like we should do it this time. Luckily we did and our travel agent warned us that there was a change in the flight schedule and we would miss the connection in Addis (thanks Carina @ Globetrotter). 3. Re-booking - With this information we headed to the Ethiopian Air office in Lusaka to re-book our flight. A small office with about 20 people waiting in front of us. After waiting about half an hour and seeing no progress (while the office door said it would close in 20 min) I asked the lady and said "Sorry, we have an urgent topic, could you please take care of it?". She "When is your flight?" and me again "Tomorrow, that's why it's urgent" and she replied with a smile "all the other people here will fly today, don't worry...". We eventually talked to a lady but she didn't know of any change in the flight schedule... . With local help (thanks Peter) we tried it through a travel agent and got the confirmation that we would have to spent a night in Addis due to the change. 4. Check-in We agreed that a night in Addis would be no problem as we planed backup days for such situations. With that in mind we went to the check in and told the lady that we knew about the change and that check in to Addis only would be ok. She looked a bit strange at us when we told her that and she said "No problem, I checked in many passengers to Mumbai today, the plane will wait for you". 5. Lusaka - Kigali - Addis Abeba With boarding passes all the way to India we entered the plane. The pilot informed us that instead of flying directly to Addis Abeba (Ethiopia) we would do a stop over in Kigali (Rwanda) to pick up some passengers. That's what we did and obviously we arrived late in Addis and the plane to Mumbai was gone. 6. Nice hotel & upgrade That wasn't a problem at all as we were a group of about 25 people (23 Indians on the way home and 2 Swiss...). Ethiopian Airlines organized a Visa for us, booked us a nice hotel in Addis and even gave us an Upgrade to Business class for the flight to Mumbai. As you can imagine we enjoyed a nice day in Addis before tasting local Ethiopian food with Martini in Ethiopian Airlines Buiness class... (luckily they made this stop over in Kigali)

MyClimate

Traveling from Africa to India and back causes quite a bit of CO2 emmissions. In order to compensate this, we are supporting MyClimate with a donation for a wind farm project in Madagaskar (sorry ABB guys, they use small turbines - too small for ABB).

Visiting Theola and Peter in Lusaka

From Livingstone we took the bus to Lusaka (8h) which was a very nice experience. For the first time we were able to book the ticket the day before, there was a departure time, the bus was on time and even served a snack while driving - just great! In Lusaka we had a wonderful time with Theola, Peter and the entire family (including two very cute kittens Katrin would have loved to take with us...). We were treated like kings, Peter showed us around and helped us rebooking our changed flight to India. Thanks a lot - we enjoyed it very much!

Visiting Theola & Peter in Lusaka

Ferry from Botswana to Zambia

Crossing into Zambia was an experience. Botswana and Zambia are seperated by the Sambezi (the river which a couple kilometers further down poors down the Vic Falls). The border crossing is by ferry. As it's a highly frequented crossing for trucks and the ferry only takes one a time, there are kilometers of trucks waiting on the Botswana side - impressive side. Once at the front we learned that one of the two ferries is broken. So we waited for the other one and had a nice short ride across.

Ferry Botswana - Zambia

Victoria Falls

Visiting the Victoria Falls is impressive and "refreshing"... We spent a day each on the Zimbabwean and the Zambian side and had a good "shower" on both days! Impressive how the huge amount of water poors down. The world is small. As we were walking through the Vic Falls park we met a French couple we earlier stayed at the Okavango Delta with. We had a drink together at the wonderful Victoria Falls hotel before heading back to our slightly different backpacker... PS: On the bridge connecting Zimbabwe and Zambia we saw a truck with "ABB" plates...

Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe & Zambia)

Okavango Delta, Botswana

The northern part of Botswana (towards Zambia/Namibia/Angola) is covered by the Okavango Delta. It's an unique delta as the river does not enter the sea but dries up in a large delta area. As water is rare in this otherwise desert like area, the animals concentrate around the delta. A wonderful place to spot animals. We took the bus from Francistown to Maun (6h) before entering a small plane. There is no other way to get into the delta than by plane. It was only the pilot and the two of us for this 30min flight. In the delta we stayed at a little lodge with space for only 10 guests. From there we did day and night game drives, mokoro as well as boat trips. We had a great time!

Okavango Delta, Botswana

Zimbabwe - the other side

Having showed the negative side, it is very important to show the much nicer other side. Zimbabwe is a wonderful country with very warm and welcoming people! The mountain area is covered by lush green forests, the cities are nice and clean and there are fascinating sites such as Great Zimbabwe (an old stone village). Not to mention the world famous Victoria Falls. Some episodes. - We met a woman on the road who was very excited! "Wow backpackers - haven't seen any for months!" - We tried to visit a national park 25km south of Mutare. What would be a morning trip in most countries turned out to be a full day trip (only with a lot of luck, typically it would not be possible in a day). The reason therefore is the lack of regional transport. We had to hitch and after waiting a good hour got a ride on the back of a pick up together with 3 others, a bike and a lot of luggage for the first segment. We then waited another hour besides the road together with two Police men - who were hitching as well as they had no own means of transport... . Together with them we got a lift for a couple of kilometers. We then walked 1.5 hours through wonderful forests before getting another ride to the destination... - As you can see I opened a hairdresser's shop in Masvingo... (there are two options, 6mm or 12mm)

Zimbabwe - the other side

Zimbabwe - one side

We entered Zimbabwe from Mozambique into Mutare and crossed through the mountain area to Masvingo and Bulawayo before leaving into Francistown, Botswana. Zimbabwe has to very different sides, therefore two entries. The unfortunately more famous side is the negative side due to the current political situation. There is incredible inflation (over 3000%!!!) which makes you walk around with a huge amount of paper which is worth nothing (50 USD were 1 Billion Zimb Dollar) and even less if you keep it till the next day! In addition there is a shortage of pretty much everything. Supermarkets are empty, gas for cars is very rare which causes public transport to dry up and leaving hitching often the only option and and and... Elections are upcoming in 2 weeks (24h propanda is running on TV, incredible) and there was a certain tension mixed with hope in the air. Let's see how it turns out. Hopefully peaceful!

Zimbabwe - one side