Gruss Gott to all you snow bunnies and wacko spackos

Well, we are currently in Innsbruck, Austria which is the famous winter Olympics town in the Austrian Tyrolean Alps, and yesterday in the ski village of Kuttai, I had one of the most spastic, lamearse, limb threatening snowboarding accidents EVER!!!

Now I had always imagined that my first ever limb threatening snowboard accident would be this TOTALLY AWESOME snowboard jump off a 200m cliff over 7 helicopters… while dodging KGB hitmen on snowmobiles AND outrunning an avalanche!!!

However, all my romantic dreams of having an amazing snowboard stack were COMPLETELY trashed when… Holy cow… I …er… um… simply fell 3m off a chairlift… flat on my face!!!

….FECK!!!!!!!!

Now for those of you who have never snowboarded, basically you get on a chairlift with your left foot strapped in on the front binder of the board, while your right back foot just dangles free.

Then as you are approaching the get off area, you need to angle your body sideways to get the board pointing straight ahead with your left foot forward and your right butt sitting on the chair so you can simply slide off the chair when you arrive… and of course you need to hold onto something so that you don’t topple off.

Now as it has been 2 years since I last snowboarded I thought I would get myself ready well before the get off point so that I wouldn’t embarrass myself and fall over…like I normally do…

However, about 15 meters from the get off area, I had turned my body to the side and was resting my right buttock onto the seat with my left leg dangling down and I reached back to support myself on the backrest of the chair so I wouldn’t topple off… BUT the friggin backrest flipped forward and I toppled off the FUCKING chair!!!

What the FUCK!!! …Fekkin, fecked up fecking chairlift with feckin flip down feckin backrest!!! What type of fecked up feckin fekker KUNST designs a feckin chair with a flip down feckin backrest???!!! AAAAAARGH!!!!

Now as most of you know, I live and draw my life like a cartoon character… but FECK me!!! This is the first friggin time that I’ve been like Wile E Coyote!!!

HOLY COW!!! I TOTALLY fell face first with my hands near my ears and my legs spread like a frog due to the weight of the board… And to give credit to old Warner Bros cartoonists… when you see Wile E Coyote fall off a cliff and go splat like a frog… well that’s EXACTLY how you friggin fall!!!

Well, the chairlift operator must have also been stunned as he stood up and just stared incredulously… and he actually hesitated before turning off the lift and then trudging down the hill to help me up. He obviously had a moment where he thought he was on candid camera or something, since I’m sure he couldn’t believe what kind of lamearse tosser simply FALLS off a chairlift!!!!

And of course my mate Greco who was watching from below and saw the whole thing, did what all good mates who are concerned for their friend’s welfare do… He LAUGHED his friggin head off… and said it looked like I deliberately dived off the chairlift, so it was one of the funniest things he had ever seen… fekkin fekker!!!

Anyways, the snow was surprisingly soft and I was lucky that I didn’t land on my head and crack my neck… so I got away with no major injuries…

But the funny thing was, that just before I got on the chairlift, there was a school group of about 20 five year old kids and only 2 teachers, so they were asking responsible adults to help chaperone a kid up on the chairlift… presumably so that they could have an adult make sure that the kids didn’t fall off…

Well, they asked me as well, and maybe it was the fact that I didn’t speak German, or maybe it was the fact that I had “This lamearse fekkin tosser is NOT a responsible adult, and is so spacko that he will probably fall off” tattooed across my forehead… but the teacher then said not to worry about taking a kid with me… Which as you can imagine is VERY fortunate… ALTHOUGH it would have been PISS funny to see the teachers’ face if I did fall off with a kid as well!!!

Anyways, we’ve been giggling ourselves for days over this, with only a brief interlude when Greco accidentally tripped up a girl on the bus with his toboggan harness… and she fell flat on her face…

But to our credit, we waited until she got off the bus before we laughed our heads off, much to the disgust of all the other travellers… um… But she did kind of deserve it though as she had thrown a snowball at us earlier in the day… man… we are so badarse!!!

Well, all in all, the sun was out and the snowboarding was awesome and I did go onto have some truly impressive stacks including a high speed toboggan accident that we captured on film, where I ran into a huge snowman that I didn’t realise had turned to ice so it was like hitting a brick wall… So needless to say, I am now sitting here nursing a sprained shoulder.

Anyhows, tomorrow we are off to M-M-M-My Verona in Italy which is the home of Romeo and Juliet, and then we’ll meet up with Avril and heading to Switzerland before going home on the weekend.

Tschuss and Auf Weidersehen
Spacko lamearsed Kunst Ced

PS. If you are bored, our Germany photos of Dresden, Berlin and Bavaria are at this link
And some truly gnarly snowboarding pics in the Austrian Alps are at this link

…2 John’s 1 Cup…

Gruss Gott to all you movers, groovers and other furry animals

Well I am currently in sitting in a crappy hotel in Munich in a cranky pants mood since today we rented a car to drive through the Bavarian Alps to go up to Zugspitze the highest mountain in Germany… but all we saw for 8 hours was the inside of a FRIGGIN cloud!!! In fact, we were driving through the Alps for most of the time and didn’t even know it since the visibility was so fecking s’hitty… FECK!!!

And the thing that p’isses me off the most, is that it’s been like this for the last 3 weeks that we have been in Europe… and doesn’t look like it will clear anytime soon!!! …AAAAAAARGH!!! F’ECKIN European weather…!!!

Anyways, I’ve been on an Eastern European road trip for the last week and a bit, with 2 mates JC and Greco, and we’ve been travelling from Poland to Berlin via Slovakia, Budapest, Dresden and Prague… And honestly, the weather has been so friggin AWFUL, that it has seriously ruined what could have been a great holiday!!!

Now as most of you know, one of my many superpowers is to whinge and complain like a cranky old man, and yet be as immature as a 12 year old kid… But fortunately I have been travelling with 2 mates who totally put me to shame…

JC was probably born a cranky old man, or bitten by a radioactive cranky old man or some s’hit like that… and hence he has whinging superpowers by far greater than my own… And then there is Greco who has the amazing superpower to come up with immature toilet humour in any given situation but due to having congenital cranky bowel syndrome, every joke comes out as a scratch and sniff variety…

So even though the weather has been sh’ite we’ve basically b’itched, moaned, complained, p’erved, giggled and f’arted our way across Eastern Europe… which actually has been fun!!! In fact I’ve never had so much fun whinging and complaining… which is why instead of writing a nice travel blog, I’m totally going to have a moan!

Now firstly Budapest was pretty disappointing since I found the city to be like a cross between Prague and Vienna but even grottier… And even worse was that the whole place had shut down on the Easter weekend, so the place was just bleak… Feckin Easter holidays…

And not only that, we were looking forward to checking out some of the attractive Hungarians that we had been hearing about, but instead, the whole place was filled with English lager louts and morbidly obese english families, no doubt flown in by Ryanair direct from FATWICK Airport… Feckin budget airlines…

However, as bleak as Budapest was, it was nowhere near as bad as Berlin… Berlin really s’ucked!!!

Now we spent a whole week in Berlin during the World Cup, and back then it was such a lively and funky place… so we were completely stunned to arrive during a cold wet weekend when everything was shut down, the whole mood was depressing and the place seemed to be overrun with mutants and morlocks…

Seriously… I have never seen so many INBRED people in such a concentrated area in my entire life…

Man… it was like we’d entered a different dimension or zapped into a HG Wells novel, since all the normal people had disappeared and all the people that we came across were SERIOUSLY weird, COMPLETELY psycho-chicken, or just friggin UGLY!!! …which was really shocking, especially compared to all the hot slavic women that we had been seeing in Poland and Prague…

In fact looking at all the weirdarsed people with their vicious dogs hanging around the Checkpoint Charlie underground, it was like… if you have more than 4 teeth, then you are a smoking hot muffin… And when you want to dress up, you wear your saggy black track suit pants with the 3 stripes down the side instead of 2… For fuchs sake!!! If I wanted to see that, I would stayed home in Brisbane…

Not only that, the place seemed so miserable and bleak, that the people here didn’t just need a happy pill… They needed a fecking big happy enema… Feck it… actually I’ll take the happy enema instead…

And then sure as s’hit, just as we were leaving on the Monday morning… all the normal and funky people came out again, like they’d been hiding in a bunker all weekend…

Feckin Berliners… You’d think with one of the most prominent capital cities in the world, they would open it up on weekends… Oh man… and we were so looking forward to our funky Berlin ch’ick perve too…

Anyhows, Dresden thankfully was cool as we actually had a White Easter since it snowed really hard… although it was the same weather storm that caused a zillion car pile up in Austria so driving through a blizzard on the autobahn wasn’t fun at all… Feckin snowstorms…

And Prague was fun as always, but mainly because it was my second time there so instead of checking out the tourist sights, I just spend 2 days Czeching out all the lovely Czech girls… feckin Avril for taking the zoom lens to Venice…

But now here we are in Munich where not only did we spend 6 and a half hours next to screaming kids on the train to get here, but it’s been p’issing rain the last couple of days so tonight I think I am going to need some p’rozac with my weisbier at the Hoffbrauhaus… feckin Munich…

Anyways tomorrow we are off to catch the last of the Spring snow in Innsbruck, Austria for a few days of snowboarding in the Alps…

…However, if my luck continues, chances are I’ll be carving up gravel and ice with my face, OR I’ll probably break 3 of my legs AND fracture both my armpits… feckin feckety feck…

Oh well… as long as I keep 5 of my teeth, then at least I’ll be a smoking hot muffin in Berlin…

Tschuss
Ausfarht-ing Kunst Ced (They are actually German words not swear words)

PS If you are bored, some bleak Hungarian pics are at this link
And some arty farty pics of Prague are at this link

Dzien Dobry and Wisowy Swiat (happy easter) to all you Polish sausages and Sour Krauts

Well, as a completely rude shock to the system after bumming around stinking hot Africa last week, I am currently on a Eastern European road trip with 2 mates John Greco and John Cebula, and freezing my nads off in a ski lodge in the Tatra mountains above Zakopane in Southern Poland, since Avril left on a plane to Venice a couple of days ago…

Now it is certainly beautiful outside as we have hit an unprecedented patch of snowy weather that doesn’t normally occur this late in the season… but the fact that we are 3 guys who don’t ski, staying in a snowy mountain ski lodge with the only food in the place being frozen bananas and Colgate toothpaste… Well that’s just a little bit TOO Brokeback Mountain for me!!!

And the fact that very soon after getting lost for 2 hours while trying to drive a Ford Mondeo up the ski slopes, the conversation turned to whether you can survive in the snow by eating your own s’emen… probably suggests that if you don’t want to read about men behaving badly… you should probably stop reading this blog NOW!!!

Now as most of you guys know, I usually try and write a travel blog in every country that we go to… But Europe can be so boring to write about, that unless we go somewhere really remote, do something really stupid, or get some good pooo and b’um jokes going, it is really hard to write something funny or interesting unless a country has something outstanding to write about.

But as far as trying to find something outstanding, cool or interesting to write about Poland, I’ve tried to write this blog a zillion times without sounding crass, s’exist or chauvanistic, but it always comes down to one thing… Poland has STUNNINGLY hot women!

Man, we have just spent the last 4 days in Wroclaw which is a university town and seriously, I’d love to write about how amazingly modern Poland is for an ex-communist country, or how brightly coloured and optimistic the main plaza is compared to the boring old plazas in other European cities… but really, the most head turning thing here is how stylish and attractive the women are.

In fact, just to prove that it is not just a fluke or holiday horn, our mate Greco, who is single by the way, decided to SCIENTIFICALLY prove that Poland has a lot of hot women by sacrificing a good part of his day that he could have spent looking at churches… and INSTEAD he stood on the corner of a shopping mall and counted that in any given radius, an attractive woman walks by on average EVERY 7 seconds!!!

Holy cow!!! Now I of course had nothing to do with his childish behaviour and berated him for being so shallow and chauvanstic, preferring instead to help my darling dearest Avril shop for expensive Italian label jackets (vomit)…

…but after spending an hour helping Avril try on clothes and worrying that Greco would be bored, I wandered out to find him happily sitting outside a lingerie shop and I realised then, that far from being childish… this is TRULY a man who has dedicated his life to his science!!!

But seriously, Avril has always claimed that out of all the countries that we have been to, that Colombia has the hottest guys in the world, but I have always been reluctant to make a call as to which country has the hottest women…

However, now after being to Poland, I feel pretty confident saying that Polish girls are definitely the hottest that I have come across so far, especially since they are attractive in a stylish way as opposed to just looking tarty… Man… communism ROCKS for keeping the gene pool clean!!!

The only thing that was a bit weird though was that despite all the girls looking like supermodels, the Polish guys would have to be the one of the MOST unattractive group of guys that we have ever seen… And it would totally do our head in when an absolute stunner walked by dressed in Italian fashion and FM boots… but with a pugfaced boyfriend who looked like he was a Russian henchman from a bad James Bond movie… Oh man… I don’t know whether I should feel happy or depressed about that…???

Anyways… um… I’m sure there is some other good things to write about Poland, but since the weather has been absolutely crap, we really haven’t done a lot other than shopping and hanging out playing Gran Turismo in our mate John’s funky art nouveau penthouse…

But then again, to quote our friend John Cebula who has been living here for the last few months, Poland could be the worst place in the world, but when you are surrounded by attractive women, you just feel happy… Well he didn’t actually say those words exactly… but I really can’t print what he said…

Anyhows, tomorrow after we headcount all the bananas and make sure that all o’rifices are intact, we’ll be leaving our Brokeback mountain lodge and heading through Slovakia to Budapest.

Doby Zena
Cedski

PS. If you are bored our Poland pics are here at this link, but sadly there are no pics of Polish girls… darn Avril for taking the zoom lens to Venice with her!!!

PPS No hot polish chicks were harmed in the making of this blog

Moraho to all you Muzungus and Magilla Gorillas

Well, we are currently sitting in the Bourbon Coffee shop in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda and Man… I have to say, after Ethiopia and Tanzania, we really like Rwanda! The people are absolutely lovely, there is almost no hassles, begging or scams, and the place has a really nice feel to it. I’d easily live here as an ex-pat.

Not only that, but the city itself is huge and sprawled over several hills. And I reckon that Kigali is the most modern city that we have come across so far in Africa with big wide streets with well manicured gardens and no rubbish anywhere… which is really surprising since after watching Hotel Rwanda, I imagined Rwanda to be this backward little shanty town with dirt streets and crumbling buildings everywhere.

In fact, sitting here sipping cappucinos overlooking the city and watching all the business men working on their laptops, it is absolutely impossible to reconcile in my head how a modern city like this could have descended into madness during the Rwandan genocide.

We even popped around the corner to the Hotel Des Milles Collines this morning, which is the hotel from that movie Hotel Rwanda, and even it looks like just a normal hotel in the city centre.

To be honest, we are really impressed at how well Rwanda looks and functions, and even though a visit to the Genocide memorial museum was a very sobering reminder of everything that happened here 14 years ago… the people really have moved on and no-one here even talks about the genocide or even refers to themselves as Tutsi or Hutu anymore.

But the main reason that we came here was to see Gorillas In The Mist!!!

Now for those of you who aren’t aware of them, or if you have never read Dian Fossey’s “Gorillas In The Mist” or saw the Sigourney Weaver movie of the same name… The mountain gorilla is a desperately endangered animal with only 700 of them left, all living in a chain of 7 volcanoes that straddle Rwanda, Uganda and The Democratic Republic Of Congo.

They are a peaceful gentle relative of ours sharing 97% of the same DNA, and despite how scary they look, they are vegetarians, and absolutely beautiful creatures.

However, due to rebels still hanging around in the Congo who often will shoot the gorillas and poachers who still try and steal the babies, they are seriously at risk of becoming extinct which is why we wanted to see them while they are still around…

Anyways, we trekked for 2 hours up into the mountains to see the Bwenge family and after paying $500 USD each, we were only allowed to have 1 hour with them since there is a risk of sharing our diseases with them.

Now the gorillas live in family units of 10-15 and are lorded over by a massive male Silverback who is the dominant figure and will often beat his chest and charge at tourists to show his dominance.

Well, all the guides and books will tell you that such a display is often just to assert dominance and physical attacks on humans are extremely rare. However, they also say that if you do get charged by a silverback, the thing to do is not run away, but crouch down, look away and start chewing on leaves…

Anyhows, as you will see in the photos, we had just arrived at the group of gorillas and we were taking photos of a female when all of a sudden, a HUGE 200kg Silverback crashed through the forest behind us forcing us to scamper away.

Well, he lumbered literally centimeters away from me, and really didn’t even register us, so at that stage, we really felt reassured that we weren’t in danger at all.

So needless to say, we followed him into a small clearing and we all lined up and started taking pictures of him.

Now initially, he was just chewing away on some bamboo, but after a while he just stopped eating and started staring at us with these intense red eyes…

At that stage, I really don’t know what he was thinking but HOLY COW, there were 8 of us tourists looking at him and everyone of us could tell that he was starting to get SERIOUSLY p’issed off at us looking at him.

Then, all of a sudden the guide yells out “Stop taking photos NOW!!!” and pushes us all away just as this F’RIGGIN HUGE silverback starts growling, beats on his chest and starts CHARGING at us!!!!

Oh MAN!!! Now although we had read about it, and although I have considerable Monkey Magic kung fu superpowers, and have played enough Donkey Kong in my youth to feel comfortable with my Super Mario Jumping powers… I was f’riggin SCARED S’HITLESS and my heart was pumping so hard, it was totally in my throat!!!!

And it is a weird type of fear since it happened so fast you don’t get time to register the fear mentally, but your heart just starts thumping REALLY hard!!!

But somehow, I managed to snap a shot of him just as he was attacking in front of me which is the photo that I have attached. And seriously that photo is NOT zoomed in at all… He really was that close to us!!!

Anyways, we all got out of the way and the Silverback just charged past us which was good since being pounded by a 200kg gorilla and having my arms ripped off is probably not covered in our insurance… and as all 80’s videogame players know, it doesn’t matter how many barrels you jump over… Donkey Kong ALWAYS wins!!!!

But despite the scare, I would have to say that it was one of the most soul touching magical experiences that we have had… but it was also very sad especially when you realise that man has almost decimated these lovely animals… And we have just heard that the Congolese rebels have just this week taken over the Congo side and are threatening them again, which is really heart breaking.

Anyhows, we are now at the end of our Africa adventure, and this afternoon we’ll be on a plane back to Addis Ababa and tomorrow we’ll be back in London en route to Wroclaw in Poland.

Avril and I split up now and I will be travelling with our mate Greco, and Avril will be blogging on her glass beading course on her website at http://blog.heartofglass.com.au

Au revoir

Monkey Magic Ced
Gorilla Bitch Avril

PS Our donkey kong gorilla photos are at this link

PPS Thanks also to all you guys that replied to the last blog where I had a whinge about aid agencies. I felt a bit badarse carnaging them, but it was great getting all the emails from you Africa travellers who agreed with the agencies creating a dependency on hand outs!

Jambo to all you crazy cats and hungry hungry hippos

Well, we are currently in Arusha Town in Tanzania after finishing a 7 day camping safari, and hopefully tonight I’ll be able to get a good night’s sleep, since for the last few nights Avril has been pestering me to get up and go to the toilet with her in the middle of the night since she is afraid of being eaten by lions!!!

Now certainly, for the last few nights we have had hyenas and lions howling around our campsite, but seriously… what a SILLY girl she is…

What the FECK does she think I am going to do if a lion attacks her while she is having a squat??? Does she think I am going to get a big ball of string and lure it away!!!???

I DON’T THINK SO!!!…

Although I have formidable kung fu superpowers, I’m TOTALLY going to be “Crouching in the grass Tiger” or “Hidden My A’rse Dragon” or running the other way!!!

But last night was different. We we were camping at Simba Camp on the rim of the Ngorogoro Crater and when I got up to have a p’ee, I actually did hear a BIG animal outside our tent along with a low pitch grumbling noise.

Anyways, after freaking myself out by remembering that we had duck down sleeping bags and wondering whether there might be a lion outside thinking that we were just 2 big Peking Ducks spring rolls… I eventually shone a light out and saw 2 eyes shining back at me only a couple of meters away!!!!

HOLY SMOKES… I completely S’HAT myself!!! …until I realised that it was just a couple of zebras and the growling noise I was hearing was them chewing grass… Stoopid zebras…trying to cross me… next time I’ll be the one “zebra crossing” their black and whte a’rses!!!!

But anyways, that is just one example of how COOL this whole safari has been…

Man… We have just spent the last 7 days in 5 national parks, starting with Arusha, Tarangine, and Lake Manyara… and of course ending in the Serengetti and the amazing Ngorogoro Crater which has just been absolutely FANTASTIC!!!

When we first started the safari, we thought that after seeing so many animal documentaries, that we wouldn’t be that impressed by all the animals at all… but honestly, nothing prepares you for seeing your first giraffe or lion and we COMPLETELY squealed like little girls with every new animal we saw!

And not only that, it’s SO cool seeing all these funky animals all hanging out together in the same area. We’d be looking at some lions, and then suddenly a giraffe or an elephant would cruise by next to a zebra.

Holy cow… it was just like my Jungle Jim playset that I used to have as a kid!!!! …umm… except there was no micronauts battlecruiser to blast down all the animals with photon ray plastic bullets…

But I must say, after a few days, the novelty of seeing animals just lying in the grass or eating did wear off a bit and we started wanting to see animals eating each other which unfortunately we didn’t see.

It’s pretty hard being an animal lover but hoping that the giraffes would start fighting the elephants… or wondering who would win a fight between lions and hippos…

The only bad thing about our safari though was that we were too late to see the wildebeest migration which is when there are millions of wildebeest that migrate with a thundering roar across the Serengetti… which is really bad gnus.

We did however, get charged by a rhino which is the photo that I have attached.

Man… rhinos are stoopid! They are so blind that they charge anything that comes close to them and this one was in a frenzy since he had picked up the scent of a female rhino on heat, and started charging our car so we had to speed off!

Anyways, we have now finished up in Tanzania, so tomorrow, we’ll be heading off to Rwanda to go gorilla trekking… YAY!!!

Lots of love
Hungry hippo Ced
Lion food Avril

PS. You can check out our furry animal photos here at this link

PPS Hippos are my new favourite animal. Not only do they kill more people than all other animals combined by stampeding at you when they are startled, but they also wallow all day in the pool and only stand up to spray green shit on their mates which comes out of the water so fast that it is like a jet boat engine. That ROCKS! I think I definitely want to be a hippo when I grow up… and I definitely would like to be crushed to death by a hippo should I ever feel suicidal or get terminal cancer. That would be a COOL way to go!!!

Salaam to all you funky chickens

Well, we are currently back in Addis Ababa after bumming around Northern Ethiopia and I’ve got to say… it’s really nice to be back in a big city, since travelling around the north of Ethiopia was actually quite tiring due to the amount of hassles we encountered.

Like we mentioned in our last blog, Northern Ethiopia is famous for its Historical Circuit which is very much based on a lot of biblical history… but compared to the amazing south, the reality of the tourist sights isn’t anywhere near as interesting as the history would suggest.

In fact we decided to skip the town of Axum where the Ark Of The Covenant is meant to be held, since it is apparently a dusty old town with not a lot to see there, and they don’t let you near the church where the Ark is meant to be anyway… which is probably good since we didn’t want our faces melted off like those N’azis in Raiders Of The Lost Ark.

So instead, as we mentioned in our last blog we started our trip in Lalibela, which was the town where there are amazing rock churches carved 10 stories down into the ground…

And thanks to everyone who wrote back saying that they p’issed themselves laughing that I had s’hat on someone’s grave… It’s all funny until someone loses a sphincter! However, as you know, I write “Holy S’hit” a lot in these blogs, but now I feel I can write it with credibility!

Anyhows, after Lalibela, we then headed out to Gonder which other than being suspected to be the location of the mythical lands of Prestor John from the Middle Ages, it is also a town known for some impressive 17th century European castles which look totally out of place in Sub Saharan Africa.

And it’s also the starting point for trekking in the famous Simien Mountains… although we felt that trekking there was a bit overrated compared to trekking in Nepal and South America.

…And of course it is likely that Gonder served as the inspiration for Tolkein’s realm of Gondor in the Lord Of The Rings as well, which is WAY cool as well.

From there, our last stop was the city of Bahir Dar on Lake Tana which is the source of the Blue Nile that joins with the White Nile in Sudan to eventually form the Nile river in Egypt. Apparently the area was famous in Biblical times as it was thought that mystical city of Ghion was situated here, and today it is famous for heaps of monasteries that are built on islands around the lake.

However, we were in such a foul mood by the time we arrived, that we really didn’t feel like seeing any tourist sights… so this is where I have a whinge!!!

Now as you probably realise, we have been VERY impressed with Ethiopia since the country is probably THE most interesting place that we have ever been to with respect to its amazing history and sheer diversity of attractions… and we would thoroughly recommend a trip here to anyone, especially to the south.

But on the ugly side of things, we totally found that in Ethiopia we were hassled the MOST out of any country that we have been to.

Before we came here, we had read stories about kids just yelling out “F’uck You” to foreigners in the streets and also lots of stories about kids throwing rocks at tourists… And although we only had “F’uck you” yelled at us once from a 5 year old kid and we only had one rock thrown at us, it was still very indicative of how this new generation of Ethiopians see foreigners with contempt.

In fact we met several cyclists who were doing the Cairo to Cape Town cycle, who had massive bruises on them from kids who threw big rocks at them as they were cycling by.

Now seriously, in my book, that is just F’CUKED!!! Ethiopia is certainly a poor country, but compared to West Africa, they have it pretty good, so I don’t think poverty is an excuse here for such violent behaviour from kids. It’s more about the lack of respect they have for foreigners.

And to be honest, looking at the generation of kids who are causing all the troubles, most of them are young kids up to the 20 age group and my personal opinion is that I reckon that this is a direct NEGATIVE  result of aid being improperly dumped on them since the famine in the 80’s.

They seem to now have an entire generation of kids that are dependent on handouts and who only see foreigners as being a source of money to beg or scam from.

Now, most African travellers will tell you about how it s’ucks being treated like a cash cow, but I would say Ethiopia is the worst African country that we have been to so far for this, which is surprising since the West Africans are a lot poorer, but are nowhere near as bad as the Ethiopians in behaviour.

In fact, the kids and teenagers basically have no shame in walking up to you on the street expecting money, and when you say “no” they actually sulk and carry on. And it really gets tiring walking along the street and every 5 minutes someone is yelling out “You, you, you… money.”

And although this may be a very non-politically correct thing to say, I personally think the sponsorship thing like you see advertised in World Vision ads etc, has added to the problem.  Many kids we met would proudly say that they had a sponsor in Australia, and then request that we give them money too. It has really put me off sponsoring a child now.

Anyways, the reason why I am having a whinge is because as experienced as we are at travel, we got scammed by a teenaged kid working at our guesthouse who I paid to organise transport for us. But when we arrived at our destination, the driver told us that he hadn’t been paid, so the kid obviously had kept the money for himself.

Well, this ended up in a bit of a street fight with me and the driver yelling at each other, and eventually, this got a bit physical. Well, inevitably we ended up at a police station trying to get the police to mediate, but they told us that they were too busy, so we should get a local to ring the hostel where the boy worked and pretend to be a police officer to scare the kid into paying up.

FRIGGIN’ H’ELL… how weird is that for a police guy to tell you to impersonate a police officer!!!!

Anyway, it worked but I was so pumped from the physical confrontation that I have been stewing for days, which is a really sucky way to finish what was otherwise a really fantastic trip!

But anyhows, enough whinging, we are now in Addis which is perched high up in the Ethiopian highlands and is the 3rd highest capital city in the world at 2800m, so it is actually quite a pleasant city since it’s not too hot… And surprisingly, it is really clean and modern for an African city that we have always imagined to be really poor.

Not only that, but as an interesting bit of trivia, Addis owes it’s survival to Australia since back in the 1800’s the King of Ethiopia was going to move the capital to another location since they had used all trees for fuel. Apparently some Greek or Italian businessmen then brought some Eucalyptus gum trees to Ethiopia and these were so fast growing that the King decided to plant these all over the place for fuel which then saved Addis from being moved… Man… How cool is that??!!!

Still, it was a bit weird hanging around Addis and getting the smell of gum trees everywhere, but not seeing any koala bears or drop bears…

Anyways, tomorrow we are on a flight to Arusha in Tanzania to start a 7 day safari, so we may be out of touch for a while.

Ishee Chau
Streetfighter Ced
Lolly bella Avril

PS. We have now loaded up our northern pics with the cool rock hewn churches at Lalibela, trekking in Simien mountains, Gonder and Bahir Dar so you can click here if you are bored.

PPS. Hey… I just thought about this… Addis Abba would be a REALLY cool name for an Ethiopian Abba cover band… hmm… I obviously have a lot of time to think of silly wordplay while on long bus rides!!!