After two days in the wilderness,
we have reached the border between Sudan and Ethiopia.
My fear is that our contacts will have found getting here as difficult as we have,
but, to my relief, there is a Dr Livingstone.
You must be Graham. Sorry we're late.
Sorry my trousers are ripped. We were trying to pull the vehicle out... it was stuck...
He's Graham Hancock, British journalist.
- We had the same. - It's as bad that way?
- It's awful. Really dire. - So you arrived late too?
We got here at two in the morning and we've just been waiting for you to turn up.
We've got to clear customs on both sides?
You'll have no problem on that side. There's nobody there.
If we can get going and we have few problems on the Sudanese side,
can we get to Gondar?
We can get to Gondar, but it will take us, I would guess, not less than eight hours.
- Really? So we won't? - That's if we go now.
The problem is driving this road in the dark.
In the dark, you can't see what you're getting into.
- How far is the road bad? - It's bad for about 200 kilometres.
- Is that most of the way to Gondar? - Yes.
I think I'll go home. I want to go home!
To avoid the war-torn south of Sudan,
our route takes us in a wide detour away from 30 degrees -
across the highlands of Ethiopia to Gondar, Lake Tana and the capital, Addis Ababa.
Next morning, after a mercifully short night in a village of mud huts, we're on the move.
The landscape is a surprise -
lush green meadows and the first mountains we've seen since Norway.
We're here because of a civil war in Sudan,
but until four months ago one just as fierce was being waged in Ethiopia.
Not everyone has surrendered.
This lonely countryside provides perfect cover for bandits and privateers.
We're accompanied everywhere by soldiers. The guns are loaded.
In the villages, there are more obvious signs of war.
The children have not been to school for years.
There's little work. Shelter is basic and food is scarce.
We stop for a breakfast cuppa with our armed escorts.
Thank you.
The youngest, politest, least aggressive army I've ever seen.
Is anyone ever shot at on these roads?
There's constant incidents on these roads
where lone vehicles, particularly at night, are stopped
and the vehicle is stolen, sometimes people get killed.
Sometimes they'll attack more than one vehicle.
So it's considered a sensible precaution
to send along a few armed guards with a convoy.
- Who pays the wages of the guards? - They draw no salary.
They're a volunteer army. None of them have any income from it.
They just get food, accommodation and cigarettes.
- How old are they? - I would say not more than 18. 16 to 18.
Those who successfully overthrew the dictatorship were almost all kids of this age.
A year ago, Mengistu was heading the largest army in sub-Saharan Africa,
a massive dictatorship, huge security apparatus.
Nobody would have believed he could be removed by a bunch of kids from the hills.
Can you sense when you come into a village that there's a different atmosphere?
Definitely. I've been here for years and the atmosphere is the most noticeable change -
the feeling of relief, that people feel that they're in control of their own lives again.
Ethiopia continues to provide surprises.
I don't think any of us associated the place with floods.
The cool mountain air and the beauty of the scenery is welcome.
It's easy to forget this is not quite the paradise it seems.
0ur vehicle becomes separated from the rest.
Though we must wait for them, a roadside stop is highly risky.
Everyone breathes easier when the convoy catches up with us.
Now at least we're moving targets.
We head out of the unstable border country
to the comparative safety of the first sizeable settlements.
- This is the place where they go. - Is this where they live?
- Around here. - Nearby.
You getting out? What will we do without you? Thanks very much.
Thanks for looking after us. We got through safely.
(SPEAKS NATIVE LANGUAGE)
Give these men promotion. Make them sergeants.
Thank you. Thanks a lot.
Bye. Thank you very much.
Thanks a lot. Bye, guys. Thank you. What a fine army.
Thank you very much indeed.
OK. Thank you.
We'll know who to ask for next time! Thanks a lot. Cheers.
They're suddenly happy. I can understand why. They can go and eat and sleep.
- Everything I want to do! - Where the air is sensibly cool.
Yeah. It's rained. This is significant. It's just rained.
There's been a thunderstorm. Hailstones have fallen.
Thank you. Just giving the weather forecast.
It's the first rain that we've had since northern Norway.
We've been dry too long, especially in the Sudan.
So we go on. Does that mean we're safe? We're out of bandit country?
Yes. There's about 65 kilometres between here and Gondar, and it's safe. Um...
And er... Yes, it's all a lie. It's the most dangerous 65 kilometres of all!
Everyone says, "The next bit of road is fine."
- That's where we end up getting hijacked. - It's been one hell of a journey. So we go.
Do you want to come?
Gondar.
0nce the capital of Ethiopia, Gondar is like somewhere out of a different age.
I'm not surprised to learn that the country works to a different calendar. It's only 1984 here.
Through the smoke and mist loom the twin pillars of Ethiopian history -
Church and empire.
This is the castle compound.
It was established in 1635 when Gondar became the capital city.
The emperor Fasiladas built the first castle here,
but over the next 150 years
the successive emperors each built their own massive castle as well.
The tradition of emperors is very old in this country.
It goes back before recorded history.
For the last 750 years, there's been an unbroken line until Haile Selassie in '74.
That must make Ethiopia unique in Africa.
- Completely unique. - And it wasn't colonised, was it?
No. It's never been colonised. The Italians tried.
- There seems a European influence here. - There were Portuguese in Ethiopia.
They'd been invited in to help deal with the Muslim threat and they stayed on.
There's a possible Portuguese influence here.
Presumably they were despots?
You could say, almost without exception, that all Ethiopian emperors were despots.
Very dictatorial, very single-minded. Their word was law.
Was their any attempt to form a constitution?
A constitution was created by Haile Selassie, but it stated that his power was inviolable.
- Very clever! - Yes.
This is Taffara, the unhappiest lion in Africa.
He was owned by Haile Selassie, the former emperor. He's about 20 years old now.
- He's spent most of that in here. - They didn't get rid of the lion.
The symbol of imperial power, no.
It's really horrible in there. What a terrible place to keep any animal.
Look at the flies round him.
It's almost a punishment because he was associated with the emperor.
The surrounding mountains have enabled Ethiopia to develop in its own individual way.
There's little to suggest much has changed since the emperors built their castles.
The country has remained traditional, agricultural
and, apart from Mussolini's brief invasion in the 1930s, largely cut off from the West.
But not everyone wants to turn their back on the outside world.
- Mohamed, you listen to the radio? - Yes. Particularly BBC.
- The World Service? - BBC World Service, yeah.
What do you listen to?
I have a great interest to listen to football,
particularly England club football.
- Do you have a favourite team? - That is Manchester United.
- Yes. - I love when there's a match!
Did you hear the football last Saturday?
Because of some problems, I didn't hear the football.
So you can't tell me whether my team won? My team is Sheffield Wednesday.
I know about them.
We beat Manchester United in the League Cup last season. I was there. So bad luck!
There's an urgent need I have to attend to before I leave Gondar.
The successful semi-circumnavigator must ensure his equipment is in working order.
Excuse me. Good morning.
I take my trousers - ripped in action in the Sudan - to a local tailor.
Can you mend that?
Only they've got to last me to the South Pole.
He's having a go straightaway.
- Now... - Beautiful piece of mending.
That is brilliant. That's about one minute, ten seconds flat.
- And it's completely invisible. - Two birr.
Two birr. Ethiopian birr. I'm still on Sudanese money.
- A birr is about 50 US cents. - Is it?
- Or 30 pence. - So this is?
- Two of them is about a dollar. - Two?
Thank you very much. That's really good, excellent. Thank you.
Look at that. Near perfection.
We head south to one of the least known and yet most important places in Africa.
This is Lake Tana, where the Blue Nile rises.
It's a natural reservoir, providing water for Sudan and Egypt.
It's the only lake in Africa where these papyrus reed boats are found.
Their design has been traced back to ancient Egypt.
They look fragile, yet they've been crossing the lake for thousands of years.
The wood is in great demand. It'll be used for heating, cooking, building and fencing.
In the green highlands round Lake Tana, Graham and I are taken on an expedition.
The countryside is no different from when the Victorians came this way,
risking their lives to find the source of the Nile.
I'm risking little more than a clean shirt, but I'm realising my childhood ambition -
to be an explorer, to see strange and wonderful things in strange and wonderful countries.
That is incredible. I've never seen anything like that in my life.
- It's only just left the lake, hasn't it? - That's right.
- Lake Tana is the source of the Nile? - Effectively, yes.
It drains a lot of the mountains round about and most of it pours out down this river.
- It's extraordinary, the power. - You can see how it manages to reach Egypt.
Well worth leaving the North Pole for. I've never seen anything as powerful as that.
0nce on the road south, we're back to reality.
A poor country, exhausted by years of war and misgovernment.
Three days after entering Ethiopia, we have our last sight of the Nile,
which we've followed for 2,500 miles.
It makes a spectacular exit in a deep gorge,
spanned by a single bridge carrying the road to the capital.
0ur safe arrival in Addis Ababa marks the end of the most difficult stretch since the Pole.
We should be feeling pretty pleased with ourselves. So should Addis.
Four months earlier, Colonel Mengistu and his Soviet-style regime
were chased out of the country after 17 years.
The monuments that every Ethiopian was expected to admire
are now being taken for scrap.
But there's little sign of any joie de vivre.
The country should be having a ball, but no one seems to have the energy.
Addis Ababa is a city still in shock, unable to comprehend quite what has happened to it.
I suppose it must be depressing to realise that everything you believed in was false.
The statue of Lenin that was the centrepiece of the capital is now lying on the corporation tip.
Discarded. Redundant.
Determined to be tolerant, the new left-wing government has allowed a demonstration.
It's taking place in the square which Mengistu used only for military parades.
They're angry at plans to partition the country
and they're staging the biggest peaceful protest Ethiopia has ever seen.
(GUNFIRE)
Suddenly, there's gunfire and people run.
No one knows what it means, but that's the way the city is.
The only point of stability and continuity seems to be the Church.
0n a wet Sunday morning, over a thousand people have come to worship here.
Christianity has continued unbroken in Ethiopia for 1,600 years -
all the more remarkable as everywhere else around is Muslim.
(SERVICE RELAYED OVER SPEAKERS)
The rituals of the Ethiopian 0rthodox Church have many similarities with the Jewish tradition.
It goes back to the Queen of Sheba.
According to legend, she was an Ethiopian and mother of King Solomon's son.
(CHANTING)
(RHYTHMIC DRUMBEATS)
The "kebero" drum and the silver "sistra" are straight out of the 0ld Testament.
Next day we're on the move - heading south on the unaccustomed luxury of a metalled road.
But we haven't left the Church behind. These priests are appealing for funds.
They often collect money by upturning their umbrellas and catching contributions.
I'm riding with 0xfam, which I've supported for years.
Nick Roseveare has promised to show me how my money's being spent.
What can Ethiopia itself do to improve food production?
The policies of the new government are ones which I think will help a lot
to get agriculture more efficient.
Something like 90-92% of the population are dependent on agriculture
and the vast majority of them simply produce for their own needs.
(PALIN) If they were able to produce a small surplus and sell it at market value,
how much would that improve matters?
A lot. It would take time.
It's not going to happen next year or even in five years,
but, progressively, with incentives for people to produce more than they need,
eventually Oxfam hopes to do itself out of a job, really.
In the south, drought is not the main problem.
This creek provides water, but the water is tainted - animals use it, vehicles go through it -
and it has to be carried over long distances - traditionally the woman's job.
For an outlay of £2,000 - raised in this case by Comic Relief -
water now comes direct to this village.
A 90-foot well has been sunk and water pumped up by the simplest technology.
Excuse me.
I'd give that to my own children - and I'd have the beer!
That really is very good.
In theory, the return on this investment is better health
and, for the women, extra time and freedom.
My own state of health is currently uneasy, but the hospitality keeps coming.
This is the local bread.
- Is it bread? - It's more like a pancake.
More like a car-seat cover!
- So you just tear a bit off... Very strange texture. - Bit rubbery.
- And dip it in these. - In the sauce.
What's the least harmful for a man in my delicate metabolic situation?
Potato, if you can bear it.
Do you have to eat with your right hand only here?
People do, but it's not because it's your only clean hand. It's not such a taboo.
In Sudan and Egypt, it's very bad to touch food with the left hand.
One of the best car-seat covers I've ever had! Sour, isn't it?
It's pounded, then fermented and then used as a sort of pancake mixture.
Is it particularly Ethiopian?
- Uniquely so. - Uniquely?
They don't export it? Maybe we could start a teff franchise.
In the busy town of Shashamene, a walk through the streets becomes a major event.
The apathy I saw in Addis has no place here.
As far as the locals are concerned, the circus has come to town.
Behave normally, just carry on, do whatever you're doing and I will too.
There's nothing to do but enjoy it.
Where did you get that? Oh, there they are.
Can I have one? Can I have one?
- How much? - 25.
I'll continue my gentle walk.
Now... Ho ho ho.
Mmm. It's good here.
Hello. Mr Palin. Do you want me to?
The end of a long day's travelling
and a reminder that even time itself is not the same in Ethiopia as anywhere else.
29th?
- One. - One?
- One, '84. - Oh, it's '84 again.
When the world adopted the Gregorian calendar, Ethiopia got left behind -
by seven years and eight months, as it happens.
0utside, by Lake Awasa, it could be 1984 BC for all I care.
It's a place of soothing tranquillity, where limbs are rested, brains cleared
and, hopefully, stomachs settled.
Surrounded by all this, the problems of the journey ahead seem unimportant.
It's a short-lived illusion.
Hello? I'm ringing from Awasa in Ethiopia.
I've just had some bad news.
My friend who was going to meet us at the border...
The Kenyan border at Moyale.
He's been taken ill and he's in hospital, so he won't be able to come and meet us.
Yeah. Can you hear me?
Is there any chance you could send vehicles to meet us?
It would be the end of this week. Friday. Probably Friday morning.
If you can do what you can. I appreciate that.
We're promised emergency help, but first we must get to the border, 330 miles away.
Nick has returned to 0xfam and we're left to face the realities of travel in Ethiopia.
There are no trains, precious few buses, so it's time to hitch.
You can take us some of the way? Is that right? He'll take us...
He says he'll take us as far as he's going.
10 or 15 kilometres from here.
There doesn't seem to be anything else, so we'll take this and see. OK.
Like the Lord Mayor's Show, isn't it? Hello!
National Westminster Bank float. Last seen on the Embankment!
That's a hat. That's a chapeau.
Whoa!
(BANGING)
Oh, dear. He's just lost his hat!
That great hat that I liked so much.
Oh, dear. That's bad.
Would have been a terrible loss.
Tell you what...
Excuse me. You have this hat.
That's better. Can I have yours?
Can I have yours? Your hat? Where's your hat gone?
Where's his hat?
Fair swaps.
This could take years.
That's right. I covet this.
My head's too big.
I'm a fashion victim. Oh... It's gone!
Well caught at second slip by Roger Mills.
That's it. Immaculate.
Your head's very small. Whoa!
It's just not going to stay on.
This stretch of road is almost all that exists of the great Pan-African Highway -
a post-colonial dream that never became reality.
Rather like Ethiopian public transport.
A hitch-hiker's nightmare - a hot day, an empty road and 7,000 miles still to go.
Somewhere at the end of the road is the border town of Moyale.
If our vehicles are there, we can embark on the 400-mile run to the equator and Nairobi.
Fortune favours the brave.
11 hours after setting out from Lake Awasa, on our 11th day in Ethiopia,
we've almost reached country number ten.
This is Moyale - the frontier town between Ethiopia and Kenya.
We're here thanks to various vehicles - of which this is the most comfortable.
We just hope that the vehicles from A&K will be here to meet us.
But at least we're here. I shall go and have some back surgery immediately.
I never feel comfortable at borders,
and there's the fear that there might not be anyone to meet me.
But how could a company with a name like Abercrombie & Kent let you down?
- Hi, Michael. I'm glad you could made it. - I'm pleased to see you.
- You got the message? - Yeah. Thank goodness.
- How's Monty? - He's much better.
- You might be able to see him in Nairobi. - Good.
- Are you Abercrombie or Kent? - Kabagere.
- Mr Abercrombie. Mr Palin. - Welcome.
Nice to see you. You don't know how nice! So, country number ten. Shall we go?
Yes. Let's get everything sorted. Let's go.
In contrast to their bleak surroundings, the tribes of Northern Kenya love display.
These are the Samburu - the word means "butterfly".
I spent time with them nine years ago making "The Missionary".
Today I'm back in Lerata to see if the roof we built for the school is still there.
They've been told to expect a celebrity.
It's a wonderful welcome... but not for me. They all love Wendy.
(CHILDREN SHOUT)
Took you a while! Took your time. It's the hat, isn't it? Now you know!
There you are. Let's go.
Will you show me the school? I want to see if the roof's still on. It's still on.
Norman Garwood's work for you. Let's have a look inside.
Hello. Good morning. I last came here... Hello. Good morning.
- Good morning. - I'm honoured. Beautifully done.
You must have been practising. I was here nine years ago to make a film
and during the film, our technicians, our carpenters, put a roof on the school.
I'm glad the roof is still on and it's nice to be here again.
Do any of you know where I came from to make the film? What country?
- Anyone know what country I come from? - England.
- Very good. What's your name? - Solomon.
The wisdom of Solomon. I come from England.
Does anyone know the capital city of England?
- London. - Very good. Man in the lovely hat there.
I come from London and this time I've come from somewhere different.
I'm going to show you where I've come from on this world. I've brought my own world with me.
Encourage me. Say, "Come on!"
OK.
Come on! Come on! Come on! Come on!
Right. We did it.
Last time I came, we left a roof
and this time I'd like to give something to the school because it's close to my heart.
So I want you to have my globe.
This has been with me round the world and this far down the world.
- Would you like this for your school? - Yes.
It's very useful. You can look at it and you can also play football with it.
There you are. That's right! Oh!
My world!
This way.
Be careful with the world!
I may have left the world behind in Lerata, but I'm also about to leave miles of dirt track.
Where the good road begins, so does old colonial Africa -
clustered round Mount Kenya, 1,700 feet high and bang on our halfway mark.
The equator divides the world into two hemispheres.
This is the northern hemisphere and this is the southern hemisphere.
If you drain a sink north of the equator and you watch the water as it drains,
you will see that the water always rotates clockwise.
This phenomenon is caused by the rotation of the earth.
The effect is stronger according to how far north or south you are
and weaker near to the line.
That's why we have to give some distance from the equator so the rotation can be noticeable.
This is the Coriolis effect. Peter Muciri has given this lecture every day for six years.
It's delivered in the burnt-out shell of an old hotel.
The equator used to run through the bar.
I bet they floated matches in their beer.
This changes to counter-clockwise now we are in the southern hemisphere.
Now we are right on the equator and as we drain the water there is no rotation -
it just drains straight down - and that's how we prove we are on the equator.
It does work.
(WATER TRICKLES)
Nairobi is the centre of the safari business.
Safari is a Swahili word meaning "journey".
Now it's come to mean a journey where animals meet tourists and vice versa.
And a highly competitive business it is too.
- Hello. - Jambo.
I'm going on safari for a few days
and I've been told if I come to your shop, I'll get a free "I Love Kenya" sticker.
- Definitely. - OK. So what is safari gear?
We start from trousers, shirts, jackets, shoes, socks. Everything.
- Bring your own underwear, though. - No, we've got that as well. In khaki.
- Do you want to start with the jackets? - Sure, yeah. Absolutely.
This is called a photojournalist vest.
- I'd like to be a photojournalist. - The pockets are there for films.
Whisky flask there, gin there.
- That's fun. - This is camouflage.
We used to have original camouflage but the government banned it because of the army.
People getting muddled up with soldiers?
This is a zip-off trouser. You can zip it off and make it into shorts.
- I see. - It's multi-purpose.
- And there's this. - Show me this.
This has the map of Kenya on it.
It's a map as well. Find your way around.
- It's very "Out Of Africa" style. - Yes. The uniforms in that movie, we did.
- Did you really? - Yes.
I think the only thing wrong is the hat.
From Nairobi, we descend the eastern rim of the Great Rift Valley -
a dramatic 2,000 mile split in the earth's crust, running the length of East Africa.
Wildlife thrives on the valley floor, but we all have one eye on the weather.
It looks as if the rains have broken early.
Maybe this is why it all looks green and cosy - like Surrey with hippos.
In fact, it's the Mara River in Kenya's Masai Mara National Park.
Abercrombie & Kent have camping rights here.
Their vehicles - bogged down by rain - have only just arrived.
It's the old-fashioned way to see animals.
No hotels or lodges, just simple tents and canvas showers.
It's authentic and terribly expensive.
The team that brought me down from the border are looking after me -
Kalului the driver and Wendy, who describes herself as "an old colonial hand".
Today they're joined by a few extra helpers.
Let me introduce you to Patrick.
- This is Michael Palin. - Pleased to meet you.
- Welcome to the camp, sir. - A lot of friends.
Patrick, the maître de camp, has safaried with Hemingway, Marshal Tito and Prince Charles.
It's a palace.
This is clearly going to be unlike any other camping holiday I've ever been on. Thank God.
There's a light here. Some drinking water. A match box.
Here's your washing towel. You can have your washing water here.
- Outside bathroom. - Just to wash your hands.
- OK, thank you. Welcome, sir. - Thank you very much, Patrick.
(GRUNTING)
Unfortunately, the jacuzzi's already full.
As we're going to be here a day or two, I think I'd better go and introduce myself.
I swear they can understand every word I say.
Their expressions make me feel I know what they're saying too.
"0h, no. Not another film crew."