Sean & Lucie’s Big African Adventure

The only place to camp in Khartoum is the Blue Nile Sailing Club, which sounds much more romantic than it is.  It’s ‘Unique Selling Point’ is Kitchener’s gunboat, Malik, which is now beached in the car park, and in whose shade we are camping. 

British fortitude!

Spend the day getting Elsie’s aircon fixed, and in fruitless pursuit of folding money.  Due to US Sanctions the only thing that works in Sudan is cash, and if you don’t have it, you can’t get at it.  Eventually gave up and borrowed a float from Piotr, one of our Polish biker chums, which should see us through until we get to Ethiopia, where normal service should just about be resumed.

For no reason at all here is a very short video clip of me having fun driving in Sand:

Wednesday 5^th November.

Time for another push for another border, and we spend the day driving.  The landscape changes character completely, away from Semi Desert, to a much more agricultural environment.  On either side of the road are huge fields of cereal crops, some sort of UNHCR project, and completely unlike the small, family plots that we’re used to seeing in Africa. There are also really big herds of cattle everywhere.  The villages along the side of the road are all made up of little round mud huts with grass roofs, and it’s all much more like picture book Africa.

 By the side of the road we meet a huge herd (?) of camels, and have a total failure of a sign language conversation, so we’ll never know where they were going.

Sorry, me no speak camel driver

As we get closer to the border we run out of camping options so find a village and ask the head honcho if we can camp there.  He generously agrees, and I suspect he regretted it later as our presence caused a near riot, with everyone crowding round to get a look at the weird foreigners, and various people from the village made futile attempts at crowd control.  It was great fun although we were all too exhausted to stay up much past 8pm.

Curious village kids

 Thursday 6^th November

We started climbing up into the hills on a gravel road, and at one point Sean decided to stop for some people who were flagging us down, thinking it was a checkpoint.  A guy with a gun tried to climb into the back of the car and Sean had to shove him out.  Poor bloke only wanted a lift.

It’s difficult to describe how different Ethiopia is from Sudan.  The scenery is incredible, green mountains completely covered in small fields.  Even the donkeys are different – smaller and stouter than Sudanese ones. The road is under construction and varies from smooth gravel to huge pits of mud.

Johann’s fuel pump gave up, and we stopped to keep him company while he fixed it, and people appeared from nowhere to talk to us.  One very forthright young lady demanded that we make conversation, and a couple of little kids found us hysterically funny. 

What is so funny about me?

Ethiopians have the road sense of Pheasants, and the kids have even less, so driving through villages is like taking part in a video game of dodge the child/donkey/goat and occasional, seemingly deaf adult. 

We climbed up to about 7300 feet, and then dropped down into Gonder, the view from the road was endless, fantastic and enormous.  Last night we stayed in a hotel and made the most of their hot water.  It was cold outside last night, fleece weather, for the first time since Europe.

 7^th November – 13^th November

Forget everything you think you know about Ethiopia.  It is high, cold and very, very green. 

From Gonder we travelled into the Simien Mountains, famous for their huge troops of Gelada Baboons, which aren’t actually a baboon, and have hair like Tina Turner.  We stopped in Debark (worse than Debite – sorry!) to pick up our obligatory armed Scout, and we treated ourselves to a Guide as well.   He was called Doud, and he studied Tourism for a year in Chichester. 

The road into the mountains climbed up to 11000 feet, and was no more than a very steep rocky slope at times, which was great fun to drive.  The mountains were formed by an awful lot of volcanic activity, and are still very dramatic. There are huge cliffs with views over smaller hills which go on for miles and miles.  Forget the grand canyon, this is better. 

Big pointy and green

We reached the first campside in the early afternoon, at which point it started to rain, and it continued to do so until after dark.  We took shelter around a campfire under cover and shivered our way through till bedtime.

The next day we set off further up the mountains to about 13000 feet, in search of the endemic Walia Ibex, and of course, Gelada Baboons.  Once again we were confounded by the weather as the clouds dropped down over our heads & visibility was reduced to London fog levels.  On our way back down we spied some Ibex through the murk and managed to photograph this big guy:

Check out his big horns!

After that it started to rain again with occasional hail for a bit of variety, and we were reduced to huddling in the car clutching mugs of tea for warmth. 

Eee, could be in Bognor

This time there was no campfire to warm us up, and we ended the evening playing Scrabble in the car.  Honestly, the number of times on this trip I have been reduced to acting like a pensioner on a day out at the English seaside!

We went to bed wearing nearly all our clothes and the next day awoke to find that the rain had frozen on the flysheet; there were chunks of ice on our tent! 

That white stuff is ice

We were rewarded though when we got up and trudged over to a sunny patch to warm ourselves up and found ourselves surrounded by Gelada baboons and Ibex:

Of course I look cross, it was very early and very cold

They are speedy when riled

In spite of their big teeth and ferocious demeanour, they are all mouth and no trousers, strictly vegetarian.  They have the most evolved non vocal communication of all primates, and actually sound quite cute.

See what I mean about the hair?

and the teeth?

Leaving the Simiens behind, we took a couple of days to thaw out at Bahir Dar, on Lake Tana, source of the Blue Nile.  Bahir Dar is Ethiopia’s second city, and as such has a really good feel about it, there are few tourists and the town is more focussed on it’s own business, rather than ours.  We really enjoyed relaxing here, and caught up with domestic chores.  Sean stayed up one night and found a bar to sample Tej, the local hooch.  It’s meant to be made from honey, so why he smelled like he’d been drinking drain cleaner, I’ll never know.

So far, I like Ethiopia much more than I thought I would. I’d let other peoples’ experience influence my thinking and was quiet apprehensive about coming here.  I was expecting stone throwing kids, and to be continually surrounded by people.  The reality has been completely different.  The kids do shout ‘you you you!’ whenever you drive past, but they usually just want to wave at us, and we have not yet experienced stone throwing.  I have however, seen kids throwing stones at everything, livestock and each other, so I’ll try not to take it too personally if it does happen.

We’re now in Addis Ababa, accessing the internet at useable speed for the first time since Khartoum.  And we’re doing it at the Sheraton!  Cripes it’s lovely in here, what possessed me to give up 5 star holidays for this crazy trip? 😉

More cheerful news, I have found a drinkable Ethiopian red wine!!  It’s called Gouder, and it has a crown cap like a beer bottle, but it tastes OK.  Or am I just getting desperate??

From here we’re going South to the Bale mountains, in search of the world’s rarest canid, the Ethiopian Wolf.  If it’s anything like as cold as the Simiens, if we do find a wolf I’ll gladly kill it and use it’s skin for warmth.  Kidding!!

Sunday 26th October

Tomorrow we’re all set to catch the ferry from Aswan to Wadi Halfa, so it seems appropriate to look back over the last 4 weeks, and consider our time in Egypt.  It really has been a parson’s egg; for every thieving, conniving weasel who has tried to rip us off,

One of the less honest Egyptians.....

we have found someone else who has been kind, generous, and has gone out of their way to help us for no reward.  In Aswan and Luxor the continual, relentless ‘hello, where you from? come look in my shop, no hassle, just look no buy’  has made it really hard to relax and enjoy being here. The sad thing is that if you’re not continually cynical, the majority of Egyptians you encounter along the tourist trail will try and stiff you in some way or other.

There have been lots of good bits, and the sheer joy of realising that someone is helping you just because because they can has outweighed the disappointments.  I also think that my reluctance to unconditionally love Egypt is partially due to the fact that we have been here for a long time, nearly a month, and it’s easy to forget that we’ve spent a lot of time and effort crossing off most of the grotty admin jobs ahead of us such as visas etc.   

So a big thanks to the owner and staff of the Keylany Hotel here in Aswan who spend about 3 hours of their own time fixing an odd glitch with my laptop, and to Wael, who helped us out with the Nile Navigation Company, just because he could.

For those of you that are interested Sean & I marked our 12th un-niversary today!  Sean sneakily arranged a sunset Felluca trip, and a surprise bottle of red, both of which were very relaxing!  We’re both a bit amazed and delighted that we’ve made it this far, literally and metaphorically.

Tomorrow is another day and we’re really excited about the next phase of our Big African Adventure, Sudan is about as far off the beaten track as we’ve ever been and will mark a return to wild camping and exciting road surfaces.  We’ll be off radar until we reach Khartoum in about a week. 

In the meantime, a bit like the BBC test card, some random sights that have amused us:

Meals on wheels?

Answers on a postcard please

No crunking in your pants perhaps?

And my kind of shop

There were plenty of louts in stock too

So,you tell him, is he brown yet?

I have finally managed to upload the videos – go to the Bad Parking post to see the full extent of our humiliation.

Sunday 19th October

The sheer volume of tourists in Luxor is pretty extraordinary.  The cruise boats are moored 3 or 4 deep for about half a mile down the Corniche.  Imagine if the view from your cabin was the view of someone’s cabin!  Karnak was an eye opener, by 8.30 there were literally thousands of people throning around their respective tour guides.  Karnak was breathtaking, primarily because it is just so massive, and it has a lot of pillars.

Big pillars, big statues..

Later we visit Luxor Temple, which is likewise heaving, but at dusk it is very evocative if you can try and imagine away everyone else.

Luxor Temple

Monday 20th October

Visiting the Valley of the Kings is virtually compulsory, but we were both a bit disappointed as the tombs that Sean wanted to see were all closed.  The Tombs of the Nobles however were much more interesting.  One tomb we visited had well preserved paintings depicting grapevines all over the ceiling and foot massage on the walls; the intention to let the good times continue to roll in the afterlife was very clear.

Thursday 23rd October

We’ve made it a bit further South to Aswan.  It is compulsory to travel from Luxor to Aswan in a police escorted convoy.  On Tuesday we were able, thanks to our new friend Wael, to join the back of the Italian Camper Van Convoy, who had their own police escort.  This meant that we were able to travel at a stately 80kph, as opposed to screaming along dodgy roads and being undertaken by psychotic taxi drivers at 120kph.  We were in the van of the convoy, which was great until they all pulled over to empty their toilets.

We stayed at ‘Adam’s Home’ camp for a couple of nights which is a Nubian house about 8km North of Aswan.  It’s a lovely location and I could see the Nile from my penthouse apartment, however there is little to amuse, so we decided to shift to an hotel in downtown Aswan this morning.  We completed our formalities with the Traffic Police today, having visited the ‘Court’ yesterday and got a stamp to prove that I have no outstanding warrants for my arrest.  That complete, we visited the Nile Navigation Company to arrange our onward transport to Sudan aboard the Aswan – Wadi Halfa ferry on Monday.   We had some very welcome help from Wael in locating both of these places, and securing cabins on the ferry.  Wael is an Egyptian tour leader, who befriended us and was very kind and generous with his time, so thank you very much Wael!

The ferry with us on it leaves on Monday and arrives in Sudan a day later.  The barge with Elsie on it doesn’t arrive till Wednesday, so we have to ensure that we have everything we need with us, and keep our fingers crossed that Elsie arrives intacto.

The Nile here is lovely, and we will be taking the obligatory Felluca trip when we finally buckle to the touts

Thursday 16^th October

This morning we head South passing through the Black Desert and then into the White Desert.  No prizes for imaginative naming around here.  The Black Desert does exactly what it says on the tin, it’s left overs from eroded mountains, and looks like hundreds of mini volcanoes.  It’s not especially appealing or photogenic, so we press on to its more glam neighbour, the White Desert.

Mmm, Mr Whippy anyone?

Elsie, Queen of the Desert

This is what we call exclusive!

Setting up camp here and cooking a curry as the stars came out was heavenly.  Later, the moon appeared, waning, but still huge and bright orange as it rose up through the dust.  It was a perfect night. 

My top places to sleep ever in chronological order:

• Bush camp in Selous, Tanzania
• Glovers Reef, Belize
• Ras Mohammed National Park, Sinai
• White Desert, Egypt.
  

  Morning at the Hotel du Van

  Friday 17^th October

Stayed overnight in Al Khargha, a pointless place, it’s only claim to fame was that it was once a place of banishment.  Our hotel was overpriced and notable only for the creepy little pervert who I caught looking through the bathroom window as I was getting into the shower.   

Saturday 18^th October

We’re now safely ensconced in Rezieky Camp, Luxor where the 5.30 call to prayer is just kicking off.  They have all mod cons here such as a washing machine so we’re taking full advantage while we enjoy some cold ‘Luxor Classic’ beer. We can’t shake the Italian convoy of 14 camper vans though, and are thoroughly outnumbered.  They are all retirees, and have just hung out all their washing, so we’re surrounded by big flapping pants. 

Sean narrowly avoided squashing 3 eejitian teenagers who slid across the road in front of us on their motorbike.  The 2 that were able to legged it pursued by the police, whilst the other one lay in the road.  Fortunately it was right outside the hospital, so he’ll probably be OK.

There are 3 puppies here and we’ve named them Clarkson, May and Hamster.

Sorry Chums, no pictures this time, I will insert them when I find an internet service not powered by hamsters…….

Saturday 4^th Oct.

We left Alex behind with nary a backward glance and headed for Cairo with fluttering stomachs.  Mine was due to lingering Siwa Squirts, but Sean’s was surely the prospect of facing further Egyptian metropolis traffic carnage.  In spite of this a couple of hours later we approached the outskirts of Cairo.  After only a couple of stops for directions we’re heading the right way and lo and behold, the pyramids hove into view behind the crumbling apartment blocks. 

Pyramids through the murk

Finding the site was the easy part, over the next few days various embassies do their best to evade us.  Our first attempt coincided with the 6^th October national holiday, when Egypt commemorates their short lived thrashing of Israel in 1973.  Move on people!! 

 

 

 

 

 

I also managed to inhale a good quantity of DEET insect repellent the previous evening and have come up in a blindingly itch rash, and a huge trout pout.  It’s a toss up between whether I look more like Pete Burns or Rio Ferdinand. Either way, not a good look.

The next day, when we do find Sudan, they tell us that we should have gone to Ethiopia first.  The Ethiopian Embassy has moved several times in recent years, and so it takes us 2 hot and very cross hours to find it.  By the time we get to Ethiopian Embassy, we submit out applications and are told to come back the next day.

On Day 3 of the great Visa hunt Ethiopia comes up with the goods almost straight away, but after a bit of faffing back at Sudan, we are told that we’ll have to pick our visas up on Sunday.  It’s now Wednesday.  We can’t stand another day in Cairo.  Frustrated & knackered we head to the Egyptian Museum for a bit of obligatory culture, before returning to the campsite, and later heading out for a splendid dinner at ‘Andreas’ which I am just a bit too tired to enjoy fully.

Thursday 9^th October

Desperate for some pollution-free air we head for the Ras Mohammed National Park on the Sinai Peninsula.  On the way we stopped off briefly in Suez, to see if we could spot a ship coming through the canal, but failed.  Ras Mohammed is very close to Sharm el Sheik so we nip in quickly and buy some new footwear for Sean, his Nazareth Knockabouts having fallen to pieces in the Siwa Bad Parking debacle. 

We arrived at Ras Mohammed just before sunset, and experienced a slight delay whilst wrangling over ingress with the teenage national service security force.  It was worth it.  There is no one else here, we found a beach between low outcrops and struck camp, just us and the stars and the striped hyena (really a dog).

Oh we do like to be beside the sea side!

We have enjoyed awesome snorkelling here, the coral is beautiful, and literally yards off the beach.  In two days we’ve seen a huge Moray eel, a turtle, sting and spotted eagle rays and today we even found Nemo.

Before arrival of French & Austrian tour group

 

 

 

 

The only downside has been that our seclusion has been violated.  An Egyptian desert safari operator has set up camp around us, and groups of Austrian and French tourists have arrived.  They both seem quite bemused as to what we’re doing here, but it’s given us something funny to watch, and the Egyptians insist on feeding us by way of compensation. 

 

 

 

Monday 13^th October

Back in Cairo, our 4^th visit to the Sudanese Embassy proves only partially successful.  We are relieved of $200 and told to come back at 2pm tomorrow.  Crikey, I used the full range of my expletive vocabulary once safely out of earshot of the embassy. We were so disappointed to have to come back again. By way of compensation we took ourselves off for a good lunch.

The Eejitian I was referring to

I should have mentioned that before all this we visited the Pyramids. I am aware that I am a complete philistine, but I don’t feel that I gained much from it, everything was exactly what I had expected but smaller, which I think is the opposite reaction to most people.   The exception was the Solar Barque, a boat found buried outside Cheops’ pyramid, which I was largely unaware of before.

 

 

 

 

 

Seem familiar??

 

 

Sean said that 20 years ago the whole visiting the Pyramids experience was much more frenetic, and that by comparison they are now sanitised, as all the touts, camels and horses are kept largely away by the tourist police.

 

 

Things I like about Cairo: there are completely undeveloped lush green islands still in the middle of the Nile, and that the banks of the Nile are still green in most places. The call to prayer echoes over the city in a wall of sound as all the different mosques get into their groove.  The food is gorgeous; I could live off meze for a long time before I got bored (just as well…)  Horses look really big in comparison to all the tiny donkeys. Not even in Delhi would you find herds of goats & sheep on the main roads.  The Egyptians have been lovely people, and most have gone out of their way to help us for nothing, we have only had 2 requests for baksheesh, both of which were preposterous, and ignored.

 

Wednesday 15^th October

 

Random thing I have noticed today: all the lightbulbs I have seen are the ‘eco’ ones. And this in a country where you can’t see for plastic bag litter and you can’t buy rechargeable batteries.

 

Stayed overnight in Bawiti, in Bahariyya oasis.  The only reason for stopping here was to use the internet, and there was no working internet anywhere in town.

Tunisia

In spite of some major dramas with Elsies tyres, we made good progress through Tunisia, heading out to the edge of the Sahara, where we bumped into our travelling companions for Libya, Adrian & Linda, before we set out on our own for our first taste of piste (unsurfaced road to you and me) from Ksar Ghilane to Tatouine.  Miles & miles of empty road, and more biblical landscapes.  The camel spotting novelty soon wore off.

There's another one!

 We had an overnight stop on the touristy island of Jerba. If you have multiple tattoos and like to chain smoke come to Jerba on holiday, you’ll feel right at home.

However the upside was that Paulo and Allesandra, our Italian fellow campers shared their red wine with us, and helped us change our first wheel of the trip, a consequence of the ongoing tyre saga… 

Libya

On 26th September, having met up as planned with Adrian & Linda at the border we met up with our guide, Bilal, who steered us through the Libyan border with consumate calm & professionalism.  Our plan was to drive over the top of Libya in 5 days, with a couple of stops to take in the Roman ruins at Sabratha and Leptis Magna.

Ruins at Sabratha 😉

The Roman sites were extraordinary, just acres & acres of priceless stuff, just tumbled & piled up.  Leptis Magna was huge, and you really could picture all the toga wearers doing their thing.

Gorgon head

Heading for Tolmeida on Sean’s birthday, Sunday 28th, it all went pear shaped for Adrian & Linda, when their car, which had had overheating problems in Tunisia, and had been smoking quite badly, gave up the ghost with suspected engine seizure.  We towed them for a few Km to the nearest small town, where Bilal went on the hunt for a flat bed truck.  It was a long, long wait and eventually they got the car onto a flat bed, and we all drove in Elsie to Benghazi, arriving at 2am, filthy and knackered. 

Sadly we had to leave Adrian & Linda in Benghazi, while we pressed on to the last stop in Libya, Tobruk.  Just after sunset we stopped at a checkpoint at At-Tmimi for Bilal to have a quick pray and break his fast as it’s Ramadan.  One of the guys from the checkpoint invited us to join them so we went inside to find this huge meal spread out on a blanket on the floor.  They were so friendly, and the food was delicious.  What really struck me was the ease with which these strangers offered hospitality to us and the other people there. 

Checkpoint feast

Egypt

On the morning of the 30th September we said goodbye to Bilal, who had looked after us so well over the last few days, and our Libyan number plates & crossed over into Egypt.

Goodbye to Libya and Bilal

We were both slightly anxious about our first major African border without adult supervision, but it all went swimmingly, if you like swimming through mazes in treacle.  After 2.5 hours of going from office to office, changing money, getting rubbings done of chassis number, carnet verification etc. we were through.

After overnighting in Marsa Matruh we headed back into the desert, to Siwa oasis, right on the edge of the Great Sand Sea.  Whilst having lunch we asked directions to the hotel we’d planned to stay in, and an english guy called Duncan who was sitting at the next table offered to take us there as he lived next door.  A decision I suspect he came to regret as the events of the next 24 hours unfolded…… 

The hotel was shut so Duncan & Penny very kindly offered us their garden to camp in which had the most awesome view of the dunes, and a pool.  We enjoyed a lovely evening with them, having beers on the roof of their villa in Siwa town, before heading to a party at a nearby hot spring.

After a quick swim the next morning we set off to get permission from the police to drive to the next oasis across piste on the edge of the desert.  A minor amount of Egyptian style faffing later and we were told to report to the police station at 7am the next day where we would find an armed Captain to escort us. 

We decided to go in search of a nearby hot spring to while away the afternoon.  This is where all our plans went out the window!  Sean was attempting to turn around, having decided the track was too narrow to continue.  The rest is probably best explained with visual aids…

Bad parking

After initial attempts at extraction failed, we retired to Duncan & Penny’s townhouse for a few beers before taking everyone out to dinner by way of apology.

The next day the professionals got involved and Elsie was extracted, undamaged & dignity almost intact.

Having given Elsie a good scrubbing we made tracks for Alexandria, which I can only describe using a range of fruity expletives, so I won’t bother.  The worst is yet to come however, as we’re now leaving for Cairo, something I’ve been dreading since we started planning this trip.  But we have to go there to get our Sudanese visas, so it’s time to bite the bullet.  Until next time, Amigos! XXXX

As a camping destination Tunisia has a long way to go.  At Sidi Al El Mekki, we ended up camping in a car park with a jolly dutch couple we met on the ferry.  It turned out to be the night from hell, firstly we had a baffling visit from the local law, who insisted on taking all our passport details ‘for our own security.’  Then we experienced what felt like a hurricane, ably assisted by the local pack of feral dogs who thought that it would be fun to howl along with the wind…..

The compensation was this view in the morning

Last night our luck changed and we found a lovely camp – note how we instantly lower the tone. 

Banners and everything!

We were entertained by the local ex-pat community who were on a mass camp-out, and had a really good night. 

Today random things that have caught our eye include many, many dead dogs, some flamingos in a lagoon, nervous looking cows tethered outside butchers’ shops, our first camel sighting, albeit a dead one hanging outside aforementioned butchers, and this fabulous monument to the orange.

Fruit as monumental architecture

We’re now in Sfax, where we wandered around the huge medina completely alone, as it’s Ramadan everyone else was breaking their fast at sundown.  It was quite eerie.  We’re staying here tonight in a hotel and tomorrow we’re heading out to an oasis called Ksar Ghilane in the middle of the desert where we will stay for a couple of nights before making our way to the Libyan border.

It’s probably worth mentioning that we haven’t used the Garmin since we’ve been in Tunisia, and are both as yet unscathed.  Sean is largely refusing to let me drive, is enjoying doing battle with Tunisian ‘drivers’ and is looking forward to Libya, where apparently it’s worse.

We’re in Tunis, catching up with admin in a posh hotel lobby where the Tunisians smoke so much they make the Chinese look like cancer research scientists.  All is top-hole, the ferry disembarcation process was too hilarious to describe, and the hotel last night was post apocalyptic.  Sean dislocated his toe this morning but he’s a big boy and has wrapped it with gaffer tape.  Love you all lots.

Boarding

As I write, we’re aboard the ‘Splendid’, steaming South over a flat calm sea under blue skies.  It already seems a long time since we left Henley on a very Autumnal morning last Sunday.

Our journey thus far has been a blast.  We got an earlier ferry than planned on Sunday and made it as far as Troyes that night, finding the campsite we’d aimed for.  On Monday night we got to the Haut Jura, and it was so cold we couldn’t face cooking outside so went for a pizza.  I hadn’t fully considered the implications of camping at 3000ft in September. We slept that night in pajamas and under all available bedding, and even the hardy ancient French camping contingency we met in the shower block were complaining of the cold. 

The complications of re-trousering in a wet 2’ x 2’ shower cubicle defy description – the closest comparison I can think of would be doing tai-chi in an upturned canoe. 

Elsie, the tent and all the kit have performed above and beyond expectation with the notable exception of Sean & I., who no little thanks to GPS technology, have not had a single scrap.  All hail Garmin!  They should be mandatory issue for all couples.

Tonight we arrive in Tunis, at about 8pm and face the arrival bureaucracy – reputed to take up to 3 hours, but relatively straightforward compared to what we face in other countries.

First sighting of Africa

To prepare ourselves for the start of the BAA we’re heading to Sidi Al El-Mekki for a couple of days for a bit of a lie down.

We’ll try and update the blog once a week, and or whenever we can get internet access and have something to blog about, but if you don’t see any new material after about a fortnight we’ve probably been eaten by hyenas, or the Garmin’s failed.

Lots of love

S ‘n’ L XXX

PS Thanks for all of your texts, we love getting them and are thinking of you, but can’t afford to text back.