We celebrated the Ethiopian New Year’s Eve in Axum as the invited guests of the hotel management. The staff were dancing and loved it when we joined in, Jannie in flip-flops and shorts. We even got an enthusiastic ovation when we left the festivities. Fortunately the torrential rain had stopped by the time we crept into our tent and we had parked the Prado under cover of the porch at the entrance. The church service continued throughout the night, the chanting almost non-stop, not conducive to a good night’s sleep.

The trip from Axum to Gondar will be remembered by Jannie as the most dramatic he has ever had to negotiate. “The worst in 69 years of driving, five hours of hell,” to quote my very experienced driver. Narrow mountain passes through the Simiens, never-ending switchbacks, 15km/hr average. It took us almost nine hours to drive 350 km. Luckily we had a very early start at 7:00, and the first 100km stretch was excellent tar.

Then the drama started, and seemed to last forever and ever. Just before the road got better, it got worse with a cloudburst above us, making for some lovely slippery muddy tracks. Of course we had had the Prado cleaned the previous day and it was spotless when we set out. Jannie reckons this is far, far worse than the Amalfi Coast… the scenery was of course breathtaking, and I recorded the most hair-raising moments on the GoPro so that we can relook and relive the drama at leisure.

The kids in this part of Ethiopia are bold and unpleasant. One of them yanked open the car door on my side when we were forced to a standstill in the middle of a village by livestock on the road. Thereafter it was locked doors, which foiled one more attempt at being bothersome.

We were so relieved to pull up in front of Gondar’s fanciest hotel, perched high on a hilltop overlooking the town. We are camping in a secluded corner of the parking lot, once again with a room key so that we have a private bathroom at our disposal. This morning everything was cleaned out and repacked for the crossing into Sudan tomorrow, when we expect to desert camp without any facilities. The water tank has been filled, and 15 litres of water filtered for drinking.

The Debre Birhan Selassie church with its frescoes reminiscent of the Sistine Chapel is a lovely sight to behold, especially the hundred of African angels against the ceiling and the much photographed devil portrait. Gondar’s castles did not disappoint. They are medieval in style, with turrets, banquet halls, archives, stables, a sauna, even lion cages. King Arthur would have felt at home.