Nairobi and Masai Mara May29

Nairobi and Masai Ma...

Nairobi has become our major hub during the East-Africa trip. Since there are a number of budget carriers located in Kenya, getting around this part of the continent is quite affordable. For instance, we did manage to buy our tickets for the Entebbe to Nairobi flight during a transit stop on...

Sleeping policemen in Murchinson Falls National Park May26

Sleeping policemen in Murchinson Falls National Pa...

Our land border crossing on the road from Kigali (Rwanda) to Kampala (Uganda) was easier than anticipated. The ceremony of getting processed at customs resembled some South American crossings during my recent trip there: Getting off the local bus, filling out immigration forms no one ever reads, queuing to get the exit stamp in the passport, walk about 500 meters across the border, filling out again customs forms that no one ever reads, bribing my way through the queuing crowd, getting the entry stamp and – finally board the bus again. All in all, this process took Evgeny, Tatjana and me about one hour. We then arrived a few hours...

Smuggling plastic bags to Kigali May23

Smuggling plastic ba...

One of the surprises for this trip was presented to me by Evgeny just before we left Moscow: We would visit four instead of two countries in East Africa. So I came pretty unprepared to Rwanda. Evgeny’s Lonely Planet guidebook served me to have a quick glimpse at visa procedures which...

Lalibela and my soul to keep May15

Lalibela and my soul...

Having read the excellent sci-fi novel “My Soul To Keep” by Tananarive Due, I was familiar with the town of Lalibela which featured as “the city of priests and rock-hewn churches” in the story. As much as I had trouble to stop reading this great novel, I found it...

De-Birring tourists at the rock-hewn churches of Tigray May13

De-Birring tourists ...

A visit to the Tigray region, in the northern part of Ethiopia is a must for any visitor on the historic circuit through this country. This region is bordering Eritrea and Sudan. Although the travel advisory of the Swiss government did warn about visits to this area, Evgeny and I found it to...

Dawn at high noon in Aksum May11

Dawn at high noon in...

Still confused about the last posting about traveling back in time using the Ethiopian calendar? Well, then let me stir a bit more the possum: Ethiopia uses a 12-hour clock system. The first cycle is from dawn to dusk, the second one dusk to dawn. This means, that the start of the day is dawn...