The stars above Lac Itasy – Die Sterne über dem Itasy-See

If you are heading west from Madagascar’s capital Antananarivo, the landscape becomes even more barren than it is around Tana. The Route National 1 is going up as far as 1.700m in altitude, and about 130km west of Tana, you are reaching the rough but beautiful volcanic area around Lake Itasy at approximately 1.300m. The […]

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 […]

Mayumba – The most beautiful beach in the world – Der schönste Strand der Welt

From Mouila, we took a shared taxi via Ndendé to Tchibanga in the south. There were three women and a man with us, and the youngest of the women was a shy adolescent without a decent passport. All she had was a permit to go from Mouila to her village. There was a direct way, […]

Mouila – A quiet place – Ein ruhiger Ort

Mouila is indeed a quiet place – not to say sleepy. It is the capital of the Ngounié region, named after the river which is the most important tributary of the Oogué. 30.000 inhabitants are living in Mouila that is linked to Lambaréné and Libreville in the north as well as Ndendé in the south […]

Lambaréné – Visiting Albert Schweitzer – Zu Gast bei Albert Schweitzer

Lambaréné is situated southeast of Libreville on the banks of the mighty Oogué, the “Congo of Gabon”, before it branches out, feeding several lakes and flowing into the Atlantic Ocean in a giant delta 100 kilometres west near Port Gentil. The town lies in the middle of dense rainforest, just like in the times of […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Tigray & Mekele

The bizarre mountain landscape of Tigray is characterised and has been formed and shaped by the sheer tectonic forces of the Rift Valley, that starts in the neighbouring Danakil depression in the east. Coming from this starting point, the Horn of Africa, and East Africa in general are breaking off the continent. West to the […]

Aksum

Aksum is located at 2.130 m above sea level in the far north of Ethiopia near the border to Eritrea, and it is the oldest continuously inhabited place south of the Sahara Desert with today around 60.000 inhabitants. That the town has been the capital of the empire of Queen Sheba as early as 1.000 […]