Return to Lopé – Rückkehr nach Lopé

We tried to reach Loango National Park from Mayumba in the south, but when we called there, they brusquely told us that they were fully booked and camping not allowed. That only made us shrug indifferently. Gabon doesn´t want tourists, we already got that! Wir versuchten noch, von Mayumba aus den Süden des Loango Nationalparks […]

Lopé

We were lucky because the van actually brought us to Ndjolé without thrombosis, bruises or other injuries. At the market in Ndjolé, we had to accept the fact that there was no way how we could reach La Lopé by road on that very day, so we took a taxi to the train station a […]

Gabon / Gabun – Un voyage ardu

During our travels in eastern Africa in the past years, we have come close to the DR Congo quite a few times – as well as the rainforest of the Congo basin, the second largest rainforest just after the one at the Amazon basin. 2017, we´ve finally visited it´s easternmost extension in form of the […]

Arba Minch & Nechisar National Park

South of Addis Ababa, the Rift Valley pervades Ethiopias mountain ranges all the way south to the border with Kenya. There are numerous lakes on the bottom of the Rift Valley, of which Lake Abbaye is the largest. The lake once had been even larger, but then volcanic eruptions created a land bridge between both […]

Bale mountains – Die Bale-Berge

The Bale mountains southeast of Shashemene rank among the most beautiful landscapes in the country. They are home to some decent peaks, including Mount Tulu Dimtu, with 4.377 m Ethiopia’s second highest mountain, rising out of the 4.000 m high Sanetti plateau, Africa’s largest area above 3.000 m. The lush montane rainforests on its slopes […]

Gambella

The city of Gambella as well as the eponymous region are oddities in Ethiopia, lacking the significant features of the rest of the country, especially the highland culture. The region is more linked to South Sudan because of the nearby border. The city has been established by Britain in 1907 as a port at Baro […]

Lalibela – Jerusalem in Africa – Jerusalem in Afrika

It was the village of Roha on an altitude of 2.630 m in the remote Lasta highland at the foot of 4.190 m high Mount Abune Yosef, that king Lalibela had chosen after a change of power at the end of the Aksumite rule to have his nowadays world famous rock-hewn churches being built. The […]

Simien mountains – Die Simien-Berge

The Simien mountains (Semen = Amharic for north) in northwest Ethiopia, north of Gondar, is the highest part of the country, including peaks of 4.000 m or more in altitude as well as the highest mountain, Ras Dejen, with 4.533 m. That makes the Simien mountains the “Roof of Africa”. One landmark of the mountains […]

Bahir Dar & Lake Tana – Bahir Dar & Der Tanasee

The region around Bahir Dar (1.880m) at Lake Tana in Ethiopia´s northeast is referred to as “Tuscany of Ethiopia” because of the warm climate as well as its idyllic location at the southern end of the country’s largest lake. More than half a million people are living in Bahir Dar today, making their living with […]

Ethiopia from above – Äthiopien von oben

With more than a hundred Million inhabitants in a country of 1.1 Million square kilometres in size, Ethiopia is one of the most populous countries on the continent, and since Eritrea gained its independence in 1993, it is the most populous landlocked state on the planet. Great parts of Ethiopia are highland over 2.000 m […]