Week 15 - Getting a sense of perspective.

This week started I in Nairobi where I picked up my Australian passport which (thanks to the efforts of Megan) had just be returned from Australia with an Ethiopian visa added. For some reason only known to the Ethiopian authorities if you wish to enter the country from the south by land, you can only do it with a visa issued in your home country, hence the reason my passport had to be sent back to Australia (with courier fees it made for a very expensive visa). The rule seems even stranger since they don't apply it if you come from the north where it is easily available in the neighboring countries, or if you fly in by air you simply get it on arrival.

Nairobi proved an unexpectedly pleasant city. My preconceptions had been set by my guide book which said it was known as " Nai-robbery" but I saw no sign of that. It, in the city centre, was clean and relatively ordered with lots of new buildings and all the things you'd expect of a modern city. One thing that was obvious though was the security presence - the memory of the US Embassy bombing in 1998 and more recent acts is still lingers.

One of the guidebook recommendations of places to go in the city was the Railway Museum and it turned out to be a gem. The museum commemorates the building of the " lunatic line" the original railway line from Mombasa on the coast to Nairobi (which was originally nothing more than a railway junction) and onto Uganda. It was called the Lunatic Line by a politician with a nice line in hyperbole because of the territory it had to pass through and the resultant cost. Nowadays the museum is a time capsule of things colonial with random exhibits and outside loss of slowly decaying stream engines.

One of the huge, and gently decaying, Garrard Engines

During the building of the line one of the local lions developed a taste for railway workers. He took 140 of them- including one poor fellow from this carriage where he fell asleep when he was supposed to be hunting him

OH&S obviously didn't feature highly in their planning systems. 

From Nairobi it was then two and a half days solid riding north, on the way crossing the equator for one final time, to the border with Ethiopia. This was potentially one of the more dodgy parts of the trip as inter tribal fighting still breaks out periodically in this area leading to the road being closed (the last time being December when it was closed for a week). Fortunately all was quiet though in places a lot of police presence plus far too many individuals for my liking wandering around with an old rifle slung over their shoulder.

A further two and a half days saw me arrive in Addis Ababa. The scenery on much of that drive was beautiful including some spectacular volcano craters and I'd like to be able to show you some photos, unfortunately I can't because as soon as I arrived in Addis my phone (which is my camera)was stolen. My own stupid fault, I was tired and let my self be distracted by a smooth talking local and it was gone. At the time I was extremely annoyed (mainly with myself) but wandering around the city the next day put things in perspective: I'd lost nothing more than a phone and a few photos but all around me were people begging,  mothers with starving babies, rag dressed kids and in one place someone obviously dying on the pavement. I dispensed a few token coins to make myself feel better and then went and spent, what for anyone of them would be a small fortune, on a new phone. The ethics of travel are complex and probably don't bear deep examination.