State of Emergency in Ethiopia
 

Hello everyone,

What are recent news on the situation in Ethiopia following the strike in August. And the state of emergency by the government on October 9?

How is the security to cross the country by overland (by car in our case) ?

My girlfriend and I passed through Ethiopia on two motorcycles last week. We came in from Sudan and left to Kenya at Moyale. We spent a week going through there. Due to the political situation, we took the most direct route, Sudan to Gondar to Addis to Awassa to Moyale. We did not go north of Gondar and we stuck to the main roads.

It was never scary. A fair number of kids threw rocks and sticks at us, but apparently that's normal for Ethiopia, "they're just kids having fun."

While we never saw any protests, we did see signs of it. In Gondar especially, there were many soldiers, and many truckloads more coming in as we left. Addis felt safe. Further south, between Addis and Awassa, we saw probably a dozen burnt out trucks and shops, some still smoking. Most likely set on fire during protests. But everywhere we saw that, we also saw soldiers, who seemed to have things under control.

All in all, I would probably feel okay if I had to go back through there, but I would not want to stay longer than necessary. Of course, the situation may change pretty quickly.

The roads are generally good, but with badly potholed stretches. For about 70 km around Dilla, though, the roads are extremely poor. I think they used to be paved, but now they are very potholed dirt roads. We went about 30 kph on average, and were by far the fastest on the road. Anything on four wheels moved much slower.

Good luck and safe travels!

Left Ethiopia three days ago. Had a generally very peaceful experience even in the northern Amhara region. However, heard some stories of unrest while staying at Tim & Kim's in Gorgora.

I took a different path south than Andreas. Kim at Tim & Kim's reached out to some contacts and determined that the safest route south to Addis Ababa from Gorgora/Gondar/Lalibela was through Bahir Dar, even though it wasn't the most direct route. The important thing to remember is the situation is fluid and it wouldn't hurt to reach out to Kim and ask what the best route is; timandkimvillage@gmail.com. Great place to stay too!