[vatse]

Ethiopia has some very beautiful roads at northern highlands. Most of these were built by Italian engineers during Italian occupation and some steep mountain stretches are really spectacular feats of engineering. Many parts of north-western main road is still gravel and mountain roads look the same like these were built some 70-80 years ago. Eastern road from Axum to Addis Abeba is renovated with hard surface. And main roads to east and south fro Addis Abeba are pretty good for some 10 years already comparing with most of roads on northern highlands.

Some pictures from Addis Abeba

One of the main squares. It was parade ground during soviet regime. Now mostly used for bigger sport events, concerts and so on.
[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/5807325419/] addis abeba17 by vatse, on Flickr[/URL]


addis abeba16 by vatse, on Flickr

Some other main roads in Addis Abeba

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addis abeba11 by vatse, on Flickr

 

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Some roads from Northern Ethiopia.

Main road between Gondar and Axum through Simien Mounatins. It's one of the most beautiful roads in Ethiopia. Sadly I don't have many good pictures showing the road itself.

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Some more mountain roads

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Main road north of Gondar

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Bus station in Debark north of Gondar. Picture was made some 5 years ago and from google maps it seems that now they have asphalt road from Gondar to Debark already.

File0107 by vatse, on Flickr

Road in Axum

axum6 by vatse, on Flickr

 

[vatse]

From recent news I found that first deadline was set on 20.04 2014 but it maybe ready 6 month earlier. The first part from Addis Abeba to Debre Zeyit would be ready May 2012 already. http://addisfortune.com/Addis%20Abeba-Adama%20Toll%20Road%20Ahead%20of%20Schedule.htm
Seems to be real toll motorway with controlled access and so on.
It's much needed on this road but it would be interesting to know how big the tolls would be. Even 1 or 2 dollars for this road would be quite expensive for most of Ethiopians. And I'm pretty sure that most of public transport and trucks from Djibouti would still use the old road through towns instead of toll road.

 

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Road from Sudan to Gondar

from http://tarmotamming.blogspot.com

 

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Seems that the construction of Mojo-Hawassa motorway have also started near Mojo. You can see the cleared path just south from current road.


Mojo by vatse, on Flickr

 

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Road 3 from Addis Abeba to Bahr Dar
It's a main road from Addis Abeba to Western Amhara, Bahr Dar (capital of Amhara Region) and onto Sudan.

kaart1 by vatse, on Flickr

Just outside of Addis Abeba at Entoto mountains

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And over the Ethiopian Highlands

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Short side trip to Monastery of Debre Libanos

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And back to main road

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People are gathering for funeral

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Canyon of Blue Nile

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View to the canyon. It's about 15 km wide and 1500 m deep at this point.

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Road down to the river

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View to bridges

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The other side of the canyon

Picture 116 by vatse, on Flickr

Down near bridges

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The new bridge was opened at 2008

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The old bridge

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Road back up to highlands

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[vatse]

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Old style sign showing the name of settlement and distance from/to Addis Abeba. Usually there is only one sign like this for every town or bigger village and it's usually located close to the center of settlement not at the beginning or at the end of it.

Picture 149 by vatse, on Flickr


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Road between Dejen and Debre Markos was the first part of this road to get asphalt. The old cover really needs the renovation and they have finally started to renovate it.

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To the right there is a direct road to Bahr Dar going through Motta. It's still the gravel road but it's about 60 km shorter. They have started to upgrade it with hard cover.

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The road gets better again from Debre Markos

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Some streets of Bahr Dar. It's the capital of Amhara region and growing very fast like all the towns in Ethiopia. These pictures are from new parts of Bahr Dar. Sadly I don't have any from the older center.


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[vatse]

Road 3 between Bahr Dar and Gondar


kaart2 by vatse, on Flickr

Suburbs of Bahr Dar

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First half of this road runs around the eastern coast of Lake Tana over plane of Tana with some small hils.

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Second type of sign for settlement

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And older sign from same village

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To the right there is road to Debre Tabor and Weldiya on the Addis Abeba-Adigrat road. It's the main west-east road through Amhara region.

Picture 217 by vatse, on Flickr

 

[vatse]

Have you seen any road number signs?

Never. Even not at the recently renovated roads. At least there are now some signs giving directions at main crossroads. These were very rare at the Northern Ethiopia some 6 years ago.

 

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To get to Gondar road has to leave the planes and cross some mountain passes.

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Few pictures of streets of Gondar. These are not the best examples but are showing some examples of colonial architecture from the times of Italian occupation.


Picture 259 by vatse, on Flickr


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Local street out of the center.

Picture 261 by vatse, on Flickr