Internet Void.....

Nothing works in Ethiopia. The Internet is patchy to say the least. The internet cafe's have at most a couple of Mb/sec so its almost impossible to do anything. Hopefully all will get better later on. This is the thrid one we've tried.

We are currently in Addis in Wims Holland house and this is OK. Its in the centre of Addis and run by a Dutch guy. Henning is still following us (we are actually stalking Henning) but we split up soon as he goes the other way into Kenya whilst we talk the alternative route. Hopefully we both get there safely as both routes have their issues. We are going via Lake Turkana and he's going via Moyale. The Moyale road is a nightmare of 300 or more kilometers of bad road. The Turkana road is remote and involves some river crossings. Neither are ideal but this is the way of overlanding. The Visa takes 24hours for Kenya but we can only get a single entry and we need multiple. The multiple entry takes 3 MONTHS !!!!! So we will need to get another in Kenya from the airport (we've been told this is the best way by the guy on the counter in the embassy//we need to go to Uganda and then go back into Kenya) We need to get the carnet discharged in Addis and this won't be easy as they don;t like doing it. There is no border the way we are going so nobody to do the paperwork. We must get the carnet stamped out or we are stuck and will need to go to Moyale and i don't fancy the bad road for 12 hours !!

Henning is moving to a Hotel so we might be able to get internet there. We have till Wednesday to wait for the visa as ( luckily !??!! ) the African Union is in Addis so all the embassies are in party mode and not work mode. The Kenya embassy was closed on Friday and the guy who does the visas is "in meetings" until Wednesday due to the Africa Union. He's basically doing toss all until then. We've left an urgent plea with the guy on the desk to ask im to stamp our application by Tuesday. Hopefully he will recognise that waiting six days is a bit much......