So we left Khartoum at 9am for along drive to Gederef, where we would spend the night bush camping and then travel on through to the border town of Galabat. We made good time to Gederef arriving there at about 3pm. This supprised us as we thought we would be there a lot later. We decided to push on because all the km's we did today would mean less for tommorow.

About 45 km's out of gederef at one of the many police checkpoints I heard a strange whining noise coming from the engine. We stopped to investigate and realised that our Alternator wasn't charging and that the noise was also coming from that general direction.

Not knowing what harm it could do to continue driving like this we decided for the safe option and that was to be towed back into town!

Not an easy task, first we had to find someone willing to tow us 45 km's back to Gederef and also fix a price. Weeventually struck a deal witha local guy who had a small toyata minivan. He did'nt realise that we wereover 3400kg's!The next problem was our tow rope, it was only 2.0m long so we were almost against his car! After a lot of sweat and tears we arrived back in Gederef at 7pm. Not only did I never want to drive in the dark but being towed in the dark is really a nightmare.

We booked in to the tourist hotel and speculated on how many days we would be stuck hereto repair the alternator. I said thee maurice said two.

The next morning we headed into town to see if someone could fix our Alternator. We stumbled upon a small shop and low and behold he got right to work. Once the Alternator was stripped we saw what the problem was, the rear bearing had failed causing the two inner spools to connect and shortcircuit. We now had to find a replacement part.

Seeing as this is a landrover and we hadn't seen a local driving one, this could be a big problem but.... this is Africa! I went with the mechanic to a part of town where everything gets repaired and there we met Mohammed. Mohammed looked in a plastic jar and like a magician out came the bearing that we needed. Next he disappered for five minutes and returned with a new spool. Amazing to say the least.

Once the 'new' alternator was in place we headed out of town once again in the direction of the border. After about 60km's we got a huge fright. Two african ladies crossed the road in front of us and didn't look to see if a car was coming. Maurice made spectaculair evasive move and we justr missed them. I think that we had about 30cm's to spare. With our heart rate way up we continued on to the border.

We arrived atthe border at 3pm and did the usual customs/imigration task. We are both becoming quite good at this now. The border was a small bridge of about 3 meters where everyone is allowed to come and go without any formalities.

After evreything was arranged we headed into Ethiopia our 12th country thus far. We decided to drive to a campsite called Tim and Kim's rest camp at lake Tana. It has been set up by a dutch couple and was a great place to camp. We stayed for two nights and then it was time to leave for Lalibela, a town about 300km's to the east. We packed out things and drove away only to return 30 minutes later....

Our Alternator was fixed African style and broke down again African style.... But on the bright side we had another day at Tim and Kim's.

The problem now was that the alternator was overcharging which meant that we could charge the battery's but only when the car was idling as otherwise the battery's could explode. We had two options now. One was to drive to Addis, where we could repair thealternator properlyor we could still drive to Lalibela withou an alternator and then charge the battery every evening by connecting it again. we chose for option two.

The drive went well taking us up to 3200m in the ethiopian highlands. Really breathtaking views were at every corner. After arriving at Lalibella wewanted to charge the battery's but we quickly saw that the alternator was now not charging at all. Oh well we would have to go to Addis now and the north of Ethiopia will have to wait a few years.

Lalibella is amazing with 12 churches that have been carved out of the rock from the ground down. This only took 23 years to do apparently and is a truely remarkable feat.

Well even though we've had a few rough days things here are going great. Ethiopia is filled with wonders.This is real Africa and I'm enjoying it. I'm typing this drinking a beer and looking out over town.And the place we are staying at has great food as well!

But tommorow were off to Addis ' wim's holland house yup croketten and beer! 'and hopefully after that the car will give us a period of grace.I'll let you all know how that goes when we get there.

Addis here we come!