Salaam from Ethiopia

Two countries down, eight to go!  It turns out our special insurance to even travel to Sudan was not needed, and it is not nearly as ominous a place to visit as that requirement might suggest.  We found the people to be gracious, welcoming and kind.  There is a lot of emptiness in Sudan; evidently long ago as the Ethiopians expanded their territory northward, they stopped near where today's Sudan/Ethiopia border is as they didn't really want the country north of there.  Rocks, sand and not much else make up a lot of Sudan, but we were quite amazed at the the large scale agriculture we saw, all thanks to irrigation.  Kind of like southeastern Alberta!

Crossing the border into Ethiopia was not exactly speedy, it was easy to get out of Sudan, and pedal across no-man's land into Ethiopia, but getting the passport stamp allowing us to be there took ages.  The power was out, so instead of the fingerprinting and retina scanning experience last years group had, we sat that there sweating ( as usual) while  2 young ladies looked up names in a ledger that looked like it had been around since Biblical times. Things got worse when the young ladies' shift was over and they we were relieved by 3 young men, who evidently misunderstood the ladies' explicit instructions as to which end of the pile to take the next passport from, and those of our group who had just handed in passports got in and out in record time.  There was nothing to do but sweat a little more and wait.  Wayne got through before me and went to rehydrate with the first beer since Egypt ( no alcohol in Sudan, not a drop) and after about an ice age or two, I was finally free to go and met him coming out of the bar.  I would have loved a frosty beer but he said let's go, this place is a gross...evidently it was a bar but was also a very scuzzy brothel!  Welcome to Ethiopia!