Toronto, Canada

We've been back in Toronto for a week and have finally got over our jet lag.

Overall the trip was excellent. Uganda was very relaxing (in part because of the nicer places we were staying at). There's a lot of wildlife and variety of wildlife in Uganda, and there's pretty good tourist infrastructure but without all the crowds. Apoka Safari Lodge was amazing -- if you have the opportunity, I would recommend staying there. It will get harder to get the remoteness of Apoka on a safari, especially as tourism continues to grow around the world.

Ethiopia was also amazing, but their tourist infrastructure is still developing (ie, it's really basic right now). There's really cool sights, my favourites were the lava lake of Erta Ale, and the rock-hewn churches of Tigray. Getting to these places isn't easy, and the excursions lack creature comforts if that's important to you. But it's well worth the effort to see. St. George's in Lalibela was what originally made us think about going to Ethiopia, and as it turned out there's even more cooler stuff to see than the rock-hewn churches. For whatever reason, Ethiopia seems to be off the radar for most people. Oddly, most tourists we met in Ethiopia were doing treks in the Simien Mountains -- this is only thing we did that I'd skip if we had to plan it again. Maybe it's because we're from Canada and have great national parks, but we didn't think the Simien Mountains were that great.

Djibouit made a nice side trip, relaxing because we stayed at the Kempinski, and interesting because of the whale sharks. It's also possible to see whale sharks in other parts of the world, but Djibouti is one of the more reliable places.

Five places on this trip made my top 100 list -- the lava lake at Erta Ale (8), Abuna Yemata Guh (one of the Tigray churches) (13), Bet Giyorgis (St George's church) in Lalibela (25), salt mining on Lac Assale (48), and snorkeling with the whale sharks in Djibouti (54). A few more trips and maybe I'll actually have 100 items on the list :)