Breaking update: flight cancelled

Meskel is one of the significant cultural events on the Ethiopian calendar. In this deeply Christian country it celebrates the finding of the true cross, purportedly in the country's hills. On Meskel eve a great bonfire is lit, and the priests and participants dress in full regalia. The largest celebration is in Addis Ababa and is a colourful and vibrant affair, touted as the best place to be in the country. It's the kind of thing travel photographers look for.

However, I was scheduled to still be on my Ugandan safari. So I cut short the safari, abandoning plans to meet with a  friend upon the tour's return to Kampala, and instead headed to Uganda's southern border. The Rwandan capital of Kigali was half a day closer to me by road than Kampala, and I could catch a flight from there to Addis Ababa on the morning of Meskel eve.

Visas can be issued at Rwanda's land borders, but a letter of facility from the immigration department is required. You must request it online, and the letter is emailed. I waited nearly a week longer than the advised response time and finally tracked down the department on Twitter and obtained the letter. I caught a taxi to the border, walked across, got a 3-day transit visa, and piled into a packed minibus with 15 other people for the three-hour journey to the capital.

The only practicable flight was scheduled for 2am, which meant an eleven-hour wait at the airport. At least I am told at check-in that the De Havilland Dash twin prop has only eight passengers scheduled, so it should be a comfortable flight. But at 1am I'm advised that the plane, coming from Entebbe, has a flat tyre and will be thirty minutes late. Or not, as it may not arrive at all. At 2.30am it's confirmed that it isn't coming. Ethiopian Airlines may instead try to divert another flight to pick us up. But at 4am it's revealed this won't happen, and that we'll be put up in a hotel instead.

There is another flight at 3.30pm. However, it is fully booked. The following flight is at 11pm – well after the end of Meskel eve. I tell the guy from the airline, who is doing his reasonable best, that I'm a journalist on assignment to cover the festival and that I must be on the 3.30pm flight to reach it in time, as even that is cutting it extremely fine. For a little persuasion I pass him my travel writer business card, hoping the airline wants to avoid any negative travel press.

The hotel is reasonably nice, but fails to avoid complaint by a lack of hot water. Perhaps they knew a cold shower after just four-and-a-half hours sleep would wake me well up.

It turns out that I do get booked onto the 3.30pm flight and am waiting now in the same lounge I was twelve hours ago. Boarding time is in half an hour.

Purportedly.

Kampala

"Mzungu!"

I am mzungu . White man. They call to me in friendly tones and smile, and I wave back. As far as I can see, across all the bobbing black heads, I am the only mzungu in Kampala.

People are walking everywhere on the variously intact and broken footpaths that line the mud-rendered traffic-packed asphalt, yet the hotel staff thought it was strange that I wanted to walk into town.

"Bad idea", one of them said. She was likely concerned that I would be pickpocketed rather than mugged. Kampala isn't Nairobi. Violent crime is rare. I have read. So, blissfully confident in this, I sauntered past the "No guns" signs in the foyer and marched out the hotel gate, bidding adieu to the guards checking with mirrors under cars for bombs.

I pass by the Electoral Council of Uganda, a minor fortress with police in fatigues wielding shotguns posted outside long, whitewashed, razor-wired walls. The whitewash is wonderfully glazed with informational paintings and bold instructions on the democratic process: "Participate in elections by organising democratic rallies"; "You must be registered to vote." I approach one of the gun-toting officers and, extending my journalism credentials, ask him if I can shoot the building. (Okay, I said "photograph the building".) He tells me to go inside to ask permission, but the guards want me to leave my backpack at the gate until they can verify that I am who I say I am, and not someone simply wanting to get into the Electoral Commission of Uganda with a backpack full of C4. I'm not too keen on leaving it unattended as it actually contains expensive camera equipment, so I decline and move on.

As it turns out, I don't shoot Kampala at all. Though everything is in a constant state of deterioration, incompletion and perpetual repair, the city is utilised and occupied, and I want to capture its dirty, bustling life. But Kampala's sole mzungu flashing around his fancy Canon is not a good look.

Why it is a bad idea to visit East Africa

Today I begin my malaria tablets.

I'm already shot up full of hepatitis and typhoid vaccines. Now I've come across warning that there's been a flare-up of meningococcal meningitis in the south Omo Valley of Ethiopia, my main destination where I will be shooting the southern tribes. I don't intend to French kiss them so meningitis is manageable. But the World Health Organisation also reported a recent outbreak of yellow fever, the mosquito-borne haemorrhagic disease, in the same area. They're on the ground containing it right now. Local mosquitoes French kissing me are considerably harder to avoid, so I got vaccinated two weeks ago. I had to if I wanted to come home. Australia won't let me back into the country without immunisation.

In fact, they don't even want me to go. The Australian government's "smart traveller" website says of Uganda: "Reconsider your need to travel to areas bordering the Democratic Republic of the Congo." The Bwindi Impenetrable Forest of Uganda, where I will be tracking the mountain gorillas, sits right on the border. The late Dian Fossey was based here. And murdered here.

From there I cross by road into Rwanda about 100km from Goma, the provincial capital seized from Congolese government forces last year by M23, the allegedly Rwanda-backed Tutsi rebels. Tutsi and Hutu militia have persisted since the Rwandan genocide of 1994. There was further fighting near Goma in July.

"Reconsider your need to travel" is the Australian government's second-highest security advice. The highest is what it says of Ethiopia: "Do Not Travel." Not actually for all of Ethiopia, but the border areas with Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea, Kenya... well, all the border areas. Harar, one of my first stops, is only about 120km in a straight line from the Somali border. Actually, it's the border of Somaliland, an unrecognised breakaway state which is reasonably stable. Aksum, on the other hand, is about 50km by road from the Eritrean border. The war with Eritrea formally ended 13 years ago and the border has been permanently closed since, though there have been skirmishes as recently as 2010. This is the region where five western tourists were killed and two kidnapped by gunmen last year. This is my destination in the north.

But not to worry. Yes, I'm a westerner travelling solo, but I will hire guides.

They carry rifles.

Warming up the engines...

After an extended hiatus, the Solonaut is preparing to crack Africa. Stand by for dangerous undertakings.