Easyopia

A wise man once said: "We must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy." That wise man was Albus Dumbledore...

In most cases I would like to think that I choose what is right, but sometimes the easy choice is just too convenient. So when I was faced with the two options of either applying for a new passport and then a new visa for Sudan which would take a lot of effort and very long time or just flying over and landing in Ethiopia, the easy option proved too tempting. 
It's strange because when I started planning this trip I always knew Sudan would be a nightmare of a place to travel through, but over time it had really become a nightmare I was looking forward to. So it is quite dissapointing how much damage this one Israeli stamp can cause and being a rather stubborn person I hate breaking my own rules and not achieving my goals, but then another wise man told me: "Goals are deceptive, an unaimed arrow never misses it's target." Actually I'm not sure who told me that, it may have been on the inside of a Mars-bar wrapper, but still.
Anyway we did take a flight from Cairo to Addis Ababa, and that's where we are now.

Luxorious Travel

Founded by Alexander the Great in 332 BC, and the capital of Cleopatra's Empire, Alexandria lies strategically on the Mediterranean coast. It was once the home of the world's largest library and the Pharos Lighthouse which was an ancient wonder of the world, however both landmarks were destroyed long ago and today the town offers more of a French colonial charm. We spent two days strolling along the corniche, seeing different sights and museums before catching the train back to Cairo. In Cairo we got on the night-train south along the Nile confusingly taking us from Lower Egypt to Upper Egypt, arriving in the Nubian part of the country and the town of Aswan the morning after. In Aswan we saw the world's third highest dam, aptly named The High Dam, and it was damn high. Then started our temple-run tour, seeing Philae and the impressive but hard to reach Abu Simbel. We stayed one night cruising the world's longest river in a felucca (traditional Egyptian sailboat) before heading north to Luxor where our temple-spotting continued. We checked off Kom Ombo and Edfu on the way up before adding: Hatshepsut, Luxor, Karnak and the tombs in the Valley of the Kings once we had gotten to the city. So we have now seen thousands of hieroglyphs and our study can only come to the conclusion that there is not a single one which depicts the classic "Walk like an Egyptian" pose, and this must therefor be a myth either started by The Bangles or of unknown origin. After two days in Luxor we caught the night-train back to Cairo, where we now have a day to kill before moving onto new destinations...

In garnment related news: A testament to how much walking we've done is the fact that both of us have worn out the shoes we started the trip with, and thus have had to reward ourselves with new footwear, suitingly on or slightly prior to Christmas, which should hopefully last us a while.

Walk like an Egyptian

Port Said lies at the northern most point of the Suez Canal where it meets the Mediterranean Sea. It was good to see this marvelous feat of mankind, but in all honesty there wasn't really alot to see, so the next day we got on a bus to Cairo. In Cairo we found a hostel just a stones-throw (pun intended) from the famous Tahrir Square which has been the center of attention during the recent Egyptian Revolution. There were alot of people gathered in and around the square, but the demonstrations we witnessed seemed peaceful allthough there were apparantly some bloody clashes with several fatal casualties during our time in the capital. We spent our time here walking around the crowded, messy  streets and crazy traffic. We had a full day of pyramid scheming, going to three different sights including the only remaining ancient wonder of the world, the Pyramids of Giza. It was very impressive to finally see these incredible structures which were somehow built here over 4000 years ago, but the experience was slightly hampered by the pestering camel-touts and hustlers lurking everywhere. The Egyptian Museum was also an interesting experience and it's incredible how well preserved everything is, however the large amount of exibits, over 100,000 items, including: tombs, mummies and the golden treasures found in Tutankhamen's tomb, make it almost too much to take in. After four days in the huge city we moved on to Alexandria.

They tried to make me go to Dahab...

I'd like to start by appologising and adding two corrections to my previous post.

Nr 1: The Tajik city of Dushanbe has erected a flagpole which is 165m tall, also there is a North Korean flagpole which stands at 160m and therefor the flagpoles in Amman and Aqaba have been knocked down to fifth and fourth place respectivley.

Nr 2: I wrote that we would take the ferry across the Red Sea to the African Continent. Technically I think the African continent starts west of the Suez canal, so even if we have now reached Egypt we are still in Asia on the Sinai Peninsula. 

Now back to business. After some more Amazing Race style running we just managed to catch the ferry following some contradicting information on departure times. Two hours later we were in the harbour of Nuweiba where we after some minor problems were allowed entry to Egypt. From here we got in a minibus which drove us to Dahab. Not long ago a quiet Bedouin fishing village on the shores of the Red Sea, backpackers found Dahab and converted it into a tranquil beach spot. Today it has once more transformed and now offers relaxation to a wider spectrum of tourists. We enjoyed our first real beach-life of the trip and wasted a few days just relaxing on the small beach and snorkeling in the crystalblue water. Unfortunatley it was in these clear blue settings I was tempted to experiment my camera's underwater features. It turns out my camera is not quite as waterproof as it claims to be, and doesn't function properly anymore. After getting our dose of sea, sand and sun we travelled north on the Sinai Peninsula through the desert and stopped at the Mediterranean mouth of the Suez Canal in the town of Port Said.

Petrafied

Being one of the modern 7 wonders of the world, made famous by Steven Spielberg in the third installment of Indiana Jones and perhaps even more famous by Karl Pilkington in season one of "An Idiot Abroad," Petra had a whole lot to live up to, and it really did. We got to the town of Wadi Mousa early on Saturday morning, found a hostel and got straight to the ancient sight. Petra was built by the Nabateans around 2400 years ago and most of what is still visible today was originally tombs carved out of the sandstone cliffs. We spent the first day trying to see all the major points of the vast landscape and then got an early start on the second day walking off the main trails getting away from the busloads of Japanese and American tourists and within a minute you are all alone walking amongst tombs and mountains with incredible views of the valley shifting in different shades of red, orange and yellow. Petra may very well be the most beautiful place I have ever seen and who can put a price on seeing that... Well somebody did and apparantly it is 50 Jordanian Dinars (500 kr) for one day, however a two-day pass is only 55 JD so taking an extra day is well worth it. I could have spent weeks walking around the unbelievable scenery but we decided to get a move on and made our next stop the Wadi Rum desert. Once again this required an early start as we first got a bus to the desert entrance and then spent the whole day being driven around the red sand landscape in a 4x4. After that we got to our Bedouin tent-camp, watched the sunset and had a huge dinner. It gets pretty cold at night around these parts, but seeing all the stars and the fullmoon in absolute silence made the freezing sleep worth it. The following morning we got a taxi to the nearby town of Aqaba, where we saw what was once the world's tallest freestanding flagpole (today in second place at 130m high with the same flag dimensions as the flag in Amman, the tallest flagpole is located in Turkmenistan so this should be the last I write about it for a while at least.) I also managed to complete my trio of Med, Dead and Red for the trip by taking a quick dip in the waters off the Aqaba coast. Tomorrow we hope to get the ferry across these same waters and with any luck finally reach Egypt and the African continent.    

This is Amman's World

The trip from Jerusalem to Amman should have been pretty straight forward, just crossing a bridge over the river Jordan and then arriving in the capital an hour or so later, but you know how things go. After taking a minibus to the Allenby-Bridge border we were told they couldn't issue visas for us there so we should go to the Sheikh Hussein bridge a few hours north. Our problem was that we had passed a checkpoint two minutes drive away, something the taxi-drivers knew, and thus they could charge us 50 shekels (roughly 100kr or 10£) for the short ride. Our luck changed for the better short after as the first car that passed turned out to be driven by a friendly Israeli named Roy, who had done some backpacking and felt sorry for us. Roy gave us a lift half the way up north, where we could catch a bus. After about an hours wait the bus arrived and we were on it for a while until the next checkpoint, where Israeli soldiers found us suspicious and decided to search our luggage and interrogate us in the pouring rain, after we were cleared of any possible crime we got back on our bus for a bit more. When we got off the bus we asked the driver how far the Jordan border was and he told us 5-10 minutes walk, this turned out to be 90 minutes (carrying about 1/3 of my bodyweight on my back) Finally we reached the control and had no problems on either side, then we got a 2 hour cab-ride to Amman and managed to find a bed and some food, 10 hours after setting off. The following morning we walked around the city, seeing the ancient citadel, markets and what was once the worlds tallest freestanding flagpole (today in 3rd place with a flag measuring 60x30m waving off of a 126.8m high pole.) Other than this there didn't seem to be all that much to see so we caught the earliest bus to Petra on Saturday morning. 

Everyday's a Holyday

We kept on following Jesus footsteps but opted for the bus to Jerusalem rather than hike. Jerusalem was an exciting place and we spent a jampacked week exploring the city and nearby locations, here follows a brief explanation of our excursions.

Jerusalem: To use a cliche, it is a place steeped in history, the old city confined inside the old city walls dates back about 3000 years and is home to some of the holiest sights of the three major religions; Judaism, Christianity and Islam, today it is dived by these three groups and the fourth quarter belongs to the Armenians (of course.) We stayed in a hostel just outside the old city which turned out to be a good option as once again there was an interesting crowd of people here and the nightlife was entertaining. Jerusalem also boasts the new Holocaust Museum which was very moving although it leaves you slightly drained after spending almost an entire day inside the complex.

Hebron: A very complex situation, today most of Hebron is Palestinian, but Jewish settlers have claimed a portion of the town. So now 4000 Israeli soldiers control the border and try to keep the four hundred Jews (who appear to be the worst troublemakers) apart from the 150 000 Palestinians who live on the other side of the occupied territory.

Bethlehem: Oh little town which is in the West Bank and part of the Palestinian territory, another place very important to the life of Jesus as according to the fairytale this is where he was born. However I was more impressed with the huge wall erected by the Israelis to separate themselves from Palestine and the graffiti upon it amongst many artists I saw my first Banksy pieces in Bethlehem.

Dead Sea: We went to Ein Gedi beach at the lowest point on earth to enjoy a relaxing day at the spa, but when we reached the spa we were told they had no running water so we chose the free public beach to take in this fascinating experience which words can't really describe. Floating effortlessly in the extremely salty sea completely blew my mind.

However after more than a week, we felt we needed to get moving again and wanted to get out of Israel before the Sabbath (or Shabbat) which falls roughly between Friday sunset and Saturday sunset, and completely shuts down the entire nation, including transport. So Thursday morning we started our trip towards Jordan...

Nazareth of fresh air

We got to Nazareth and The Fauzi Azar Inn, which is probably the most beautiful hostel I have ever seen, without any complications. Then we spent two full days exploring what Jesus former hometown had to offer. There wasn't as many tourists as I had expected which was nice, and it was interesting visiting places where fictional events I've heard about all my life took place, kind of like visiting Hogwarts or Narnia. We hiked around town and the Lake of Galillee seeing the church of multiplication, the basilica of annunciation, the small village of Capernaum and loads of other scenes from the best-selling book, then decided we were done with Nazareth and got on the bus via Afula to Jerusalem.

I's raeli F*cked it up this time!

After breaking the rules and getting on the short flight, things went from bad to worse as my left ear started playing up. In this one moment of deaf weakness I let my guard down and managed to get the one blodge of ink that I can't have in my passport. It all went very fast and before I knew it I saw the fateful Israeli stamp punching against my clean page right next to my Sudanese visa. This messes up months of planning as I will need to get a new passport and visa if I want to enter Sudan, but I just have to take it for what it is and laugh at how ridiculous the rules and regulations of the world are. Tel Aviv turned out to be a great city after a short interogation and a few hours sleep at the airport we got to our hostel in the trendy Florentine area. We ended up staying longer than we had planned as we got comfortable not doing alot really. We walked around the different markets, went for a jog and swim at the beach, saw the old town and port of Jaffa, watched the Tel Aviv football-derby where Hapoel beat Maccabi and just enjoyed ourselves in general with the hostel crowd. However it was a surprisingly expensive city with pretty much the same prices as Stockholm, and we decided we had to move on, catching a bus north to Nazareth.

Cyprus Fail

Once we reached Tasucu we wanted to cross over to Cyprus directly, but we were told that the seas were too rough for the short passage and that all boats were cancelled. We ended up just having to spend two days there, but there was absolutely nothing to do so it felt much longer. The only boat that was able to make the trip was the car-ferry which left at midnight and takes a much longer time than the express-boat but waiting longer wasn't an option for us so we took it. We got to the Turkish side of Cyprus next morning and proceeded to taking a few different buses crossing over to the Greek side and arriving in the port-town of Limassol later that evening. In Limassol we have spent some time doing the cultural stuff, visiting ruins, etc, but a lot of the time has been dedicated to finding a way out of the country. However as we have feared for quite some time it just isn't possible to do it without flying. Ever since Greece we have been looking at our options and found that our timing is just off, had we made this trip a year ago we would have had plenty of options, but following the "Arab Spring" and the aftermath of it, we just can't find a way to do it. We've been in contact with cargo companies, port-authorities, cruise-companies and everything in between, but nobody has a solution for us. It's quite sad that some of the world's oldest sea-routes in the Mediterranean are no longer running all due to political issues and border-disputes, but that's the way the world works and we just have to accept that I guess. So now we have booked our flights to Tel Aviv and if everything goes to plan we should be landing in Israel just before midnight.

Alternative Living

We got to Cappadocia in the heart of Turkey and the small town of Göreme early in the morning and decided to start exploring the area straight away. It really is an amazing albeit very peculiar place, giant stone pillars rise out of the desert landscape and for thousands of years people have hollowed them out to make everything from small pigeon-huts to huge Monasteries. We stayed in a cave-room (rumoured to have accommodated Jimi Hendrix back in the sixties) which was very warm and cozy, and took two days to check this mysterious location with all it's fairy-chimneys and underground cities out. However Cappadocia was freezing cold and despite my efforts to escape the snow it turns out I got to see it before Stockholm did this winter. We decided to seek warmer climates and opted for the small Goa or Thailand-esque hamlet called Olympos on the Mediterranean coast. Once again though Mother Nature trumped us and the 23°C and sun we were lured with had turned into lower teen degrees and rain by the time we arrived. Still it was a great place offering some very interesting sights. First of all you have the ruins of the ancient Roman city Olympos and for a mere 3 Turkish Lira (roughly 12kr or 1£) you are allowed to wander the forests freely among collapsed churches, theatres and roman baths without some guide telling you what not to touch and what not to take photographs of. Also roughly an hours trek away you have the strange phenomena known as Yanartaş, where flames come straight out of the mountain rock-face. For at least 2500 years these flames have kept burning, once large enough to be seen from the ocean they used to be used for sea-navigation today they have shrunk considerably, still they are a baffling and impressive sight.

Our two nights in Olympos were spent in a tree-house and if the cave-room was warm and cozy this was quite the opposite, allthough I guess that is to be expected from a room with no heating and gaping holes in the walls. We then caught three buses heading East, first to Antalya then Silifke and Taşucu where we continued our tradition of odd dwellings for the week, with a few hours rest at bus-station cafes and docks. From Taşucu we hope to catch a ferry to Cyprus, but more about that when I know how it goes.

Turkish Delight

Istanbul is an amazing city and we have just ended up getting stuck here for a while. We started our visit by staying in Sultanahmet which is where most of the tourist-sights like the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sofia are but after a few days we decided to move over to Beyoğlu which is where most of the bars are. Here we've just been hanging out with a bunch of really nice people and done the occasional trip somewhere like watching a Galatasary footballmatch, going to a Turkish Hamam and crossing the Bosphorus river where Europe and Asia meet. The two sides are quite similar allthough there aren't as many tourists in Asia, they have a bit more slanted eyes, are slightly better at table-tennis and have problems pronouncing the letter R. Turkish people are generally very friendly maybe sometimes a bit much, and I've never seen a country which is so proud of it's flag, wherever you look you see the white star and crescent emblazoned on the red background in all sizes.
Tonight however the group of people has split up and gone their separate ways. Elias and I plan on getting a nightbus to a place further south called Capadocia.

More Than Five Thousand Words...

Here come's a historic post, for the first time in this blog's lifespan I'm going to upload a few pictures.

The former radar-tower outside of Berlin

A view of the Prague Castle and old bridge

A view from Buda to Pest

Two buildings in Belgrade bombed by NATO back in 1999

The famous bridge in Mostar

(For those of you lucky enough to be friends with me on facebook, there will hopefully be more pictures coming up there within a near future)

Greece Lightning

We arrived in Athens early in the morning, and started out by finding a hostel and slept for a couple of hours. We then spent a few days walking around the city realising it is in ruins in more ways than one. Apart from the ancient temples which have crumbled since they were built it seems the population has been rocked by the economic crisis. I think it has the highest amount of homeless people I have ever witnessed and also it was the most expensive city of the trip so far. After seeing enough ruins for a while we decided to move on and found a bus which took us all the way to Turkey.

Busy Days

Montenegro is a country I have heard a lot about as it is the motherland of my employers for the past few years. Also I have them to thank for my very basic Serbian vocabulary and even more basic knowledge of the Cyrillic alphabet which has actually helped a bit during our time in the Balkans. We started our time in the country with a stop in the old town of Kotor, but after walking around for a while we realised there wasn't too much to see and from there started a frenzy of bus-hopping. First to Budva then Bar before finally stopping in Ulcinj for a few hours sleep. Next morning we caught the early morning bus across the Albanian border to Schkodra and then another bus to the capital of Tirana, then a few hours later we got on one final bus and 18 hours later we arrived in Athens where we after almost one month of travelling crossed into a new timezone for the first time. It was a a bit of a shame we didn't stay longer in any place, but it feels like Montenegro is best experienced during the warmer summer months when one can enjoy it's nice beaches, so I shall save it for a separate trip some time in the future.

It Mostar Been Love

The word Mostar translates to "Bridge-Keeper, and in it lies the clue to the small town's claim to fame. Because basically all the town has, is it's famous old bridge (Until recently, when North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's grandson started attending the local high-school.) We stayed in a hostel run by Bata, a Bosnian man who happened to live in Stockholm during the war and therefor speaks Swedish, we walked around the old town, but allthough it was very cute and beautifully located under the mountains there isn't all that much to see, apart from the bridge of course. We did manage to find an abandoned bank-tower, which offered great views of the area but after a day and a half we felt we'd seen it all. In Mostar we bumped into Sho, a Singaporean girl who was in the same van from Belgrade to Sarajevo, and she travelled with us to our next destination, across the Croatian border and down the Adriatic Coast to Dubrovnik.
George Bernard Shaw said of the town: "Those who seek paradise on Earth should come to Dubrovnik" and allthough I don't quite agree with old Georgie it seems a whole lot of people do. We stayed one night inside the medieval city walls, which was very nicely paved in shiny marble, and had picturesque white houses with terracotta-rooftops but found it was full of hordes of pensioners from all over the world and decided to move outside of the walls which turned out to be a great plan. Life in the new-city was much more relaxed and calm. However the next day we decided to get moving and as Sho went north, Elias and I crossed the eastern border to Montenegro.

SaraYeahvo

The minibus picked us up bright and early on thursday morning and after an eight hour drive through Serbian countryside and over Bosnian mountains we reached Sarajevo. It's a very interesting city with a fascinating history, in many ways a meeting point between East and West you can pass a Mosque, Synagogue, Catolic and Orthdox church in a short stroll. It's also the place which triggered the start of the First World War, when Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sofia were assassinated here in 1914. In 1984 they hosted the winter olympics and just 8 years later they were tragically under siege by the Serbs during the Balkan War. For almost 4 years the population were held hostage in their own hometown and wherever you walk today building facades littered with bulletholes tell you what a horrific time this must have been.
We stayed at a hostel located right at the top of a very steep hill and thanks to that we now have buns of steel, we did all the touristy stuff walking around the charming old town, visiting the secret tunnel which during the siege was Sarajevo's only link with the outside world, and sampling the local nightlife. After three days here we decided to move on and jumped on a bus taking us to Mostar, but more about that later...

In garnment related news: People who know me will know I possess a jacket which is made of the softest material imaginable, what most of you don't know is that this fantastic piece of clothing broke in several places over the last few weeks and was on it's deathbed, however after the help from a crafty Bosnian seamstress the jacket now lives to tell the tale, and will hopefully see many more countries to come.

DiSerbia

On Monday night Elias and I said our last farewells to Hungary and took another midnight-train, this time going to the Serbian capital Belgrade. Waking up whilst entering the town one thing that struck me was that for a city whose name translates into "The White City" it really isn't very white at all, but I guess "The Greyish Brown City" doesn't have the same ring to it. However my hopes and expectations for Serbia soon changed as my first conversation was the following:

Taxi Driver: "Taxi?"
Me: "No Thanks"
Taxi Driver (whilst holding both thumbs up): 'OK... Manchester United!!!"
(And no I wasn't wearing anything to give away I was a United fan, apart from the smile on my face suggesting I must live a rather satisfying life.) And from that point things have just continued as (rather surprisingly) Belgrade has proved to have the friendliest and most helpful population of the trip so far.

Walking from the train-station to our aptly named Hostel "Chillton" we were quickly reminded how hard the city had been hit during the war in the 90's. Gaping holes in vacated building loom everywhere and it is hard to understand how some houses look as if they were built yesterday whilst it's neighbour stands an empty wreck right next door.
We spent two full days enjoying all Belgrade had to offer; warm weather when the sun was up, wonderful cheap food and cheap beer, but in a few hours if everything goes to plan we will be getting into a van taking us across the Bosnian border. in order to do that we need to catch some shut-eye though so....

Hungary For More

The midnight-train going anywhere took us Budapest's Keleti Station where Emily's friend Miranda was waiting for us. She took us to her place which was also to be our accommodation for the two following nights. Budapest is one of the prettiest cities I've ever been to, maybe not always as pleasing on the eye as say Prague's oldtown but the mix of grand monuments and buildings with houses which are on the verge of falling apart is so charming. We spent two days walking around both Buda and Pest with yet another former school-friend Adina, and her friend Narmeen, stopping off at the occasional cozy courtyard cafe or bar before taking the train to Adina's current hometown of Debrecen.
Debrecen doesn't have as much to offer as the capital on the cultural front, although to be fair we spent most of our daytime in the apartment and nighttime in different bars and clubs and didn't give it a fair chance, but we did have a very good time. After three days we went back to Budapest and stayed in Narmeen's flat. Sadly Emily had to go back to Sweden whilst Adina and her friend Emy will soon have to go back to Debrecen. Elias and I on the other hand aren't in a hurry to leave but will probably move on to more southern latitudes shortly.

Czech Please

The last night in Berlin was late to say the least, and catching the 10:48 train wasn't the easiest of tasks, but thanks to some "Amazing Race" running and pushing we just managed to jump on in time. Roughly 5 hours later we were in The Czech Republic and it's capital Prague. Finding a hostel wasn't going to be a problem, or so we thought... after a few hours of hunting we managed to find one with an available dorm-room and decided it was good enough. Prague is a truly beautiful city, with loads of historic buildings, cheap beer and tasty food. Our first night wasn't very hectic, we tried some of the regional cuisine, drank a local beer and walked around for as long as our legs could carry us before falling asleep. The second day we got an early start and did some more sightseeing before meeting up with Emily for a few hours and then the three of us "took the midnight-train going anywhere..."

To find out where "anywhere" is, tune in for the next episode...

Don't Mention The...

I arrived on schedule in Berlin at 5 AM on Wednesday morning and proceded to taking the train to my dear friend and former classmate Joanna's appartment in Neukölln. I stayed here with Emily, another dear friend and studybuddy from the past for two days, doing the touristy stuff, which mostly consists of looking at a wall by day followed by drinking German beer by night, before Elias arrived late Thursday evening. The two of us then moved across town to Charlottenburg where we were wonderfully accepted at a friend called Jenny's place. From here we continued on the same travel itenirary of touristing followed by beering, visiting amongst other sites an interesting radar-tower used by the Americans during the Cold War. Berlin was full of surprises, for one everybody speaks German, something I thought was taken care of some 66 years ago. The weather was rather grey most of the time as was a lot of the city to be honest, but it was all brought to life thanks to the friendly and colourful people who inhabit it. I leave you with that cheesy line, and can tell you all that Elias and I somehow managed to catch an early (10:48) train this morning and are currently in Prague, but more about that in the next installment.

On The Road Again

So last trip had a bit of an unexpected and sudden ending as did the life of this blog. To recap the 19 months that have passed since the last post: I flew home from Brasil about a month after the incident, had a few more surgeries in Sweden, got back to work and started planning my next trip. As I am now about to embark on this trip I thought it was a good time to wake some life into the blog as well. The outline and general plan for the trip is for my friend Elias and I to travel from Stockholm, Sweden, down to Cape Town, South Africa, without using the art of flight. The timeframe is not set but reaching South Africa in about 6 months seems like quite a realistic goal. The route is pretty much decided, allthough there could be a few changes along the way, however the plan is to travel through Eastern Europe and then down through Eastern Africa, but more about that when it actually happens.

In less than an hour I get on the vehicle which will start my trip, a bus taking me down to the German capital Berlin over 18 hours, where I have friends waiting and then hopefully Elias will catch up with us 24 hours later.
I have to run now, but I'll write more when I next see a computer...