Kenya and Ethiopia – Part 10: Lalibela Sunday Church Service, St. George Church, and Mountain Monastery

Today we woke up earlier than usual.  Sunday is a very important day of worship for the residents of Lalibela, and the procession of people heading to the church for services is an awe-inspiring sight.  Our hotel knows that tourists like to watch the processional, so they had breakfast prepared early for us. Hailu came to pick us up at…

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Kenya and Ethiopia – Part 9: Lalibela Rock Churches and the Amazing Market

We woke up early, had breakfast at our hotel, and then met our guide, Haliu.  We rode into town in a tuk-tuk while he gave us the history of the churches.   – There are 13 churches.  They are divided into groups.  There’s the northern cluster, which we were going to visit in the morning.  In the afternoon, we would explore…

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Kenya and Ethiopia – Part 7: Mercato and Half Day Addis Ababa Tour

Mark’s main interest in life is food.  He is a big-time foodie, spending nearly every evening watching cooking videos, thumbing through cookbooks, and perusing cooking blogs.  When we go into a bookstore, he visits one section and one section only: the cookbooks. There is a travel video blogger named Mark Wiens who makes videos which are a perfect mix of…

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Kenya and Ethiopia – Part 5: Rough Trip to Mombasa

Mombasa is the second largest city in Kenya after Nairobi, and it’s on the coast.  There’s city stuff to do, and beach stuff to do. In all of the guidebooks that I had read, they recommended staying at a beach hotel and NOT in the city proper, as there are potential safety issues for tourists.  Diani Beach was the recommended…

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Kenya and Ethiopia – Part 4: Buying a Tourist Souvenir at the Right Price (How to Haggle Abroad)

I mentioned in a previous post about how Mark overpaid for a bowl in one of the souvenir shops.  Mark doesn’t like to haggle, and neither do I. It’s demeaning to negotiate prices with someone, especially when you know this is how they make a living and you want to pay them a fair rate for their goods. And yet,…

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Kenya and Ethiopia – Part 3: Kissing Giraffes and Touching Elephants

Our first full day in Nairobi was a memorable one.  We woke up early, grabbed breakfast at the hotel, and then Uber’ed it to another hotel, the Kenya Comfort Suites, in downtown Nairobi.  It was the meeting point for our tour. On tap this day was a tour of the Giraffe Center, followed by the David Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage. About seven…

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