It's only a couple of hours' drive from the border to Njombe, where our friend Hans lives.  The area we're driving through is very green and lush, with lots of banana trees and maize plantations all along the road.  As we approach Njombe, the road climbs higher and we pass a huge tea plantation and then enter a forest of wattle trees.  The latter turns out to belong to the company where Hans is working, the Tanganyika Wattle Company.  They have thousands of hectares of plantations, mostly wattle and pine.  Hans is in charge of the sawmill, which processes the newly-felled pine trees to make planks of different shapes and sizes.  He shows us around the mill and arranges for the manager of the wattle processing plant to give us a guided tour there too.  The end product there is a wattle bark extract which is used for tanning raw hides to make leather.  The wood from the wattles (and any leftover pine) fuels the factory's own power station.

It's fantastic to be able to relax at Hans's place for a few days.  At this altitude (1900m), it's quite chilly in the mornings and evenings and wrapping up warm by the fire (without having to worry about mosquitoes!) is a pleasant novelty.  The view from Hans's house, across wooded hills, makes us think we're somewhere in Sweden, rather than in the middle of Africa!  Hans also has another friend visiting, a Danish girl, Pernille, who works for a Danish NGO in Dar Es Salaam, and we all spend a pleasant few days together.

En route to Dar, we camp at The Old Farmhouse, just south of Iringa, where we eat fantastic food by candlelight in an atmospheric thatched rondavel.  We set out early for the long drive to Dar the next day and are struck by the number of trucks on the road - overtaking them one by one makes the journey even longer.  We feel sorry for the truck drivers - there are numerous police checkpoints along the road and the trucks seem to have to stop and produce their paperwork at every one, although we are just waved through.  Later we hear that corruption and bribery are on the increase in Tanzania (which once prided itself on its strong anti-corruption stance, the legacy of Julius Nyerere's socialist policies), which seems to explain why the police are so anxious to spot any minor infringements by truck drivers.

In Dar, we set about organising our visas for Sudan.  We've heard that getting these in Nairobi is impossible without a huge bribe and, although some people have been lucky recently, we're reluctant to leave it to Addis Ababa as many overlanders have been stuck waiting for weeks there in the past.  The disadvantage of getting them in Dar is that you only have one month from issue of the visa to enter Sudan, but we decide that we can live with this as our aim of being back in Europe by mid January (Roel starts work at the beginning of February) means we need to enter Sudan around that time anyway.  The visa application has to be accompanied by a letter of recommendation from your home country's embassy.  This requirement seems pretty ridiculous - basically the letter has to state that you are a citizen of that country (nothing your passport doesn't say already), that you're married (if you are) and travelling with your spouse (again - pretty obvious from a combination of marriage certificate and passport) and your intended timetable and route in Sudan (obviously the embassy can only write what you tell them, so not sure what the value of this is either!).

Obtaining these letters is an interesting exercise in the differences between the Dutch embassy and the Irish.  The Dutch are very familiar with the procedure (obviously many Dutch travellers have gone before us) but still manage to make it a painful experience.  Their embassy - shared with the Brits and the Germans - is a fortress, with limited opening hours, and, although we've already prepared all the necessary information, they insist that Roel write the same information in a letter formally requesting the letter of recommendation.  They charge him 52,000 Tanzanian shillings (just over GBP20 / EUR 30) for the privilege (almost as much as the Sudanese charge for the visa) and still 'can't promise' when the letter will be ready.  To add insult to injury, they won't accept a Dutch mobile number as a valid way of contacting Roel if they have any queries, insisting that we should call in to the embassy again next morning to see if there are problems!  In the end, when we do call in the letter is ready to collect, but the whole experience has been quite unpleasant.  By comparison, getting the letter from the Irish embassy is like an old friend doing you a favour.  The welcoming Irish lady at the embassy has never heard of anyone needing this kind of letter before and agrees with us that it's absolutely pointless.  She's happy to write whatever we want, though, and even obliges by rewriting the letter when it turns out that we've got the requirements wrong (oops).  And all of this for free!  With the free visas for Zambia and Tanzania as well, being Irish has turned out to be almost $120 cheaper than being Dutch so far on this trip!  What a shame Roel can't get an Irish passport by marriage...

While in Dar, we stay with Pernille, the Danish girl we met in Njombe, which is a very relaxing experience.  Hans is in Dar for a night, on his way to France on business, so he and Pernille show us some of the nightlife.  Completely by chance, we also run into a former colleague of mine, Nick Zervos, who's now working in Dar and we spend a couple of pleasant afternoons with him at the Dar yacht club.  By arrangement, we meet our friends Emily and Peter, who are on a two week holiday from their busy jobs in London, and spend a couple of days with them on Zanzibar island.  Arriving in Stone Town, we take a dalla-dalla (a local minibus where 20 people are crammed into space that's suitable for about 10 - it's lucky that none of us have much luggage!) to Paje, on the east coast, where the beautiful white sand beach has to be seen to be believed.  Roel goes diving with Emily and Peter, though I drop out at the last minute as I wake up with a splitting headache.  The divers return, all with varying degrees of sunburn, and Roel reports that, although there were some beautiful fish, the wildlife and coral weren't as good as in Australia, which selfishly I'm quite pleased about!  After two days of rest and relaxation in Paje, we spend a night in Stone Town, where Emily and I do some serious bargaining for souvenirs and we all have an amazing meal at a little restaurant called Beyt al Chai opposite the Serena hotel.  The food (mostly based around fresh fish and seafood) is just as good as any we've had in London and works out at only 50,000 TSH (GBP20 / EUR 30) a head for 3 fantastic courses and (lots of) wine!

Next morning we catch the ferry back to Dar and go straight to the Sudanese embassy to pick up our visas, which goes surprisingly smoothly - a great relief and a nice birthday present for Roel.  In the evening, we all (me, Roel, Emily, Peter and Pernille) celebrate Roel's birthday (and Emily and Peter's last night) at a great Ethiopian restaurant, Addis in Dar, which is round the corner from Pernille's house.  Hans is back in town the next day and kindly treats us to a few nights in the Moevenpick, one of the poshest hotels in Dar, where he is also staying, with his girlfriend Nema.  It's a strange experience to be staying somewhere so opulent - the breakfasts, in particular, are alarmingly lavish.  The hotel also has a gorgeous swimming pool, which our room overlooks, though unfortunately that's as close as I get to it as I have a lengthy and very complicated translation to do.  However, I do manage to go out with Roel, Hans and Nema in the evenings and explore some more of the expat scene in Dar.

On Monday, Hans and Nema have to get back to work and we also have to leave the Moevenpick.  Unfortunately, I still haven't finished the translation, so we end up staying in Dar all day while I finish it and spending an extra night at a campsite.  We finally leave Dar on Tuesday afternoon and follow the route we took the first time we came to Tanzania, in 2003, driving up to Mkumbara, near Mombo, where Hans was working in 2003.  The sun is setting as we approach and the view across the valley is just as beautiful as we'd remembered.  We spend the night at the campsite adjacent to the sawmill where Hans worked and have a pleasant evening chatting to the people who currently run the sawmill and campsite.  There's a bit of excitement when we notice a spectacular forest fire high on the hill above us - the flames are several metres high and are being fanned by strong winds.  The sawmill manager seems pretty confident that they aren't heading our way, though, and after half an hour has passed and they haven't got any closer we decide that it's safe to go to bed.

We stop for lunch in Arusha next day and then head north for Kenya.  The road starts to get narrower and rougher and passes through the traditional lands of the Maasai people, tall nomadic pastoralists who are easily distinguishable by the (generally red) checked blankets and jewellery they wear.  The border runs through the centre of the Maasai's land and, after going through the usual formalities, we are soon in Kenya.

We enter Nairobi in the late afternoon and it soon becomes clear that we're in the middle of the worst rush-hour traffic we've seen for quite some time.  Things move slowly and tempers are clearly frayed, to the extent that Roel gets into a slanging match with a minibus driver who tries to push in in front of us.  He tells us to 'go back to your own country' - not the welcome we'd been hoping for on our first day in Kenya.  Luckily, when we finally find Jungle Junction, the overlanders' campsite - despite having a GPS waypoint, this takes quite an effort - the welcome there is warm.  Mark, the English motorbiker we've met before, has been there for a few days and there's quite a fun group of motorbike and 4WD overlanders, which increases in size each day!  Despite Nairobi's reputation (it's often called 'Nairobbery') we rather like the city - probably partly because we are staying in a leafy suburb - and people (except for that minibus driver the first day!) seem friendly.  We organise our Ethiopian visas, with a minimum of hassle, and spend a relaxing few days hanging out at Jungle Junction.  One evening a group of us visit Carnivore, a restaurant well known for an all-you-can-eat (you've guessed it) meat barbecue - this is a fun experience, though we come to the conclusion that we actually had better meat (especially game meat) in Namibia and South Africa.

From Nairobi, we take a detour to visit Lake Nakuru, one of Kenya's national parks, which is famous for the thousands of flamingos that feed on its algae.  On the way, we experience some pretty heavy rain and the Landy is soon covered in mud as the road we're driving on is unsealed (and liberally dotted with potholes full of muddy water).  The rain is easing off as we reach the park entrance.  We're a bit dismayed to find that the park fees are $40 instead of the $30 we'd been expecting from the Lonely Planet (especially as the sign shows the fees went up 18 months before the guidebook was published...), but we're here now so we fork out our $40 each (for 24 hours) plus a further $10 each for camping and 300 Kenyan shillings (about $4) for the Landy - phew, that's over $100!  The flamingos are pretty spectacular (somehow the grey skies make their pinkness even more garish and cheerful) and there are lots of other beautiful water birds too.  At the southern end of the lake, we have the unusual experience of seeing about twenty white rhino (notoriously shy and hard to spot in other parks) grazing placidly by the lake.  Apart from this, we see quite a few buffaloes, some reedbucks and impala and a few giraffes, but sadly no leopards.  We wake up early in the morning, planning to go up to the lookout at Baboon Cliffs, which should give a fantastic view over the lake, but unfortunately the weather refuses to cooperate - everything is shrouded in a thick mist!  After a few interesting encounters with large groups of baboons sitting on the road and a last visit to the flamingos at the edge of the lake, we leave the park and head north east, cutting across country towards Isiolo, where we have arranged to meet Mark and a German couple, Steffi and Michael, in a Land Cruiser, so that we can all travel the rough (and somewhat unsafe) dirt road up to Ethiopia together.

Everyone arrives in Isiolo as planned and we have an interesting meal of 'nyama choma' (barbecued goat), which is the Kenyan national speciality.  Next morning, we head north.  As we're anticipating the (badly corrugated) road being particularly hard going on a motorbike, we take most of Mark's luggage in the back of the Landy to lighten his load a bit.  Once we get going, it becomes clear that each vehicle (and its owner(s)) has a different pace: Michael and Steffi are the fastest, their theory being that the best thing is to skim over the corrugations at around 70-80kph; Roel and I are too scared of breaking something to go for that so we only average 30-40kph in the Landy; Mark brings up the rear at around 25-35kph.  We get into a routine that every couple of hours Michael and Steffi stop and the rest of us gradually catch up.  We don't want to get too far ahead of Mark as we have all his spare parts with us in the Landy!  It's slow going and as the sun sets we're just arriving in Marsabit, 250km from Isiolo.  We camp for the night in a field belonging to Henry, a Swiss guy living in Marsabit.  We're all pretty knackered, especially Mark, and after a quick meal we go straight to bed.

The next day's drive, from Marsabit to Moyale, on the Kenya/Ethiopia border, is a bit less gruelling.  The first 100km are quite stony (i.e. strewn with boulders of black volcanic lava), so we drive at about the same speed as on the corrugations the day before, but after that the road is a bit smoother (with the odd badly corrugated patch) and we're all able to speed up a little.  Although the road is better on this stretch, we're now passing through the area where bandits, known locally as 'shifta', regularly attack passing vehicles, which is a bit of a worry.  People we've spoken to have played down the danger, saying that there haven't been many attacks in recent years, so we don't feel too concerned.  About half way between Marsabit and Moyale, we are stopped at a police checkpoint and told that we have to take an armed escort with us.  We're never very keen on having an escort and the police have already let Michael and Steffi through without one, so we have a bit of a debate about why we need one.  It also emerges that the police want us to pay for the escort, which we're not too keen on either.  We communicate with Michael and Steffi on our 2-way radio and they tell us that the policeman who let them through the checkpoint said there was no risk at the moment.  We start to suspect that the offer of an escort is more of a money-making venture than a safety measure, especially as two local cars pass through the barrier without being given an escort. The police suggest that we can go with the second local car if we don't want to pay for an escort, which contradicts what they were saying before about an armed escort being essential for us.  We don't want to go through until Mark catches up, so we aren't able to take them up on this offer anyway.  By the time Mark does arrive, we get the impression that they've given up on making money out of us and they let us pass the barrier without any protest.

Just to be safe, we decide that we will drive the three vehicles close together (Michael and Steffi have driven back to join us at the checkpoint) for the next 20km, which is the stretch the police say is unsafe.  This passes uneventfully and we each return to our usual speed and drive on to Moyale.  Several kilometres later we see three soldiers with machineguns walking down the road.  We are a bit alarmed when they flag us down - could they be bandits?  When we slow down we are relieved to see that their badge says they are from the Kenyan army - they are all smiles and handshakes and just want to ask whether we've seen any trouble on the road.  We all arrive safely in Moyale, although later we hear that the bandits have been active recently, shooting a truck driver dead only a few days before we passed through, and we think perhaps we were a bit foolhardy not to take the police's concerns more seriously.

In Moyale we repair our only breakage on the rough roads - two pop-rivets on the jerrycan-holder we keep on the roof have worn through - and camp for the night on the Kenyan side, ready to cross into Ethiopia next morning...

Another fairly uneventful border crossing, though we have to wait quite a long time for the customs man to arrive (perhaps he was still in bed?) to stamp our carnet.  Eventually we are free to drive on.  We stop for some lunch at the roadside and are joined by a local boy who's looking after his father's cattle.  His English is surprisingly good and we have a pleasant chat and share our lunch with him, though towards the end of the conversation he starts asking us for money.  He doesn't seem to be in any particular need and he's already told us that his father is 'very rich' as he has many cows, so we don't feel too bad about saying no.  We've heard from other travellers that (perhaps as a result of the overseas aid during the famine in the 1980s) the Ethiopian people are particularly persistent in asking travellers for money, but at least this boy is pleasant and polite and doesn't get angry when we say no.  The other thing we'd heard is that small children in Ethiopia always shout something that sounds like 'youyouyouyou' at foreigners and this is something we notice almost as soon as we cross the border.  We had expected that this might feel a bit threatening, as we haven't really liked it when children in other parts of Africa shouted 'mzungu' (which means foreigner), but actually this just sounds funny and quite musical in their high voices.  We don't know what it means (maybe something like foreigner?) but we don't mind it at all!

The campsite at Yavello Motel, where we spend the night, is pleasant enough and we have our first Ethiopian food (in Ethiopia), which we like very much.  The basic meal is a thick spicy sauce ('key wat') accompanied by the enormous, slightly sour pancake known as 'injera'.  You pour the sauce onto the injera and eat it with your hands - quite messy when you haven't had much practice!  Variations on this formula include small pieces of barbecued meat known as 'tibs' and various boiled vegetables, in each case accompanied by the ubiquitous injera.  Interestingly we discover that the same dish is never the same twice (not even in the same restaurant, on the one occasion we've tried this) - at least this is reassuring evidence that everything is made freshly and not from packets!

During the next day's drive we pass from the cattle country near the border (passing a bustling Sunday livestock market on the way) into lush green hills where agriculture is obviously the main activity.  The houses, made of the rich dark local mud, are often painted with bold colours and intricate patterns.  People seem cheerful and welcoming and many smile and wave as we pass.  Our destination is the town of Awassa, where Jana and Kuratu, a German/Ethiopian couple, have a campsite that's well known among overlanders as a haven of tranquillity and good home cooking!  It doesn't disappoint and we spend two nights there relaxing and catching up on our washing etc.  We learn from Jana that 'youyouyouyou' doesn't have any meaning in Amharic or any other Ethiopian language - she's not sure why the children say this but thinks it may have come about because aid workers during the famine would deal with a queue of people by saying 'you - see the nurse, you - go to the clinic, you - go to the food collection point, etc', so that it seemed that all they were saying all day was 'you, you, you, you'.

We've been travelling with Mark and Steffi and Michael all this time - no longer attempting any kind of convoy, but just staying in the same places and enjoying each other's company in the evenings.  However, Steffi and Michael are now heading to the Bale Mountains for a few days, while we've decided to head straight for Addis Ababa as we have to be in Sudan in less than 2 weeks.  Mark's also heading for Addis, where he needs to organise his Sudanese visa, so we drive there together.  We stay at the Baro Hotel, another overlanders' meeting place, probably mainly because it's one of the few places near the centre where you can camp.  We spend a pleasant few days in Addis and celebrate Mark's birthday in style with some Australian travellers we've met.  We start out with a meal at a local restaurant recommended by the Lonely Planet (great Ethiopian food, slightly odd atmosphere with high ceilings, dark wood, television playing in the background and very bright strip lighting!).  Mark and I both quite enjoy the local honey wine, 'tej', though Roel declares it 'disgusting'.  Mark, Roel and I and Ivan, one of the Aussies, then check out a local bar, where we sample a range of beers (mainly because when we order another round whatever we were drinking always seems to have run out!) and end up paying the princely sum of 39 birr (about GBP2.20 / EUR 3.30) for twelve beers!  We finish off with a visit to the Blue Nile Hotel, where the music puts an end to any conversation (probably just as well, with all the beer we've had) and all we can do is peer through the dim light at our fellow patrons (lets just say I think most of the other ladies there were attending strictly for business reasons) and their unusual style of moving to the music (more often than not they are just moving heads, shoulders and arms while still in their seats - if they do dance standing up it is almost always alone and in front of a mirror!).  Definitely an interesting night out!

After another fun night out in Addis, we head north, leaving Mark to organise his Sudanese visa and meet us in Khartoum.  The road north runs through beautiful scenery with rolling hills which remind us of Tuscany.  Rounding a bend we meet Kenny, a Canadian cyclist, toiling up the hill towards us.  Judging from the amount of luggage on the bike, he's been on the road for a while and, indeed, when we stop to say hello he tells us that he's been travelling round the world by bicycle for 20 years (with the odd stop to work)!!   Wow - that makes our trip look like child's play!  We swap tips about the road ahead and guide books (our Lonely Planet for East Africa for his Rough Guide to Egypt) and wish each other a good trip.

Shortly afterwards, we are stopped at a police roadblock - there are roadworks ahead and the road will not reopen for two hours.  We pass the time in the car park of a nearby hotel and get chatting to some Italians who are here on holiday.  Ethiopia was an Italian colony from 1936 to 1941 - though the only legacy of this short period that we've noticed is the availability of spaghetti and macchiato coffee on the menu alongside more traditional Ethiopian dishes, it still seems to attract quite a lot of Italian visitors!

Finally the road is open again and we set off, descending steeply into the Blue Nile Gorge.  The scenery is gorgeous but the thick cloud of dust from all the other vehicles ahead of us rather spoils the view.  A Japanese company are working on the road and there is a bit of a delay as for some reason only one vehicle at a time is allowed to cross the bridge at the bottom of the gorge (doesn't matter whether it's a massive truck or a small hatchback, apparently).  By the time we get to the end of the roadworks on the other side of the gorge it's pitch black and time to find somewhere to sleep.  Luckily we have a tip from other overlanders about a hotel in Dejen (just beyond the gorge) where we are allowed to camp for free!

Next day the road again runs through beautiful green (very European-looking) scenery.  We start to notice that the roads approaching each settlement are very busy with people walking towards town and although many people are barefoot they all seem to be wearing their smartest clothes (mostly simple peasant dress in vivid greens and white, though some women are wearing elaborate skirts with leather tassels dangling to their ankles) and carrying baskets full of fresh produce - from this we deduce that there is some kind of festival or special market going on.  A few men (presumably the richer ones) are riding into town on horses draped with red and white garlands.  It's all very medieval and makes us think about how things might have been in our society in the middle ages when people would walk for days to visit an annual fair.

Arriving in Bahir Dar, we head for Ghion Hotel, on the shores of Lake Tana, where most overlanders camp.  We organise a boat trip to the monasteries on the lake for the next day.  In the morning, we are ready at 8am as arranged, but nothing seems to be happening.  Finally someone from the hotel tells us that the other people who're coming on the boat won't arrive until 8.30.  Hmm, that's a bit annoying but not the end of the world.  At 8.45 the boatman comes to us and starts trying to tell us something about going to less monasteries because there are less people coming (his English is not too great - and our Amharic is non-existent - so it's hard to understand exactly what this means).  We go to reception to ask what's happening and end up in the manager's office.  He doesn't even look at us when we come in or seem to hear anything we say but just picks up the phone and has a short conversation in Amharic.  The outcome seems to be that the other people aren't coming.  The manager promises that we can still go to the same number of monasteries as originally planned, so we head off in the boat.  However, we've only been going a few minutes when the boatman's phone rings - the other people have turned up after all.  By this point, we are not very amused and when we get back to the jetty we don't exactly give our fellow passengers a big welcome.  They turn out to be three Ethiopian guys and don't seem to speak any English, so we can't really communicate anyway.   By this time it's after 9.15 but we try not to let our frustration at the delay spoil the trip and some of the monasteries are really gorgeous, especially the last one we visit, Debre Mariam, located at the point where the waters flow out of Lake Tana to form the Blue Nile River.  It's over 800 years old and though less ornate than some of the others has a lovely serene atmosphere.  The ancient priest proudly shows us some of the monastery's treasures, including some beautifully-illustrated holy books written on goat skins.

Back at the hotel, we meet Louis from Amsterdam who's driven down from Europe in his Toyota Land Cruiser.  He's driven the route ahead of us several times and gives us some useful tips and we spend a pleasant afternoon and evening chatting.  Less pleasant is the fact that, in the middle of the night, I wake up feeling distinctly unwell and have to make a run for the nearest loo.  Being in a tent in these situations isn't ideal and as the only food I've eaten over the last few days has been supplied by the hotel Roel manages to negotiate a good price for a hotel room for the next night instead.  Luckily the bug only lasts 24 hours, so we set off the day after for Gonder, our next stop.

Gonder turns out to be one of the most fascinating towns we visit in Ethiopia.  The capital during the 17^th and 18^th centuries, it is dominated by a huge complex of royal castles built by successive emperors.  Thanks to recent restoration projects, you really get a good idea of what these beautiful buildings must have been like when they were in use.  Contrary to our usual policy, we decide to take a guide to show us round the site and this turns out to be well worth the money.  The guides are all studying tourism at the local university, speak pretty good English and are very knowledgeable.  It's also interesting to be able to ask questions about local customs and religious practices.  Gonder is a stronghold of Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, the main religion in the highlands of Ethiopia, and our guide proudly informs us that this ancient religion pre-dates Roman Christianity.  As a result, Ethiopians use a calendar which is roughly seven years behind that used in the west - in this weird time warp, we are back in February 2000, having just missed the Ethiopian millennium celebrations!

Our guide also tells us about several interesting religious practices.  Each morning people gather at the many churches in Gonder to be sprinkled with holy water, whereupon many of them go into a trance and exhibit signs of 'evil spirits leaving their bodies', i.e. wailing and throwing themselves around.  Our guide tells us earnestly that he believes that this can cure many ailments, including AIDS.  It's always difficult to know what to say in these situations - you're never going to single-handedly dispel all the myths about AIDS you encounter in Africa, but you feel you should at least try to remind people that there are conventional treatments for AIDS as well (though of course some African governments prefer to support the myths rather than supplying these).  We're also interested to hear that fasting is a big part of the Ethiopian Orthodox religion.  Most believers fast from early morning to mid afternoon several times a week and eat only vegan food for the rest of the day on fasting days.  The church also recommends that after a certain age people adopt a totally vegan diet, to purify themselves in preparation for meeting their maker.

After much soul-searching, we decided in Addis Ababa not to make a detour to visit Lalibela, the site of Ethiopia's famous rock-hewn churches.  Driving there involves 600 km of notoriously rough roads and most people we've met who've done it said it wasn't worth it.  We did consider flights but these turned out to be prohibitively expensive.  Having visited Gonder and the Lake Tana monasteries, we are happy with our decision as we've learned a lot about Ethiopian Orthodox religious life and seen some amazing sights.  Not least the beautiful Debre Berhan Selassie church in Gonder, famous for the 104 cherubs who smile quizzically down at you from the ceiling...

From Gonder, it's 220 km, mainly on unsealed road, to the Sudanese border and we manage to pick up two punctures on the way.  To be fair, one was a repair that gave up - just south of Addis Ababa Mark had pointed out a large bolt protruding from one of our tyres and we had this patched up in Addis.  Hmm, obviously not well enough.  The other is a new puncture - another bolt.  On roads as rough as these, this is one of the main hazards as bolts often shake loose and fall out of vehicles.  After a quick tyre change - the first roadside tyre change of our entire trip! - we are soon at the border.  The Ethiopian formalities are quickly dealt with and we are in Sudan!