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terratin

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I found the one in the hotel as well. It looks like DuneBuddy replaced the Inside Outside cache for the CO a few days after you were there. It's too bad about the caches up at Mt. Entoto. I had solved the Meneliks Home cache and might have gone to find it the next time I was in Addis. One of my co-workers is going to be in Addis in a couple of weeks and going up to Bahir Dar for a couple of days.

 

No problem about the Mount Entoto caches. We've been there (meaning the taxi driver managed to get up in his old Lada) and enjoyed ourselves. That's the important part. Though we did notice the height quite a bit. The brisk walk to the missing cache from the Palace was more tiresome that we thought :laughing: Writes Mrs. terratin who wanted to climb an equally high mountain in Turkey last year but was fortunately stopped by a cold :anicute:

 

I take it then that you weren't able to find a rental car. How much was the taxi to Mount Entoto? Some of those Lada Taxi's are in pretty bad shape. When I was there last I found a driver that had a relatively new Toyota. I got his number and used him several times after that. I was taken by surprise the first time I went to Addis about the elevation. I've spent spent of time at high elevation before though so I know that it's all about acclimation. A long time ago I was in Colorado for five weeks staying at around 9000'. I went skiing almost every day at a ski resort at 10,800' (at the bottom of the resort). After a week or so there the elevation didn't bother me at all.

 

I don't like speculating about new countries, but I hope there's a chance to cache in Saudi next year. Discussions are currently ongoing :yikes: - that means, we need to find fellow cachers to drive us as we aren't allowed to take our company car out of the country.

 

I probably should stop speculating about new countries too. It seems like the last few trips I've had planned ended up getting postponed. Riyahd has come up as a layover city when I've been looking at possible itineraries to Africa but visas are difficult (a sponsor is required).

 

 

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I take it then that you weren't able to find a rental car. How much was the taxi to Mount Entoto? Some of those Lada Taxi's are in pretty bad shape. When I was there last I found a driver that had a relatively new Toyota. I got his number and used him several times after that. I was taken by surprise the first time I went to Addis about the elevation. I've spent spent of time at high elevation before though so I know that it's all about acclimation. A long time ago I was in Colorado for five weeks staying at around 9000'. I went skiing almost every day at a ski resort at 10,800' (at the bottom of the resort). After a week or so there the elevation didn't bother me at all.

 

We didn't even try to rent for going out of town. Too much to see within. Btw, the Addis Ababa Museum is really nice, mainly for the really nice building if you like old, halfrotten buildings, but the exhibition was also nice. Blue taxis in all sorts of states available everywhere. Though I think we always overpaid. Makes me feel bad to argue about 25 Eurocent. :yikes:

 

I probably should stop speculating about new countries too. It seems like the last few trips I've had planned ended up getting postponed. Riyahd has come up as a layover city when I've been looking at possible itineraries to Africa but visas are difficult (a sponsor is required).

 

Saudi is nearly impossible, really. The only reason we can get a transit visa is because we have a regional residence permit. Everything else is pretty much bound to fail. Yes, lets not speculate too much B) I'm currently making plans for my training for next year, but I won't say before everything is booked.

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Yes, lets not speculate too much B) I'm currently making plans for my training for next year, but I won't say before everything is booked.

 

Breaking news. My colleague that was supposed to go to Addis and Bahar Dar in Ethiopia decided he couldn't go (*after* purchasing tickets). I was just called into my managers office and asked if I could go instead. I'll need to get spousal approval tonight but otherwise I'll be booking flights/hotels tonight or tomorrow for a 10 day trip leaving on Saturday. I'd probably fly on Emirates and have an overnight (actually more than a full day) layover in Dubai on the way.

 

Bahar Dar is located on Lake Tana, the source of the Blue Nile. It would probably make an excellent location for an Earthcache. The nearest existing cache is 150 miles away.

Edited by NYPaddleCacher
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Great news! I'd love to go back to Ethiopia! Lots of problems in that country, but I really loved being there :) Emirates is a nice airline as well..

Be careful about water topics for EarthCaches! Water itself is not a geology topic and the geology that is responsible for it being there usually not visible as it's deep within the ground or underneath the water. Thus springs might be problematic as well unless this spring deposits some minerals or somesuch.

 

We finally booked our 'summer' vacation last night after changing our plans ever so often. Now we'll fly to Bangkok, take a quick flight to Siem Reap (Angkor Wat) for a few days, return to Bangkok for lots of sightseeing and caching, and then fly on to Khao Lak and return home from there (well, Phuket Airport). We're leaving in around 15 days. Great to get two new countries and go to places we wanted to visit for ages. There's also currently a FTF in Siem Reap. Lets see if it remains unfound.

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Great news! I'd love to go back to Ethiopia! Lots of problems in that country, but I really loved being there :) Emirates is a nice airline as well..

Be careful about water topics for EarthCaches! Water itself is not a geology topic and the geology that is responsible for it being there usually not visible as it's deep within the ground or underneath the water. Thus springs might be problematic as well unless this spring deposits some minerals or somesuch.

 

 

Interesting. There's an earthcache at the source of the Susquehana river (in Cooperstown, NY, the home of Baseball Hall of Fame). I don't recall it having anything geological that wasn't related to the river. Even if there aren't any geocaches to be found there, I'd like to go see Blue Nile Falls, about 30km from Bahar Dar.

 

blue-nile-falls-ethiopia_966x543.jpg

 

 

 

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Interesting. There's an earthcache at the source of the Susquehana river (in Cooperstown, NY, the home of Baseball Hall of Fame). I don't recall it having anything geological that wasn't related to the river.

 

Maybe it is an older Earthcache? Some years ago a lot of Earthcaches with no real geological content have been accepted. Meanwhile the review process improved and I also noticed that much more focus is put on logging tasks which involve geology.

Many existing ECs would have no chance whatsoever to be accepted as they are nowadays. Of course, it still depends a bit on the involved reviewer, but some of the currently active reviewers care much more the geological contents than it has been the case a few years ago.

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Yes, lets not speculate too much B) I'm currently making plans for my training for next year, but I won't say before everything is booked.

 

No more speculating. I've booked my flights and hotels. I'll have a 25 hour layover in Dubai so ought to be able to find a few caches. The hotel I booked is across the road from the Metro so I'll be able to get around a bit.

 

I'll also be able to grab one of the caches that you DNFd as it was replaced by the local maintainer since that time. I may have time to get the Fresh and Green Academy cache as well assuming it's accessible on a Saturday.

 

I found another waterfall based cache in Ethiopia that was published in 2013 so I'll take plenty of photos and capture any information I might be used for one at Lake Tana. From what I've read, the outlet of Lake Tana is not easily accessible by land but there are many boat tours to the location. I could run into commercial issues as well.

 

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Good luck with that!

Dubai is ok, though a bit of a Disney Theme Park :laughing: The real nice areas are within the other Emirates and I hope I'll be able to find a reason to get there. Probably not so likely as long as there are still unvisited countries in the neighbourhood, but you never know... This is the place I really want to visit: http://goo.gl/maps/y0CV6 It's a tiny Omani enclave with yet another bit of UAE in the middle. Plus there are mountains :)

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Good luck with that!

Dubai is ok, though a bit of a Disney Theme Park :laughing: The real nice areas are within the other Emirates and I hope I'll be able to find a reason to get there. Probably not so likely as long as there are still unvisited countries in the neighbourhood, but you never know... This is the place I really want to visit: http://goo.gl/maps/y0CV6 It's a tiny Omani enclave with yet another bit of UAE in the middle. Plus there are mountains :)

That was my thought, as well.

 

Three towns that I've visited that make me think of an adult Disneyworld - Dubai, Cancun, and Vegas (although Vegas is a bit grungier).

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Oh gosh.. We stayed two nights in Cancun once because we could not combine our destination (Isla Holbox) with available flights. Though we rented a car to see a few excavation sites nearby and had a great time. Once away from all the hotels Cancun isn't too bad actually. I mean, it does look like a proper, rather poor city.

 

Edit: Vegas as such is not on my wish list, but the national parks and other special areas nearby really sound tempting. Hey, I think we could easily double our EarthCaches within a few weeks :yikes:

Edited by terratin
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Oh gosh.. We stayed two nights in Cancun once because we could not combine our destination (Isla Holbox) with available flights. Though we rented a car to see a few excavation sites nearby and had a great time. Once away from all the hotels Cancun isn't too bad actually. I mean, it does look like a proper, rather poor city.

 

Edit: Vegas as such is not on my wish list, but the national parks and other special areas nearby really sound tempting. Hey, I think we could easily double our EarthCaches within a few weeks :yikes:

 

I've never been anywhere in UAE so Dubai will have to do. All the other options to get to Addis were considerably more expensive and had layovers in cities in which I've already visited. I've never had any desire to visit Vegas either. I had a two hour layover at the airport once though. I have been to Cancun, many, many years ago to the Club Med but did get out one day to Tulum. That was well before Riviera Maya was developed. I've actually heard of Isle Holbox before and even have looked at a possible vacation there.

 

I've been reading good things about Bahar Dar where I'll be spending about 4.5 days. I won't have a lot of free time there but I should be able to do a couple of the touristy things. No geocaching there though. The nearest cache is 150 miles away.

 

 

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Good luck with that!

Dubai is ok, though a bit of a Disney Theme Park :laughing: The real nice areas are within the other Emirates and I hope I'll be able to find a reason to get there. Probably not so likely as long as there are still unvisited countries in the neighbourhood, but you never know... This is the place I really want to visit: http://goo.gl/maps/y0CV6 It's a tiny Omani enclave with yet another bit of UAE in the middle. Plus there are mountains :)

 

That's where we visited while there. We took a day trip out and did some great caches along the way and in Oman.

 

We didn't want to have to pay a big fee to get into Oman, or have the chance that we would drive a long way and get turned back. But going into that little island of Oman didn't require a passport or visa. You could barely tell you were in another country.

 

And then, there was that tiny piece of the UAE inside, so funny. We stopped and talked with some people in the UAE within Oman, and they were so tickled pink, even though they barely spoke any English. They're very UAE proud, with big flags and colors everywhere.

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Oh gosh.. We stayed two nights in Cancun once because we could not combine our destination (Isla Holbox) with available flights. Though we rented a car to see a few excavation sites nearby and had a great time. Once away from all the hotels Cancun isn't too bad actually. I mean, it does look like a proper, rather poor city.

 

Edit: Vegas as such is not on my wish list, but the national parks and other special areas nearby really sound tempting. Hey, I think we could easily double our EarthCaches within a few weeks :yikes:

 

I've never been anywhere in UAE so Dubai will have to do. All the other options to get to Addis were considerably more expensive and had layovers in cities in which I've already visited. I've never had any desire to visit Vegas either. I had a two hour layover at the airport once though. I have been to Cancun, many, many years ago to the Club Med but did get out one day to Tulum. That was well before Riviera Maya was developed. I've actually heard of Isle Holbox before and even have looked at a possible vacation there.

 

I've been reading good things about Bahar Dar where I'll be spending about 4.5 days. I won't have a lot of free time there but I should be able to do a couple of the touristy things. No geocaching there though. The nearest cache is 150 miles away.

 

Even though it's touristy and packed with people, I still recommend that you try and see the light/water show at the Dubai fountains during the evening. There's an EC there: Build Your House on the Rock. It has some interesting info, although I found the questions to be confusing while at the cache site.

 

We just really enjoyed the show. I think we went there every night, and I can't count how many shows we watched. It was a bit addicting. Just wandering around the mall is interesting, culturally.

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Oh gosh.. We stayed two nights in Cancun once because we could not combine our destination (Isla Holbox) with available flights. Though we rented a car to see a few excavation sites nearby and had a great time. Once away from all the hotels Cancun isn't too bad actually. I mean, it does look like a proper, rather poor city.

 

Edit: Vegas as such is not on my wish list, but the national parks and other special areas nearby really sound tempting. Hey, I think we could easily double our EarthCaches within a few weeks :yikes:

 

I've never been anywhere in UAE so Dubai will have to do. All the other options to get to Addis were considerably more expensive and had layovers in cities in which I've already visited. I've never had any desire to visit Vegas either. I had a two hour layover at the airport once though. I have been to Cancun, many, many years ago to the Club Med but did get out one day to Tulum. That was well before Riviera Maya was developed. I've actually heard of Isle Holbox before and even have looked at a possible vacation there.

 

I've been reading good things about Bahar Dar where I'll be spending about 4.5 days. I won't have a lot of free time there but I should be able to do a couple of the touristy things. No geocaching there though. The nearest cache is 150 miles away.

 

Even though it's touristy and packed with people, I still recommend that you try and see the light/water show at the Dubai fountains during the evening. There's an EC there: Build Your House on the Rock. It has some interesting info, although I found the questions to be confusing while at the cache site.

 

We just really enjoyed the show. I think we went there every night, and I can't count how many shows we watched. It was a bit addicting. Just wandering around the mall is interesting, culturally.

 

I had seen videos of the light/water show and was hoping to go see it live. Depending on whether or not I get any sleep (and how early I can check in to my hotel) I might take a nap after I get there then head to nearby Festival City where there are a few traditional caches, The hotel is across the road from the Metro so it should be real easy to get to the mall and back. I saw the EC and similarly confused and figured that I should have time to find a few traditional caches. The closest one to my hotel is an unknown which I've "solved".

 

 

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Good luck with that!

Dubai is ok, though a bit of a Disney Theme Park :laughing: The real nice areas are within the other Emirates and I hope I'll be able to find a reason to get there. Probably not so likely as long as there are still unvisited countries in the neighbourhood, but you never know... This is the place I really want to visit: http://goo.gl/maps/y0CV6 It's a tiny Omani enclave with yet another bit of UAE in the middle. Plus there are mountains :)

 

That's where we visited while there. We took a day trip out and did some great caches along the way and in Oman.

 

We didn't want to have to pay a big fee to get into Oman, or have the chance that we would drive a long way and get turned back. But going into that little island of Oman didn't require a passport or visa. You could barely tell you were in another country.

 

And then, there was that tiny piece of the UAE inside, so funny. We stopped and talked with some people in the UAE within Oman, and they were so tickled pink, even though they barely spoke any English. They're very UAE proud, with big flags and colors everywhere.

 

Great! Mind telling me when that was (situations might change) and if you had any issues with your rental car? I do wonder if you'd need extra insurance for Oman or not as a rental car company had once switched out car off when we drove into Oman proper :lol:

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Good luck with that!

Dubai is ok, though a bit of a Disney Theme Park :laughing: The real nice areas are within the other Emirates and I hope I'll be able to find a reason to get there. Probably not so likely as long as there are still unvisited countries in the neighbourhood, but you never know... This is the place I really want to visit: http://goo.gl/maps/y0CV6 It's a tiny Omani enclave with yet another bit of UAE in the middle. Plus there are mountains :)

 

That's where we visited while there. We took a day trip out and did some great caches along the way and in Oman.

 

We didn't want to have to pay a big fee to get into Oman, or have the chance that we would drive a long way and get turned back. But going into that little island of Oman didn't require a passport or visa. You could barely tell you were in another country.

 

And then, there was that tiny piece of the UAE inside, so funny. We stopped and talked with some people in the UAE within Oman, and they were so tickled pink, even though they barely spoke any English. They're very UAE proud, with big flags and colors everywhere.

 

Great! Mind telling me when that was (situations might change) and if you had any issues with your rental car? I do wonder if you'd need extra insurance for Oman or not as a rental car company had once switched out car off when we drove into Oman proper :lol:

 

We were there in April of last year. Not sure if anything's changed since then.

 

From what we can remember, we got a rental at the airport, and my husband doesn't think we got any extra insurance. We already had our own traveler's insurance.

 

We did know that if we went up the coast from Dubai to Oman, that they wouldn't let us cross with our car. Then, they said the visas were something like $50 each, and we weren't even guaranteed that we'd be allowed in. So that's why we went to the east coast and went into Oman from there. No issues, no border crossing, nothing.

 

Driving up into the mountains of Oman to do Wadi Bashing was such an adventure. But we were a bit fearful for our safety. We probably were just being culturally nervous, but we never would have gone up there if it weren't for the cache - it was the middle of nowhere and some of the people didn't look too pleased with us being there (except for the men in the UAE, lol).

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Checking in to report that I got Poland this past weekend! Country #34! B)

 

Krakow was awesome and I am now going to recommend it to everyone over Prague- it's just as pretty and fun, but cheaper and fewer tourists. Only issue is the thickest fog I've seen in my life rolled in on Sunday night so I couldn't get out of the airport until Monday evening. First time in three years my travels went awry and I wasn't in at the office due to waylaid plans. :ph34r: Luckily the boss didn't care.

 

Also kinda sad, as I think I've now hit most of the "easy" new countries from the Netherlands for weekend trips- I have lots of places I want to go, but most are in countries I've made finds in. Quite the achievement though in its own I guess! I still have an urge for Finland/Estonia/Latvia/Lithuania but those are going to wait until spring/summer when the weather's better. There are a few down in the Balkans too, but flights just start getting longer and more expensive for just a few days.

 

Still planning a week in Israel if that stays stable, in March or so- the hostel I'm eyeing in Jerusalem does two night tours to Jordan so snag one of those too if it happens, and worst comes to worse on that there's an Earthcache at Petra. And there are geocaches in Palestine which counts as its own country on Groundspeak- controversial in itself I think!- and it looks like there's one in Jericho that day trippers from Jerusalem have found, so it's hopefully doable! But hey, all told that'll be in 5 months, so no need to go too crazy on planning now.

 

Enjoy your adventure abroad, NYPaddleCacher!

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Krakow was awesome and I am now going to recommend it to everyone over Prague

 

I was just in Krakow, coloring in Poland as my 52nd Country. I was only there 4 days wish I could have stayed longer.

 

Something new that I used on this trip was my new T-mobile Global Coverage

 

Basically I get unlimited text and data albeit on the slower network in over 120 countries. Looks like I don't have to get local SIMS anymore.

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Krakow was awesome and I am now going to recommend it to everyone over Prague

 

I was just in Krakow, coloring in Poland as my 52nd Country. I was only there 4 days wish I could have stayed longer.

 

Something new that I used on this trip was my new T-mobile Global Coverage

 

Basically I get unlimited text and data albeit on the slower network in over 120 countries. Looks like I don't have to get local SIMS anymore.

 

I've looked at some the international data plans in the past and one of the reasons that I haven't tried one is that fairly often, the country I'm going to visit isn't covered. I checked the t-mobile plan and neither Ethiopia and Tanzania are covered. I'll be in Ethiopia next week and the odds are good that I'll travel to Tanzania early next year.

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We didn't want to have to pay a big fee to get into Oman

I'd pay never o go to Oman again. I changed planes a couple of times at Seeb. It was insanely hot, AND humid because the dry inland wind was blocked by the mountains -- so it was 125 and humid.. Heat index was around 400 degrees. Never again.

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Krakow was awesome and I am now going to recommend it to everyone over Prague

 

I was just in Krakow, coloring in Poland as my 52nd Country. I was only there 4 days wish I could have stayed longer.

 

Something new that I used on this trip was my new T-mobile Global Coverage

 

Basically I get unlimited text and data albeit on the slower network in over 120 countries. Looks like I don't have to get local SIMS anymore.

 

Sounds great! My provider offers me 1gb of data and 100h of phoning for a week for around 20 Euro. As I have a company phone and am allowed to activate this I usually do. Only found out it's not available in Ethiopia. Just checked: at least pretty much all of Europe, Middle East and SE Asia are covered. That will do.

 

Congrats btw for Poland, both of you.

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We didn't want to have to pay a big fee to get into Oman

I'd pay never o go to Oman again. I changed planes a couple of times at Seeb. It was insanely hot, AND humid because the dry inland wind was blocked by the mountains -- so it was 125 and humid.. Heat index was around 400 degrees. Never again.

 

That sounds like our experience in the coastal regions of the UAE :anibad: Once we got a car and drove out into the desert the climate did get dryer (and still hotter). If you don't like humidity (who does?) then better avoid Salalah in Oman during the monsoon: about two months of drizzle, or alternatively so humid the moisture falls out of the air. At least it's very green :P

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We didn't want to have to pay a big fee to get into Oman

I'd pay never o go to Oman again. I changed planes a couple of times at Seeb. It was insanely hot, AND humid because the dry inland wind was blocked by the mountains -- so it was 125 and humid.. Heat index was around 400 degrees. Never again.

That doesn't sound fun. We were fortunate in that it was not horribly hot. I don't know, maybe 90-100 degrees fahrenheit? But when we got more into Oman, we went up into the mountains and it was much cooler.

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We didn't want to have to pay a big fee to get into Oman

I'd pay never o go to Oman again. I changed planes a couple of times at Seeb. It was insanely hot, AND humid because the dry inland wind was blocked by the mountains -- so it was 125 and humid.. Heat index was around 400 degrees. Never again.

That doesn't sound fun. We were fortunate in that it was not horribly hot. I don't know, maybe 90-100 degrees fahrenheit? But when we got more into Oman, we went up into the mountains and it was much cooler.

 

I just checked the 10 day forecast for my trip. It'll be in the mid 70's every day in Addis, and around 48 degrees at night. In Bahir Dar it's low 80's every day and 95 degrees in Dubai. Pretty nice. I know that 48 degrees sounds pretty cold for Africa but Addis is 7500 feet in elevation. Thanks for the tips on the EC in Dubai. I probably will try to do it while I am there. I'm also thinking of going skiing at Ski Dubai in the mall.

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I just checked the 10 day forecast for my trip. It'll be in the mid 70's every day in Addis, and around 48 degrees at night. In Bahir Dar it's low 80's every day and 95 degrees in Dubai. Pretty nice. I know that 48 degrees sounds pretty cold for Africa but Addis is 7500 feet in elevation. Thanks for the tips on the EC in Dubai. I probably will try to do it while I am there. I'm also thinking of going skiing at Ski Dubai in the mall.

 

I found the climate in Addis extremely pleasant, also at night. If it wasn't for the smog from all the old (and lovely!) Ladas it would be the perfect climate for me: dry, fresh and not too hot or cold. Just pleasant!

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I just checked the 10 day forecast for my trip. It'll be in the mid 70's every day in Addis, and around 48 degrees at night. In Bahir Dar it's low 80's every day and 95 degrees in Dubai. Pretty nice. I know that 48 degrees sounds pretty cold for Africa but Addis is 7500 feet in elevation. Thanks for the tips on the EC in Dubai. I probably will try to do it while I am there. I'm also thinking of going skiing at Ski Dubai in the mall.

 

I found the climate in Addis extremely pleasant, also at night. If it wasn't for the smog from all the old (and lovely!) Ladas it would be the perfect climate for me: dry, fresh and not too hot or cold. Just pleasant!

 

Really nice weather here in Addis. I only found one cache while in Dubai after DNFing two others. I got some great pix from GZ of Burj Khalifa at sunset. When I got to my hotel in Addis I ran into a couple of people I knew from some training I did in Tanzania a few years ago. They are here for some other unrelated meeting and just happened to be staying in the same hotel. I'm heading back to the airport soon for a flight to Bahir Dar. No caches there.

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Still, congrats on the new country!

 

We're counting the days until our vacation. Only 7.5 working days left :laughing: Guess I really need a vacation. I wonder if we can find a cache in Thailand before flying on to Cambodia, or rather, if we're fit enough then. We'll arrive in Bangkok at 18.45 and need to transfer to the other big airport to stay there a night and fly on the next morning. There's one cache quite close by, but on the opposite side of the airport from our hotel. It would add one more flag to the most useless stats ever: http://www.terratin.com/geocache-stats/countries/ (last stat at the bottom). On the other hand, we have enough time to cache in Thailand once we come back from Cambodia.

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Yes, it is in fact :) Look at a cache there: http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC2WJY4_kvarnen

Groundspeak just messed up the name a bit. It should probably be two AA. There's a good amount of caches there. I have a thing for Nordic countries and islands anyway (Svalbard and Jan Moyen is also on my wishlist :anicute: )

 

Thank you so much for mentioning this here!

 

We've done Liechtenstein earlier this year and Andorra, Monaco and Vatican City are on our to do list for later this year. Don't see any opportunities for the Åland Islands soon, but since I didn't know anything about them until today, they never even were considered. Now it's another country on our very long to do list. A list I was hoping to shorten a bit this year, but only seems to get longer every day [;)].

 

And now we've visited and found cache in Andorra, Monaco and Vatican City!

Much to our surprise we discovered one of our photos for our first find in Monaco ended up in the recent blog entry for the Geocache of the Week: The Geocaching Blog.

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Yay! I am going to Glasgow on November 29th for a day trip so a third country to geocache in (I've been in UK before).

 

Congratulations! Glasgow seems to have some really nice caches! Have much fun there.

 

Bangkok

how would you spend 5 full days there, and find some interesting caches?

So far our ideas are somewhat patchy (lack of time. Gosh we've never been so unprepared!):

go to Ayutthaya for a day

Grand Palace

various temples and shrines

Thomson House

explore Chinatown (that's where our hotel is)

maybe explore life on the canals, maybe do the Virtual at the zoo if we really run out of ideas :)

 

We're certainly not interested in shopping or nightlife, but exploring local cuisine, especially the strange one is a must. What's the best place for that? Maybe a park/botanical garden is an option as well.

 

We're leaving next Saturday :blink: but we first spend a couple of nights at Angkor Wat, which is also still completely unprepared. Oh well...

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Bangkok

how would you spend 5 full days there, and find some interesting caches?

So far our ideas are somewhat patchy (lack of time. Gosh we've never been so unprepared!):

go to Ayutthaya for a day

Grand Palace

various temples and shrines

Thomson House

explore Chinatown (that's where our hotel is)

maybe explore life on the canals, maybe do the Virtual at the zoo if we really run out of ideas :)

 

We're certainly not interested in shopping or nightlife, but exploring local cuisine, especially the strange one is a must. What's the best place for that? Maybe a park/botanical garden is an option as well.

 

We're leaving next Saturday :blink: but we first spend a couple of nights at Angkor Wat, which is also still completely unprepared. Oh well...

 

I was in Thailand about 20 years ago, so can't give any advice on what to do now. But something we like to do when we are in other countries is to visit places we have seen in movies or television series or that described in books (fiction). There are several locations in Bangkok used in, for instance, James Bond movies. Watching the movies before a trip and again after a visit, to see what changed (or not) can be really fun and always brings back memories.

 

Some examples of other countries where we've enjoyed this: locations of the book and the film The Third Man, in Vienna Austria. Locations of Angels & Demons in Rome. The Shadow of the Wind (book by Carlos Ruiz Zafón) in Barcelona. The look out point in Mazatlan Mexico which can be seen in the leader of the Love Boat series (yes I know, getting old ;)). And since we've been in Washington D.C. there hasn't been a week without watching a TV show (like NCIS, Scandal, Bones etc.) where we say to each other: "that's where we walked" or "when we were there there wasn't water in the pond", "that's the museum we visited" etc.

 

And not every location is very interesting (not even for a tourist), and we aren't interested in shopping and nightlife either when we are in a foreign country, but still having walked a famous nightlife street, just to see what it is like can be interesting later when you notice images of it being used again and again on television for series or news items.

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Yay! I am going to Glasgow on November 29th for a day trip so a third country to geocache in (I've been in UK before).

 

Congratulations! Glasgow seems to have some really nice caches! Have much fun there.

 

Bangkok

how would you spend 5 full days there, and find some interesting caches?

So far our ideas are somewhat patchy (lack of time. Gosh we've never been so unprepared!):

go to Ayutthaya for a day

Grand Palace

various temples and shrines

Thomson House

explore Chinatown (that's where our hotel is)

maybe explore life on the canals, maybe do the Virtual at the zoo if we really run out of ideas :)

 

We're certainly not interested in shopping or nightlife, but exploring local cuisine, especially the strange one is a must. What's the best place for that? Maybe a park/botanical garden is an option as well.

 

We're leaving next Saturday :blink: but we first spend a couple of nights at Angkor Wat, which is also still completely unprepared. Oh well...

 

5 days is plenty of time to see and do a lot in BKK. Good time to be in Bangkok. Weather is generally pretty good - temps are somewhat high but humidity is low, which compared to the rest of the year, makes it quite pleasant.

 

Attuthaya is a cool place. Highly recommended. Fun to rent a pedal bike while there and visit the various temples, etc. May not be quite as impressive as Angkor Wat but still pretty neat. The things are your BKK list are kind of the highlights of BKK, and I dont think you can go too far wrong doing those.

 

Other potential day trips - Bridge over the River Kwai (full day - interesting and depressing all at the same time), floating market, a national park (whose name escapes me at the moment), + others.

 

Local cuisine - runs the gamut from street vendors to michelin starred restaurants and everything in between. As for strange stuff, generally it is at places that are catering to tourists. For example Khao San road has historically been the backpacker haven. You will find the street vendors selling all type so deep fried insects, etc. Not too far from Chinatown.

 

As for caches, the majority are magnetic type on the back of a street sign, etc. Caching is not real easy in BKK - always lots of activity and the city itself is not real pedestrian friendly (uneven sidewalks, deadend streets, etc.). Couple that with the fact that GPS reception can be spotty. But, the caches take you to some interesting neighborhoods and areas of BKK. Some good puzzle caches if you are in to that also.

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Still, congrats on the new country!

 

We're counting the days until our vacation. Only 7.5 working days left :laughing: Guess I really need a vacation. I wonder if we can find a cache in Thailand before flying on to Cambodia, or rather, if we're fit enough then. We'll arrive in Bangkok at 18.45 and need to transfer to the other big airport to stay there a night and fly on the next morning. There's one cache quite close by, but on the opposite side of the airport from our hotel. It would add one more flag to the most useless stats ever: http://www.terratin....tats/countries/ (last stat at the bottom). On the other hand, we have enough time to cache in Thailand once we come back from Cambodia.

 

I found that cache you DNFd in downtown Addis this morning. I'm staying at the hotel next to the hotel where it's placed. I had to explain to a couple of the staff at the hotel what I was holding and I'm not sure that they fully understood the game but I tried to make it sound like it was just a harmless game and after I replaced the cache they didn't seem all that interested in it being there. I had hoped to get over to the other side of town to find the Fresh and Green Academy cache but I'm going to be working today and am pretty sure I won't have time to get over there before I leave Ethiopia.

 

Only 2 finds in a 12 day trip but I'm glad to have added a new country and one more in Ethiopia.

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Yes, I read your log this morning. Well done. It's quite an inconvenient location though, isn't it? I hope the same band is playing in Addis again next year. I'd love to return and combine it with a decent vacation. Well, there's a good chance as they've been doing that for the last 6 years or so. Fingers crossed! Then we'll probably look for another hotel location. We were in a hotel near Olympia roundabout. Great location, lots to see out of the window and nice rooms (if you ask for a soft bed), good local food, but just a bit uncentral after all.

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I just found out that while in Buenos Aires next week, iI can take a ferry to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay, for a half-day trip, so I can sum another country to my list :lol: :lol: :lol: (these would be my 16th and 17th country). Besides, Colonia is a World Heritage Site, so it's not that I waste half a day for just another flag; looks like it will be worth it. Really looking forward to it!!!

 

1xxdi1.jpg

Edited by Glory Hunters
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Yes, I read your log this morning. Well done. It's quite an inconvenient location though, isn't it? I hope the same band is playing in Addis again next year. I'd love to return and combine it with a decent vacation. Well, there's a good chance as they've been doing that for the last 6 years or so. Fingers crossed! Then we'll probably look for another hotel location. We were in a hotel near Olympia roundabout. Great location, lots to see out of the window and nice rooms (if you ask for a soft bed), good local food, but just a bit uncentral after all.

 

The location was probably convenient for the CO because she could place it without leaving the hotel. There was a large park about a 10 minute walk down the road that certainly would have been a better location. If you go back, I'd definitely recommend a visit to Bahir Dar. My colleague from the Gates foundation planned on going to Lalibela this weekend. No cachers there but I've heard it's an amazing place to visit.

On my flight out of Addis to Dubai I think I may have got a picture of the location of the Erta Ale Volcano cache.

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I just found out that while in Buenos Aires next week, iI can take a ferry to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay,

 

I did that trip when I was down there. If I remember correctly the fast ferry was expensive about $200US each.

 

Estructura de las Rocas Is a easy earthcache to get in Colonia.

When going after traditions down there check to see if people are actually finding them there seem to be a lot of Fotologgers.

 

If you walk to ferry terminal in Buenos Aires watch out for the bird poop scam.

Edited by FunnyNose
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I was in England last week and I noticed some challenges that require one to have found a certain number of cache types in a certain number of countries, e.g. 5 cache types in each of 5 countries. Looking over my finds, I discovered that I haven't done a wide variety of cache types abroad; it would be fun to try to diversify. So this time I made sure to do both Wherigo and Earthcache types!

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I was in England last week and I noticed some challenges that require one to have found a certain number of cache types in a certain number of countries, e.g. 5 cache types in each of 5 countries.

 

That's not too uncommon in Europe. In Vienna there are at least challenges for x caches types in x countries for x=3,4,5 and 6.

In London you can end up with 8 on a day without an event and 9 with an event.

 

The more challenging type of challenge with respect to diversity appears to me that one

http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC56H69_9733-soup-challenge-bonus

Edited by cezanne
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I was in England last week and I noticed some challenges that require one to have found a certain number of cache types in a certain number of countries, e.g. 5 cache types in each of 5 countries. Looking over my finds, I discovered that I haven't done a wide variety of cache types abroad; it would be fun to try to diversify. So this time I made sure to do both Wherigo and Earthcache types!

 

Yes.. I've been slowly trying to work on those. There is one with 7 types in 7 countries... I have 7 types in 5 countries.

 

I do have 6 types in 6 countries too...

 

Wherigos abroad can be hard if you don't know the language. In some countries I've found Wherigos which are in English as well, but other places the only ones in the area were the native language only. For those I need to find a local willing to help.

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Wherigos abroad can be hard if you don't know the language.

That is definitely the case for more complex wherigos. I wouldn't recommend trying them without knowing the language, as to me it doesn't seem possible to take Wherigo dialogue text into clipboard for automatic translation in an app.

 

And even worse people here like to play with language and/or include the strangest allusions and/or use (strong) dialect in written form so also locals have to consider the meaning.

 

Most of the boring reverse Wherigos are not really language dependent.

 

Many cachers don't find them boring, it only depends on whether you use nothing else than the Reverse Cache Box or also a more theoretical approach that can make the task a boring one.

 

The Reverse Cache cartrige is by a German cacher, but every finder can retrieve a code and have their own Reverse Cache using the same cartridge. It now has a couple of languages (en, de, pl, es, fr, cz) to choose when starting the cartridge. And now with all the languages there is an additional dialog telling you 'bla bla own risk, be careful, respect the laws, bla bla'.

 

I've played wherigos only in my country and in London. As I don't speak the languages of the neighbouring countries I would stick to wherigos with english version available.

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I was in England last week and I noticed some challenges that require one to have found a certain number of cache types in a certain number of countries, e.g. 5 cache types in each of 5 countries. Looking over my finds, I discovered that I haven't done a wide variety of cache types abroad; it would be fun to try to diversify. So this time I made sure to do both Wherigo and Earthcache types!

 

Yes.. I've been slowly trying to work on those. There is one with 7 types in 7 countries... I have 7 types in 5 countries.

 

I do have 6 types in 6 countries too...

 

Is that 7 different caches types in each of 7 different countries? Although I've cached in 21 different countries I typically don't have more than a few hours when I'm there that I can spend geocaching so I suspect that I'll never complete this challenge. Not to mention, in many of those countries there probably aren't 7 different caches types in the entire country.

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Is that 7 different caches types in each of 7 different countries?

 

Yes.

 

Not to mention, in many of those countries there probably aren't 7 different caches types in the entire country.

 

As events do count for most of the challenges, I'd say that at least in most European countries (of course not in the Vatican) where you have found caches the answer is yes.

Edited by cezanne
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Without all sorts of events there are 8 cachetypes (and the last APE and Groundspeak HQ). In countries where geocaching started later there are almost no webcams or virtuals 'left over'.

 

If you want 8 non-event-types in a day, this is easily possible (for tourists that haven't 'consumed' yet the rare cachetypes) in London/UK and in most European countries that are 'old' and 'big' in geocaching like Germany, Denmark, Czech Republic, also starting in Vienna with a short detour over the border.

 

The really small countries like Vatican won't help. And countries like Bosnia, Montenegro or Albania without a lot of local cachers that are not flooded with tourists (both as owners and finders) from the 'older and bigger' countries don't have any virtuals or webcams and also up to now no wherigos or letterboxes.

 

With events it is really easy at Mega-Events in Europe. There are always new caches of all types (Tradi, Multi, ?, Wherigo, Letterbox, EC - only new webcams and virtuals aren't possible) and additional event-types like CITO, normal events, Maze.

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