All this happened on Wednesday the 17th of May, 2023. We kissed Moritz goodbye after catsitting him for two weeks in Freiburg im Breisgau. We walked to a hitchhiking spot to travel from Germany to Switzerland. Jonas hadn’t been to Switzerland before and we were both excited to go hitchhiking to Bern. Doing the Research for Hitchhiking to Bern During our stay in Freiburg, Jonas and I had to decide how to get from the catsit of Moritz in Germany to the one in Switzerland. I really wanted to hitchhike and I really wanted to visit Switzerland’s de facto capitalContinue reading
Author: Iris Veldwijk
How to Get an Ethiopian SIM Card
We arrived in Ethiopia on the 26th of January, 2023 and immediately bought an Ethiopian SIM card at the airport. Here’s our experience and how you can get mobile data in Addis Ababa and beyond. Ethio Telecom Monopoly Doing the research on what SIM card to buy in Ethiopia was simple; there’s only one company. Ethio Telecom (ኢትዮ ቴሌኮም – pronounced ītiyo tēlēkomi) is a government-owned provider. Though this makes things easier than in Madagascar, there’s also a risk that the government sets the price too high. Luckily, this turns out not to be the case in Ethiopia, asContinue reading
Ethiopian Food and Drink I Scarfed Down as a Vegetarian in 30 Days
As a traveling vegetarian, Ethiopia is quite an easy country to visit. Many national dishes are vegetarian or vegan. These are the Ethiopian food and drinks I wolfed down during my one-month stay in Addis Ababa, Bahir Dar, and Lalibela. How to Find Out Which Ethiopian Foods are Vegetarian? Ever since the start of our journey of learning about Ethiopian food, we’ve used this handy glossary to figure out what’s what. I use ctrl + F or page search to find out which dishes are veg. We basically started with the beyayenetu (በያይነቱ – meaning ‘variety’), which is vegetarian unlessContinue reading
Bete Amanuel, Lalibela: Wonder of the Ethiopians
We visited the wonder on the 7th and the 10th of February, 2023. Bete Amanuel is a spectacular church carved out of a single rock in northern Ethiopia. It makes an appearance in the video game Age of Empires II as the wonder of the Ethiopian civilization. One of the Reasons We’re in Ethiopia Our motivation to travel to Ethiopia after Madagascar came from two things: we love Ethiopian food and I knew there was an Age of Empires II wonder to visit here. The wonder is called Bete Amanuel and it’s a 900-year-old church carved out of a singleContinue reading
Madagascar for Digital Nomads: A New Frontier
This guide to Madagascar also appears under the Digital Nomads Guides brand Why Madagascar? Introduction to the Red Island Madagascar is basically its own continent. Though Madagascar is by no means an easy country to work online from, a visit will absolutely be rewarding in many ways. Madagascar offers digital nomads a wildly different experience from the established destinations. Madagascar is a developing country. By some measures, it’s the fourth-poorest country in the world, having suffered a lot under French colonialism till independence in 1960. But as nearly everywhere on Earth, the essentials of the 21st century to make internationalContinue reading
Getting a SIM Card in Madagascar: Orange, Telma, and Airtel
We bought our Malagasy Orange and Telma SIM cards on the first full day in the country, the 16th of November 2022. The last SIM card in Madagascar, Airtel, was trickier to get in the capital. I’ll explain below why we’re getting multiple SIM cards from different providers. TL;DR Which SIM Card in Madagascar Should I Choose? So far, we think the best SIM card in Madagascar is Orange. It connected well in Antananarivo and worked immediately. Tethering worked perfectly and it works both on iPhone and Android devices. Orange also worked in Ampefy, the first smaller town we visitedContinue reading
Money in Madagascar: the Ariary, Cash, ATMs, Orange Money + MVola
Paying for things in Madagascar isn’t as straightforward as in many other countries. Here’s how to get your hands on fat stacks of Malagasy Ariary, how to use the mobile money apps in the country, and how to identify when people are quoting prices in Malagasy Franc (†2005). Using money in Madagascar is very intertwined with having a Malagasy SIM card, so check out that article as well. Intro to The Ariary—Paper Money Only The Malagasy Ariary has been the official currency of Madagascar since 2005. Unlike Dollars or Francs, no other currency in the world goes by the nameContinue reading
Ranohira: Our First Time Hitchhiking in Madagascar
This happened on the 29th of December, 2022. Jonas and I did our first cursory hitchhiking in Madagascar session. Since it was so spontaneous and unplanned, the featured photo of this article was taken on the 2nd of January, 2023 while waiting for our cotisse from Ranohira to Ambalavao and does not represent the text below. Tired As Fuck After eating lunch and asking the Isalo National Park office about tours, I was quite exhausted. We’d traveled from Toliara at sea level to Ranohira at 1000 meters by cotisse. Though we had expected lower temperatures at this altitude if anythingContinue reading
Madagascar Tourist Visa Extension in Toliara: 30 Days Extra
We tried to extend our tourist visa in Madagascar in the coastal city of Toliara, aka Tuléar or Toliary. Our first visit attempt was on Friday the 23rd of December, and the next time Monday the 26th of December. Trying the Madagascar tourist visa extension around Christmas was obviously not ideal. Why Extend the Madagascar Tourist Visa? When we arrived in Madagascar in mid-November 2022, we only got a tourist visa for 60 days on arrival. That cost us €40 per person, which we paid in Euros. Sadly enough, the information about obtaining a 90-day visa upon arrival was alreadyContinue reading