Not that I expected any calls but I wanted to let you know that I lost my mobile in Ethiopia. I may receive a new sim card soon and may even keep my old number. The problem: with the the phone I lost most of your telephone numbers.
We are back in Addis to meet some friends and to enjoy austrian food in Christine's and Hermann's home. Christine works at the Austrian embassy and they have Gulyas, and deer sausages, and Bergkaes (the smelliest and best chees from the western most parts of Austria). soooooo good!
Will we ever make it to Kenya?

Awright, looks like the worst case scenario was yet to come. So forget about suspension, brakes, and Paolo. In the Bale Mountains in the south of Ethiopia our gearbox got completely jammed. St. George couldn’t move an inch and no way to repair the damn thing. How we imported a used gearbox from Austria and how this gearbox was transformed into a differential in order to become a legal immigrant is another story. You may then also read how 200% import tax helped to legalise the general illegalness of gearbox imports into Ethiopia. Tomorrow we will start down south again to meet St. George and hand over his Christmas present: a used, oily gearbox from Zirl. Then it’s time to get to Kenya. There, we were told it’s warm (in the Bale Mountains it’s almost as cold as in Europe at the moment) and the country looks like Africa is supposed to look. Yes, we were told so.

What is a worst case scenario? Yes, I know it’s an album by Deus, but that’s not exactly what I mean. Well, in fact it is what I mean. We got that alum as a present before we left. But when are we supposed to put it on? How can we know in the middle of our journey? Is there a worst case scenario for the car and one for ourselves? If there is one for the car, what about the Sudanese roads or rather what the Sudanese roads did to our car: The Sudanese roads are not too good. In fact, they are really really bad. They make the suspension work a lot. If the suspension is too soft this may cause problems, the workload I mean. It may make the shock absorbers fly skywards. In order to do so, they need to break lose from the frame. First, it’s only one that may go but the remaining absorber may be reluctant to do all the work on its own. Therefore it’s very likely that it also goes. When both shock absorbers are gone the axle is all free to do what it likes. It likes to jump like a mad bull on a stampede with the body of our Land Rover being the Cowboy. The bull normally will be released after 7 seconds and little harm is done to the rider. Our car was riding the bull for two days carrying 160l of fuel, 80l of water and a mad Italian hitchhiker named Paolo. Paolo, besides being a very nice person, was a bit of a smartass. If I was the car, Paolo alone would have caused me to break down. The jumping axle started to bash the exhaust pipe making it break on several spots. A broken exhaust makes a lot of noise. It really does. Anyway, that’s not yet a worst case scenario. What made the bad scenario worse was again the axle. This time it started to kill the break pipe. I could floor the break pedal without resistance (otherwise nice as it goes so easy). So we ended up in riding a crazy bull, roaring like a starfighter on afterburner and unable to stop. That is definitely worse but not yet a worst case. It only got a worst case scenario when during all this, Paolo started to explain elaborately how he would have done it (always stressing that he was not a mechanic, but….).
No, he is still alive. However, his ride was over soon after (the official explanation: weight reasons).

Nobody will tell you. The guide books don’t mention anything. None of the overlanders we met told us a thing. Not even the locals would inform us. Nothing. Therefore we were absolutely surprised when we suddenly arrived in Africa. I know, there is no such thing as Africa but we all have imaginations. We drove through a little gorge and on the other side everything was different. There was no more desert. After one and a half months of sand and dust the land was green or rather brownish green (Africa after all). There were no more arab style houses but round huts made of clay with roofs of straw or reed. Cattle was everywhere: goats, sheep, and cows. Faaaantastic! Then everything went quite quickly. We drove for half a day, slept in the bush, drove another half day and arrived at the Ethiopian border. Again everything was different: no more burocracy, everything straight forward. We were through in an hour and heading for the customs office about 30km away from the border. That’s where the day started to get interesting. The customs office was closed (lunch time). So we had a cup of 5 spoons of sugar dissolved in tea on a roadside tea stand. We talked with the locals and a boy asked us whether we could give him a lift to his parents’ place. Of course we could. After an hour’s drive we arrived at his home and invited us for coffee. Ethiopians are world champions in making coffee. They invented it after all and the coffee ceremony is famous. They even roast their coffee beans freshly on a charcoal stove. Yeahh! The house was also great: There was the boy’s mother, her daughters, and the daughters’ children plus three calves that behaved like dogs. After one and a half months of instant coffee and this sugar saturated tea I drank the best coffee in the world. Can you imagine? Time went on and we left to arrive in the net town before it got dark. We had just left when we had to stop for cattle crossing the road. A boy approached the car and asked me something in amharic. I had no idea what he was talking about and mentioned he name of the city we were heading for. 30 seconds later, another boy was sitting on our hood clinging to our wipers and we drove on. After a while we tried to find out what was going on and asked the boy inside. He wouldn’t understand a word and wouldn’t come in. He looked quite ill, was totally frightened and spoke not a word of English. In the next village we asked the people to tell us what was going on and get the boy inside. By the time he was almost deep frozen but would come inside. In the following village I tried again to ask the people. I told them that he probably needed a doctor.
All the people started to laugh their heads off and told me that the boy was not at all a doctor but a farmer. Conversation can be so refreshingly efficient! Anyway, it turned out that they had a clinic there; we gave the boy some money and drove on. We decided that we like days like that!!

Damn, the UN spoiled our statistics. We were going to prove that all Scandinavians you meet on African roads have names starting with a J. Now we can’t anymore because the UN employed Michael from Denmark. Anyway, we didn’t meet Michael on the road but in the Addis Hilton. What WE did in the Addis Hilton is another story. On the photo you can see Jarle and Johan representing 100% of Scandinavians we met on African roads (www.cape2cape.no). Behind them you can see Betsy. Betsy does not start with a J but Betsy isn’t Scandinavian. She is from South Africa. See how good our statistics were if it wasn’t for the UN.
We also have prepared a little quiz for you. If you answer the question correctly you can win a valuable prize. To start, see the other photo of Betsy and tell us in which device she hides a water tank. It’s well disguised, and no, it’s not the shovel. If your answer is right you may win yourself a set of 5 pens to be donated by Ethiopian children.
Jarle tried to convince us that a car needs a name. According to him, this is particularly true for a 34 year old Land Rover and is absolutely necessary in case a 34 year old Land Rover is yellow in colour. Ok, we sort of agreed but we are bad in giving names to things that don’t respond when you call them. So we were glad that Jarle came up with a name that seemed an almost perfect choice: St. George. What a holy name! You really need a saint on such a trip especially in a senile Land Rover. It’s also the name of an Ethiopian beer with very stylish yellow labels. We are still working on a sponsorship contract (will let you know in case we are successful). At the moment it’s still rather us sponsoring the brewery.