Journey Home

Wit had borrowed a neighbours car to take us to the airport, and we loaded the luggage into the back at 00:30. It was a cloud-free night and the stars were bright, however this meant that the condensation was thick on the windscreen, and we soon found out that the fan on the car wasn't working - this was to be the beginning of a long series of incidents on the way home.

We arrived at the airport in good time (3 hours before take-off ) and discovered that Airport security is the one job that is taken extremely seriously in Ethiopia - As a security checkpoint in the car park only allowed the airline passengers to get within 100 yards of the terminal. So we had to say our goodbye's to Wit and Dodi by the car.

We checked in fairly uneventfully, although the man behind the counter did look with surprise at the 7 large holdalls that we piled onto his conveyor belt, and his colleague picked up our guitar case and pretended to play guitar.....much to the amusement of the queue behind us.

We moved on to the departure security desks and after reaching the front of the queue (after 15 minutes) were asked for our "emigration cards".... when we looked puzzled, the man pointed us to a small unmarked desk in the corner of the hall. This proved frustrating as the card we needed to fill in was exactly the same as the one we filled in on arrival 3 weeks ago and had very little detail about where we were headed.

After this we headed up to the departure lounge, which was pleasantly empty, so Vanessa and Abi decided to use the washroom before moving on to the final baggage scan. Whilst they were in the washroom the door at the end of the hall opened and in came about 100 chattering, giggling African girls/ladies who all ran past us towards the door to the baggage scan.... the scene reminded me of the start of the London marathon, and given that Africans don't seem to understand the etiquette on queuing, there was one almighty scramble to filter through the door.

Vanessa and Abi returned quite serenely as if nothing had happened, so we joined the end of the queue. Given our track record with airport scanners on the way out, it was not a surprise to find that Vanessa set off the beeper as she passed through the archway - a quick search showed that Vanessa did not have anything suspicious (belt, money, jewellery etc), so she returned through the arch. Again the machine bleeped - so she was asked to submit herself to the personal search with the hand-held scanner which only went off when it went near her Bra - Abi, David and I started giggling and then chanted "take it off, take it off".....I don't think I have ever seen Vanessa so embarrassed.

After a few moments discussion we were allowed to continue and joined a queue to enter the seating area at the gate. This queue did not seem to be moving and we quickly discovered that a man was checking each persons boarding card and passport before letting them into the seating area .... and he was taking about 30 seconds for each person. It now became obvious why the African women had stampeded down the hall - they were trying to get to the seats first.....and we were now queued up behind them.

It took about 45 minutes of queuing before we finally reached the seats with about 20 minutes to spare before boarding......or so we thought!

The time for boarding came and went without any announcement. Eventually I asked the steward what was happening and he quite calmly replied that "we cant board, because the plane has not even landed yet"...... but he gave no indication of when the plane was even expected

Eventually the plane landed at 05:00 and we finally took off at 05:30. The plane was very new, but someone had obviously forgotten to specify the correct seats as they were very snug and had very little padding - they felt very similar to the old wooded church pews - not the most ideal seats to try to sleep on!

It was a relief to land at Bahrain and after an hours wait we boarded the plane for Heathrow, hoping that the dramas were complete.....not a chance

Firstly David's tray table was broken and the airline insisted on getting an engineer to fix it.....I was very aware of the people around looking suspiciously at us, and I was desperately hoping that this would not be the cause of any delays to take-off.Once they had fixed the table, the engineer left and they started handing out the earphones for the entertainment system - but the previous occupant of my seat had snapped off the earphone jack in the socket, so it was unusable. Again the stewardess was insistent that they get the engineer, but this time he couldn't fix it. so we only had 3 screens between the four of us.

The rest of the flight was fairly uneventful and we arrived at Heathrow, our baggage was some of the first off the plane - but there was no sign of the Guitar. After speaking to the desk we were directed to conveyor belt 1A (it sounded like something out of Harry Potter) where they offload any oddly shaped or abnormal items. We found this conveyor belt hidden in the corner of the hall containing an assortment of odd items, many of which looked as if they had been there for over a week.

We soon discovered that this belt would only move if the items already on it were unloaded onto the floor - and as there was no-one else around, we set about doing this ourselves. After 30 minutes the guitar finally arrive and it was with some relief that we pushed our trolleys through the "Nothing to Declare" channel - although with the night we had just experienced, I was half expecting someone to stop us to search our bags!

We were met by our good friend Vicky, who had driven our car up to pick us up and it was great to share stories of the last 3 weeks during the drive home.

Final day - Visit to Wit's farm

Today was our last day in Ethiopia....where have the last 3 weeks gone?!

Wit drove us to visit his farm which was about an hour away. David had the privilege of travelling in the boot....a challenge for any "back-side" when coping with Ethiopian roads!!

It was great to actually see the farm after having heard all about it. We arrived in the pouring rain and headed straight to the cow barn to shelter. We were greeted by a fairly large herd of "milkers" and then noticed a carcase of a bulloock hanging from the barn door being expertly skinned by one of the workmen.

Very soon we heard the noise of a truck approaching in the distance. This truck was carrying the first of 2 male calves to be slaughtered. This was farming at its most basic, and we quickly looked away when we realised what was about to unfold.

We are used to everything being done behind closed doors and away from public view, but here it is very different. Out here male calves have little value amd so they are slaughtered at a young age for meat (with foot on the head and a knife to the throat!)...that's just the way it is!

What was bizarre was that at one point the calf about to be slaughtered could see the dead calf on the ground, as well as one hung up by the ankles being skinned ready for the meat to be sold; all of this in the full view of the cows in the barn.

The farm also had chickens, bee-hives and a variety of fruit trees (Banana, Lime, Papaya and Mango) and there are plans for more cows. a pond for fish and maybe pigs.

The bird life out here is incredible. Some of the birds are huge, such as storks and kestrels, and the small birds are beautifully colourful.

When we arrived home we had a long evening ahead of us before our flight. Our plane wasn't due to leave until 4am, so we settled down to a game of cards and the most enormous home-made pizza I have ever seen!

It has been such a privilege to have travelled to such an amazing and beautiful place. It will be sad to leave, but we do so with many incredible stories and memories.