Wrapping up Ethiopia and heading to the sun (Sudan).
Sunday, August 19th, 2007Man, are we done yet…. I gotta pee, I’m hungry, they freaking smoke like Ethiopian buses in this internet cafe, and my air conditioning is calling me.
5am bus station. Local worker 10 birr tip, let in early, front seat. My ratio on buses runs around 40% front seat, 40% back seat, and the other 20% floating around the middle seats or on the floor. Not too bad of an average.
The original plan because of those rat bastards of Sudan and the fact there is only one type of transport to leave Sudan and enter Egypt from the North and that is the Wadi Halfa-Aswan Ferry service that only departs once a week on Wednesday. Okay, the plan was to enter Sudan on a Friday as that would allow me 12 days to bop around Sudan, arrive in Wadi Halfa for the Wednesday boat and still have one flex day just in case something happened (something happening to Africa transportation… thats crazy talk!) To narrow things down even farther, I would leave Gonder on Thursday and stay in a small town by the border just in case something went wrong with the Gonder to the border bus (crazy talk again.) Well, because of the fact that there are no signs in English and the fact that although the bus was supposed to go to the border but didn’t and we got dropped off in some other town and thrown on a different bus which was half the size and then driven to the border, I missed the town that I wanted to stay in since it was the only local town that had decent accommodations. So, instead of staying on the actual border in the usual shithole border towns, I decided to do the crossing that day (Thursday). I was also swayed by the fact that for the Visa and the additional fees, I would be spending $200US for two weeks (freaking rat bastard government.) I figured every day was pretty costly so why not use every last second I could, so on that Thursday I entered the little mud hut Immigration office, got my stamp, and was officially out of Ethiopia.
So thats it, Ethiopia is done. You’ll excuse me now as I go pee and then dance naked in front of my air conditioner.
Coming soon… Sudan.