Wedding Car Combi

Derek and Madeline had quite an unusual wedding car, it was a rather luxurious Volkswagen Combi. Big enough to take all of the wedding party and an eski (Australia word for an ice box) to store some drinks.

Volkswagen Combi 

Sydney Harbor Cruise

We were in Sydney for a friend wedding and had a few days to look around. It was my first time there so I was happy to do some sight seeing. We took a boat cruise around Sydney Harbor that reminded me of a similar cruise that I did in Hong Kong where people were almost fighting over floor space to take photos.
This guy had 4 cameras, 2 of which for DSLR and he was taking photos of everything! It was even funnier when his friends would get him to take photos of them so he'd be using their camera while he had his 4 cameras hanging off his Cannon jacket.

Sydney Harbor Cruise

Can we borrow your mouse?

We were to be spending a few weeks working on an educational project in Boman G'ombe, a village between Arusha and Moshi in the shadows of Mount Kilimanjaro.

View of Mount Kilimanjaro 

Our Swahili was non existent at this point but within the school community this wasn't a great problem, we could get by with English and a Swahili phrasebook. We passed our days helping out at the school, doing art and photography lessons. The school had a computer center but there were problems with some of the computers so I offered to try fix them.


Running a computer class in a village that has very unreliable electricity is very difficult. Most of the time there is no electricity and when there is, the power level is so  inconsistent that the computers will regularly restart due to lack of power. The mouse didn't work on one of the computers, I concluded was a problem with the motherboard.  If my diagnosis was right then a USB mouse would fix it, the problem was we were a 2 hour bus trip to the nearest town where I might be able to buy a USB mouse. If I was wrong I'd have wasted time and money on a useless mouse. It doesn't sound like a big deal now that I write it but at the time in the situation it was.

Computer class at Bomang'ombe

I found out that their was an Internet cafe at the other end of the village so figured I'd go there and see if I could borrow a mouse. We didn't really think more about it, that was our plan. On our way we came across a small restaurant so we decided to stop for some breakfast. We managed to order vegetarian food despite not speaking any Swahili. Just after we ordered the principal of the school entered, immediately she came over to see how we were doing. She was amused as to how we'd managed to go to the restaurant and order vegetarian food despite not speaking the language, she was even more amused or possibly worried when we explained our plan to borrow a mouse from the Internet cafe.
After breakfast we made our way to the Internet Cafe, it was a very small room with 2 computers. They also suffer from the same electricity problems as the school which makes it difficult to run an Internet cafe without a reliable source of electricity. In a combination of sign language, English and a few badly pronounced Swahili words from the phrasebook we explained that we wanted to borrow a mouse. We explained it was for the school, that we needed it to test something. We even mentioned the principals name but that didn't work as she didn't know her. The girl didn't quite get it no matter how many ways we tried to explain.


Eventually I said I would like to use the Internet for a half hour and paid for this time. Then I slowed disconnected the mouse explaining that I'd return it in a half hour. I'm not quite sure the girl understood what we were doing but she agreed it was OK for us to leave with the mouse. She wasn't losing money as we'd paid for the computer so she seemed content with that. We returned to the school, tested and confirmed them mouse worked then returned it to the Internet cafe. The girl at the cafe was quite pleased to see us return with the mouse. Strange how it seemed like a perfectly logical solution at the time but I wouldn't dream of walking into an Internet cafe in Dublin and asking them if I could borrow a mouse.

The Presidential Safari

After visiting the giraffe centre we went to the main entrance to Nairobi National park to see if we could arrange a safari. The information desk said the best option for those without vehicles was to use a taxi and they could arrange one. We spoke to their suggested taxi driver but apart from it being very expensive we didn't really think we'd get to see much driving around in a taxi! We walked to the park entrance to see if there were any other options. Here's a sign from the near the park entrance. 

Who has right of way?

Here we got talking to one of the park officials. He suggested that we could use the presidential vehicle, we thought he was joking at first but he explained that it was the parks vehicle and in absence of Obama coming to visit they've decided to make use of the vehicle. The cost would be 10USD per person, considerably cheaper then the 80USD taxi the lady at the information desk was try to sell us. We organized to meet them at the gate the next morning at 6:30am. We didn't pay anything at that point so we were still little suspect as it seemed a little too good to be true and extremely weird that such a service would not be advertised or mentioned at the information desk. We took a moto taxi back to the campsite and organized with the driver to collect us at 6am the next day.

6am mototaxi to Nairobi National Park

Next morning we arrived by motorbike much to the amusement of the security at our campsite and also the officials at the national park. We got there paid the 40USD park entrance and the 10USD for the vehicle and driver. The guy wasn't lying, we actually had the presidential vehicle all to ourselves for a morning safari in the national park!

Presidential Vehicle

We were driving for about 15 minutes through the park and so far hadn't seen any animals. I was starting to think this was the catch and then we spotted a lion! Our guide knew what he was doing and had gone specifically to where he knew the lions would be. One of the lions came quite close to our vehicle which made for some great photos. 

A lion a few meters from our vehicle

Same lion, different view

After an hour or so watching the lions more tourists started to arrive. At some point the lions got curious and decided to investigate the cars.

A lion investigating one of the other vehicles

As it started to get crowded with tourists our guide suggested we leave the lions and go further. Next we came across a Rhino. This guy kept his distance from us so I didn't get a particularly great photo.

Rhino in Nairobi National Park

Mombasa to Nairobi by Train

After spending more time than intended on Zanzibar island it was time to make our way back to Nairobi. We'd heard about an amazing but very unreliable train journey from Mombasa to Nairboi. We decided we'd go to Mombasa with the hope of getting the train from there to Nairobi. Worst case we'd take the bus if we couldn't take the train. You couldn't book train tickets online and when we got to the train station they were closed. Luckily they had a timetable posted on the wall so we found out that there was a train leaving the following day.

Mombasa Railway Station

We arrived the following day to find a queue at the station. It was January 1st so there were new prices for 2012 but the staff hadn't been given the full details. As a result they were not selling anything tickets, good news for us as we hung around and eventually got a ticket when they did start selling them.

Mombasa to Nairobi Train

As expected the train was late departing. We went for 1st class tickets which was a private compartment and included dinner and breakfast in the dining cart. I could see why some people are sometimes disappointed with the train journey as they probably have misconceptions as to what first class is! The train is from the 1960s and the compartments haven't been update since then. Almost everything was functional and it was clean just perhaps a little worn.

Compartment on the Mombasa to Nairobi Train

The train crawled slowly through Kenyas famous Tsavo National Park. We didn't spot any wildlife although it was still quite an impressive journey with some amazing views. We woke up to an amazing sunrise with Mount kilimanjaro in the background. I decided to enjoy the sunrise rather than scramble to find my camera but I got a shot of Kilimanjaro later in the morning.

View of Kilimanjaro from the Mombasa to Nairobi Train

Meandering through the Tsavo National Park on the Mombasa to Nairobi Train 

Christmas in Zanzibar

We were in Zanzibar for Christmas. After our work on Uzi Island we took a few days off to relax. For Christmas day we hired a boat and went snorkeling for the afternoon.  Blue skies, blue seas, white sand and tropical fish, a great way to spend Christmas and somewhat different to a normal Irish Christmas.

Blue Sky, Blue Sea, White Sand!

Christmas Day in Zanzibar

Camping in Nairobi

Originally we planned to travel south from Addis Ababa overland to Kenya but due to a combination of people advising us against it and a lack of time we decided to fly. The project we were working on in Tanzania was starting sooner than expected and while it was in Tanzania it was only a 6 hour bus ride from Nairobi. As we flew down we had a few days to spare so we decided to spend the time camping in Karen close to the Nairobi National Park.


After the time in Addis Ababa, Nairobi was a surprise, everyone speaks English and the city is very similar to most European cities although with an increased additional security presence. For the original overland trip from Ethiopia I had got the lightest 2 person tent that I could find in Dublin or London. Camping in Nairobi would be our first time to use it, the problem was our rucksacks were bigger than the tent. Luckily we were staying at a campsite so we were able to store our luggage securely inside.

Worlds Smallest Tent

Most people staying at the campsite had their own transport and the rare few who didn't took taxis everywhere. We planned on taking local transport but it took sometime to convince the staff at the campsite to explain where we could find the local buses (known as matatus). They got commission for the taxis and organised but none for public transport! The busses in Kenya are called Matatus, small Toyota hiaces that stop anywhere along the road to drop-off and pickup passengers. A typical journey costs about 20 shillings which is about 20cent. The other alternative to taxis is motorbike taxis, these are cheap, available on almost every corner and great at getting through Nairobi's traffic.

We spent a few days traveling around using a combination of both Matatus and moto-taxis. The first stop was the Giraffe center, a non-profit organization started in 1979 in an effort to save the endangered Rothschild Giraffe of which there were only 130 left in the wild. Today the population in Kenya is 300. The giraffe centre has a feeding platform where you can get close to the Giraffes.

Giraffe Centre at Nairobi National Park

Next stop was the elephant orphanage, getting here by matatu was more difficult. We took a matatu to the one of the park gates and from here we had to walk through the park to the sanctuary. The walk was great as we passed lots of baboons on the way, although later when we were at the park and there was a lion nearby it was a little worrying.

Baboons on the way to the orphanage

The orphanage is run by the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and open daily to tourists for one hour. I spent a few days volunteering at an elephant sanctuary in Thailand a few years back, during which time I was taking care of an elephant, getting up at 4am to feed and wash him. I had never seen African Elephants before nor had I seen so many baby elephants in one place!

Baby Elephant drinking

Elephants at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

At the end of the street where I was staying in Addis Ababa there was always a security guard sitting. One morning I was passing he had left his seat and gone to talk to someone. I took a quick photo of his chair that was missing 2 legs and was tied to a tree for stability.

Recycled chair in Addis Ababa

Life in the Afar

Soon after arriving the village leader came over to meet us. At this stage I didn't understand any Afar so communication was difficult but no more difficult than the language barrier was in Russian, China or Vietnam. After a few minutes he took us to the village restaurant for injera, a flatbread with a spongy texture, typical of Ethiopian cuisine followed by an Ethiopian Coffee ceremony. I never got around to taking a photo of injera when I was in the Afar but I took the following photo a few weeks later when I was eating at a restaurant in Addis Ababa.

Injera in Ethiopia

The food was good, the coffee great, everyone was friendly and somewhat curious. We returned here almost every afternoon for injeria and coffee. Later in the week one of the children was using my camera and took the following photo without us knowing.

Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony in the Afar

Life in the Afar was good, slow-paced, peaceful and without phones, laptops and the Internet time was soon forgotten. Wake up when the sun comes out and go to bed soon after it gets dark, eat when hungry all pretty simple. We were lucky, the guys who gave us a lift to the village offered to take us fresh water everyday. They were running a cotton farm close to the village and were traveling back and forth daily. The alternative (which I was prepared for) was a 3km walk to the river to collect muddy water to use for drinking and cooking.
We still made daily trips to the river to wash as we there is no water in the village. Prior to my arrival there had been rumors of crocodiles in the river but this hadn't deterred anyone from washing in the river. The first day we went to the river to wash there were a few crocodiles on the bank opposite! 

Watch out for the Croc!

Our home was a mud hut on the end of the village. We had mosquito tent to keep the bugs out. Breakfast was normally oats, powdered milk and sugar. Lunch injera, popcorn and coffee and then in the evenings we'd cook. This involved collecting firewood, preparing and cooking in the dark. The first few days we had the vegetables we'd taken with us from Awash but they didn't last long in the heat and it's not possible to buy any in the village so the vegetables in our last few meals were soggy beetroots and carrots!

Our home in the Afar

The days filled themselves very fast, time seemed to fly by and one day blended into the next. It's quite a difficult experience to describe and I'm not sure that my photos to it an justice either. In one way the photos maybe misleading, this village is the safest and most peaceful place that I've ever visited yet as an outsider looking at my photos you may think very differently.
For example the reason the children have guns is for protection from animals and neighboring tribes. The children leave the home around 6am and do not return until evening. The spend the day herding their families herds to pasture miles and miles away form the village. Should the herd get attacked by a wild animal the children need to be able to protect themselves and their herd.

A child returning with the herd in late afternoon

We were accepted into an amazing community so far untouched by tourism, not only were we accepted into the community but we became part of it in a very short time. It's quite an experience to visit such a unique and rare community,  I doubt there are many places like this left in the world. There's something very special about the village, the people and also a rare innocence associated with it. Later on our first day there we were invited into a neighbors house for a cup of buna. It's a local brew made from river water, milk, salt and sugar. It's quite a big deal to be invited into someones home to share buna with their family so it would be very disrespectful to refuse or not to drink it. We were both handed a cup of buna, mine had some dust and a fly floating in it. Anna whispered to me, its probably going to make you sick but you'll have to drink it. Turns out I quite liked buna and ended up helping Anna finish hers on a few occasions. Although you had to be very careful about how fast you drank it, you didn't want to drink too slow but if you drank too fast you'll soon get another cup!


The reason we were there was due to Anna's involvement with the Barefoot Initiative, an Australian based NGO. If you are interested in donating to the Barefoot Initiative to help fund their continued work in the Afar you find details of how to donate on their website. Part of my contribution to the initiative was doing an art project with the community during our stay. I'll explain more about the art project in a future blog post. The art project was a pretty amazing and rewarding experience. As far as we could determine there wasn't a word in Afar for paint and most people have never seen paint before. Originally we planned on doing painting with the children but soon the adults and elders were getting involved as well. People would drop by daily to paint or sometimes just to watch. Seeing their faces and reactions to putting paint on paper was amazing. Quite a surreal experience to be sitting painting with a group of children while they leave the AK47s to rest against the wall beside you and in some cases they started to paint their guns!

Art class in the Afar!

Overall an unforgettable experience made so by an amazing, friendly, welcoming community of people in a very remote beautiful village in Ethiopia. 

From Auckland to Afar

After about 2 hours sleep a taxi driver who'd been knocking at the door over almost an hour finally woke us. Well he woke someone else who let him in to wake us. A quick taxi ride to the airport and the 40 hour trip from Auckland to Dublin started. 40 hours because I choose cheapest flight I could find. My plans had changed, instead of spending a year in New Zealand I was returning to Europe to start a new adventure. A few days in London, almost a month in Ireland, a road trip to Munich via Brussels, a flight back to London and then a flight to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.

I arrived in Addis with no idea what to expect. I hadn't really had time to plan or think about this trip. The month in New Zealand was full on traveling combined with the World Cup and then the month in Europe was similar due to me working. Addis is a pretty rough city, from what I saw and heard people had no problems robbing people in daylight on the street. I was staying on Bole road which is in the posh part of town.

Construction on Bole Road in Addis Ababa

Rwanda Street in Addis Ababa

After a night in Addis we started our journey to the Afar. Anna had already spent the past 3 weeks there and retuned to Addis to meet me. The Afar region is recognized as being the hottest inhabitable place on earth. They're aren't any buses that go to the village we would be staying in so getting there without hiring a private car was going to be a challenge.

View from a taxi in Addis Ababa

First we had to get to the bus station in Addis, we took a taxi yet it took over an hour to get there. The traffic and the roads in Addis are particularly bad. Once we arrived at the station it was chaotic, people shouting everywhere, buses blocking other buses from moving, petrol fumes and lots of noise. Eventually we were directed to the bus we needed to get to Nazareth, the first stop on our journey. We were assured that there were seats, that the bus was leaving and that it was going to Nazaret but when we got on we quickly discovered there were no seats and the bus was already seriously overcrowded. We managed to jump out the backdoor just as the bus was driving away. We quickly found another bus also going to Nazaret that still had some seats. A few hours later after a rollercoaster style journey we arrived in Nazaret. From here we need to get a bus to Awash. Once again the bus station was in complete chaos, a very different and more intense kind of chaos that I've ever experienced even in Asia or Latin America. When I say bus station I am using the term lightly, what I really mean is a field filled with busses and people. Once again people are shouting erratically and rushing to help us find our bus and eventually we do. While we wait for the bus to fill we get talking to a bus driver of another bus also going to Awash. He's a safari tour guide during the high season and a bus driver in low season. He speaks good English and explains how the busses work. The bus we are sitting on will leave when its full, then his bus is next in the queue, once its full he'll leave and the next in line waits for passengers. His bus is a bigger bus that is slower but is more comfortable so some people are choosing his over our bus. Problem is you don't know when it will leave! So while it looks like complete and utter chaos its actually more like ordered chaos.

Once our bus was full and ready to go our bus driver wasn't feeling well so we are left waiting, as are all the other buses. The guy who speaks English asks if we can drive and if one of us would be willing to drive the bus once we get out of town. At first I thought he was joking but I soon realize he is serious. As you can imagine we both say no, although it would make for an interesting blog post there's so many reasons why it would be a bad idea. We suspect the reason the bus driver is ill is due to khat. Since arriving in Ethiopia I've observed many bus drivers, taxi drivers and random people on the street chewing green leaves. It looks somewhat similar to chewing coca leaves in South America expect these leaves are an amphetamine-like stimulant said to cause excitement, loss of appetite and euphoria. While in some countries it is illegal and classified as a narcotic it is officially legal in Ethiopia.

Eventually the driver feels well enough to drive so we're on the road and about 5 minutes into the journey he produces a bag of leaves and starts chewing. Driving in Ethiopia is crazy, crazier than anything I've ever seen before. Crazier than motorbikes in Vietnam, tuk-tuks in Thailand or taxis in Bolivia. Regularly we encountered a car overtaking a bus thats overtaking a mini bus thats overtaking a truck all while facing oncoming traffic that is forced off the road to narrowly avoid an accident. I counted over 7 accidents along the road to Awash, and these were serious accidents  invoking overturned trucks or busses. We made it to Awash in with any serious incident, a few police checkpoints (one that the driver ignored so we were chased down by the police and they argued for about 10 minutes before letting him go), some off road driving to drive on a road that was closed and avoid the diversion that was in place and a few near misses with oncoming traffic. Turns out the bus was continuing to Awash Arba which is the closest town to the village we are taking to reach. We arrived in Awash Arba after dark so we quickly checked out the two hotels in town. The first had cheap rooms but the toilets and bucket showers were outside. We decided to try the "fancy" hotel close by. They had ensuite rooms so we said we'd take one. They were correct in saying they had ensuite rooms but the toilet didn't have any water in it nor did the cistern or did the taps or the shower. We complained and got moved to another room that had some water, i say some because it was just a very small trickle from the tap.

The next morning we made a few phone calls and talked to some people and eventually managed to hitch a ride to the village. After a few hours driving off-road we arrived at Yoreen.

Yoreen village in the Afar