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ETHIOPIA
'A traveller without knowledge is like a bird without wings.'
Mushariff-Ud-Din (1184-1291)
7th February
We nearly drove through the police post following our entry into Ethiopia. It was just a simple hut surrounded by local people and two guys in T-shirts and shorts who rushed forward beckoning us to stop. They told us they worked for the Border Police and that we had to come and talk with them to make sure our journey was legal. One of the problems that can arise when travelling with a number of people is the differing of opinions at times and when one couple in our group decided they were going to drive on, the situation became difficult. One guy in particular with an annoying, 'Hey man, what do you think you're doing?' in a real American twang that sounded really out of place, quickly became quite nasty. An armed guard also arrived that deterred those in our group demanding further identification! Bill and Alain managed to calm things by sitting down on the steps outside the hut and talking things over which is of course, their customary way of doing things. Even if they don't have official uniforms and a proper headquarters, they have to be made to feel that they are doing an important job! Soon everything was sorted and they had been convinced that we were only tourists and that with 4 vehicles, we were well-equipped if a problem should arise. We were given a letter from them to hand in at Omorate, our first town in Ethiopia about 80 kilometres away, stating that we had passed through the police post.
The good, sand track speeded up our travelling but it was obvious we were not going to make Omorate before dark, so we found a flat area tucked away amongst acacias and camped for the night.
8th February
By 8.30 a.m. it was 80 degrees and we were on our way. Masses of yellow flowers lined the edge of the track, a haven for the white butterflies that were still everywhere.
At Omorate, situated on the Omo River, we got our passports stamped but were told that we would have to wait until we reached Arba Minch, to get our carnets stamped. A very polite and helpful guy at Immigration took us across to a thatched hut, where we sat on low stools and waited to change some money into Birrs. He then took us over to the bakery for some surprisingly good, bread rolls. The local market however, only yielded a few small piles of unusual looking produce on the ground, known only to the locals!
On to Turmi, a small, traditional town with surrounding villages and home to the Hamer people who take great pride in the size of their cattle herds. The ladies were holding a market and there were piles of tobacco that they chewed, skin pouches containing short sticks, piles of sorghum and coffee shells that they boiled in water to drink. They were a fascinating tribe, with the women using a mixture of animal fat and red ochre to rub over parts of their body, their hair and decorations around their neck. They were naked to the waist but wore goat or cow skins around their bodies, decorated with brightly coloured beadwork. Cowrie shells, bones, wooden beads and even rows of safety pins were all used as body decorations. Copper and brass bracelets fitted tightly around their arms and married women wore one or more thick, copper necklaces, often with a circular wedge projecting at the front. Some had thick welts on their bodies created by cutting themselves and then treating the wounds with ash and charcoal. Many of the women all had the same short, braided, Cleopatra-style hair, thickly coated with the red fat. One shy, little Hamer boy had his face and body decorated with patterns using a white chalk paste, he had walked from another village about 4 kilometres away.
We found a local campsite and joined the women and children at a well just down the road and filled our water containers. The children insisted on pumping the water for us and thought it great fun!
9th - 10th February
We took the piste to Jinka where we stayed at the Rocky campsite. There were cold showers covered by torn bits of cloth and hole in the floor toilets that would only be visited if you were desperate. Again, no proper doors, a sheet covering the entrance to one and on the other you had to drag across a heavy sheet of metal for privacy. High, cool and damp, we had torrential rain in the night that made the steep descent out of the campsite very tricky the next day. One Toyota was having a real problem and sliding dangerously near to a steep drop. Moby found his own way down in low range first and there was not even a slip! Well done Bill!
The landscape around Jinka was very green with oxen pulling ploughs and fields of maize and banana trees. The town itself boasted a bank, an Internet (when there was a connection and which was not very often) and a market. The big market we were told was tomorrow Saturday, when other tribes come from surrounding villages, including the Hamer and Mursi tribes.
Market day was colourful and busy amongst the mud and puddles. Onions, potatoes, garlic, ginger and shiny red and green chillies were piled on sacks on the ground. Spices were measured out using a tiny container and maize and sorghum were being scooped into sacks. There was a good selection of fruit and vegetables and huge piles of local bread, like grey pancakes. Rough-coated ponies and mules stood around in small groups resting, after having been led in by their owners carrying goods to sell. There were mountains of colourful, plastic sandals, strings of beads and new fashions were displayed on models standing in rows outside a stall. We were fortunate in seeing two women from the Mursi tribe who inhabit the isolated Omo area of Southern Ethiopia. Unlike some other tribes, they are sedentary rather than nomadic and have a reputation for being one of the more aggressive, African tribes. Mursi tribe girls and women wear clay, lip plates in their lower lips, which can be stretched to an enormous size! What an interesting day, but by the time we left the market, clouds had gathered and we took shelter drinking the local coffee until it stopped.
We asked at the Jinka Resort if we could camp in their car parking area and a price was agreed, as long as we ate in their restaurant in the evening. This made a pleasant change from cooking and washing up in the dark. We met Dave and his daughter Heidi there, both from South Africa and travelling north, also in a white Land Rover 300 Tdi. It's always great to meet up with other Landy enthusiasts!
11th February
We all said goodbye to Claude and Alain today who wanted to visit the Mago National Park but we could well meet again later. The rest of us took a rough road to Konso, that wound through an incredibly green landscape with rugged and sometimes forested hills and mountains. We stopped to take a photo of a little boy on enormous stilts at the side of the road, his face and body once again decorated with white, chalk paste.
We pulled over to check a tyre that smelled very hot and a young man from the Hamer tribe, stopped herding his cattle to watch us. He noticed the wing mirror on our Land Rover and spent some time looking into this, studying his face, his earrings and colourful beads, then his teeth and tongue!
The scenery to Konso might have been spectacular but the people were not. The children were a nightmare everywhere along the route, just waiting for the next vehicle whether local or tourist, hands outstretched, contorted faces, shouting for money, pens, Highland (a brand of water), or just yelling, 'You, you, you!' They ran alongside the Land Rover, brandished sticks, picked up stones, walked on their hands and did frog-like dances in the middle of the road to get attention and also had the dangerous habit of trying to leap on the back of the vehicle if the state of the road forced us to slow, which was quite frequent! A big lorry pulling a long, covered load was besieged by children as it slowed to cross a river in front of us. They tried to clamber up using the ropes holding down the load, whilst being chased away by one of the men from the cab brandishing a long stick and thrashing wildly at them! We stopped for lunch and were quickly surrounded by a group of boys all asking for the same things, whilst more raced along the road to join them. We were only ever able to stop twice in the whole of Ethiopia without people arriving to either sell or to ask for things. We met a fellow traveller from Sweden on a bicycle making his way to Cape Town. The hills and condition of the roads must have made his journey incredibly slow at times and a real target he said, for being hit with sticks and having stones thrown at him. We later heard of another cyclist who had to be flown home after having his skull fractured by stones that hit him.......very sad.
From Konso we turned north for Arba Minch and this crazy screaming and shouting continued, to be heard even above the noise of Moby rattling and banging over the bad roads. The children could run like rabbits as vehicles approached, it was like a crazy circus and the worst that we had experienced in Africa so far! Even many of the adults thrust out their hands as we drove by. It was sad to see what so many of these 'proud' Ethiopian people that we had read about, have resorted to and what the Western World has introduced. We can only hope that people don't stop to hand out the things that they demanded. All travellers coming from the north who had already experienced the same problems had warned us and many had stones thrown at them. Although some of the children picked these up, we fortunately never had one thrown at us.
Lake Chamo finally appeared in the distance surrounded by hills and low, rugged mountains. A corridor of fields ran along the length of the valley full of banana trees, cotton plants, maize and other crops, baboons ran across the road and the rivers had water. Cattle were drinking from them, children were enjoying splashing about in them instead of chanting at the roadside and women were doing their washing, the riverbanks covered in brightly coloured clothes and cloth drying in the sun. This was the Great Rift Valley that is usually fertile and green.
We camped on the grass at Bekele Mola Hotel at Arba Minch, overlooking Lakes Chamo and Abayo and the mountains beyond. Arba Minch had a tarmac road, dual carriageways and rows of streetlights and it was very strange to see them shining across the lake after dark.
12th - 13th February
We left for Awassa today after failing to find the customs building in Arba Minch to stamp our carnets. It was wonderful to be on a road with only potholes and without having to avoid clouds of dust! The biggest hazards however on the roads, were the animals, with donkeys, goats and cattle wandering up, down and across them, completely oblivious to traffic and blowing horns. Donkeys and ponies were worked hard in Ethiopia. Ponies were used for pulling covered carts used as taxi cabs as well as for pulling loads. Sometimes, whole families would sit on the carts plus goats, water containers, wood, heavy sacks, in fact anything that needed to be moved from A to B. The ponies were always driven at a spanking trot, many appeared thin, with ribs and haunches sticking out and some were still worked when lame. The donkeys however, looked much fitter, although many appeared far too young and small to be pulling heavy carts. Sometimes 2 or 3 donkeys would be harnessed together which helped to spread the weight and it was lovely to see some owners walking if the load was heavy.
The thrusting out of hands and shouting continued all the way to Awassa where we stayed at Adenium Campsite run by Jana from Germany. She made us all feel very much at home, facilities were excellent and so was her cooking! We caught up with lots of jobs and Dave and Heidi arrived on our second day there. We also met Darren from Gravesend in Kent. He had biked from the UK through Europe, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Sudan but had also sadly experienced stone throwing through Ethiopia.
14th February
From Awassa we followed good tarmac but through a much drier landscape with poor grazing for the animals. As we turned off for Butajira, a mountainous area in the heart of Gurage country, the stones and dust returned. The people here seemed much friendlier and we even received 'hello, welcome' and smiles instead of the usual greeting of outstretched hands. There are long associations with Christian traditions, which is evident by the presence of the church of Adadi Maryam, the most southern, rock-hewn church, said to be dated between the 12th and 14th centuries but smaller and more roughly hewn than those at Lalibela, further north. It was interesting to visit but a service was in progress so we did not go inside.
From Butajira, we arrived in Addis Ababa and camped in the small, car parking area of the Baro Hotel, where we met up again with another Dutch family and their 3 girls that we had first met at JJ's in Nairobi. It was rather noisy and cramped there but the water was hot!
Valentines Day, so we all had a rather expensive 'splurge' at the Italian Ristorante Castelli in town. Very, good food but after the excellent main course, no one had room for any of the delicious looking desserts that had been on display as we entered!
15th - 16th February
We changed our location for camping to the parking area of the Belair Hotel that was much bigger. At night however, we discovered that it became the parking lot for local taxis and matatus, so again it was noisy and we were woken early when they started to leave around 4 a.m. Bathrooms were awful but the water was hot so it was just about bearable. Poor Heidi couldn't face one of the rooms, so pitched her tent on the ground. Claude and Alain turned up again and we all went out for a pizza at Gazebo Pizza Restaurant and bar and then on to Brunos for some delicious, ice cream scoops. A lovely evening together, as tomorrow we will all probably be going our separate ways.
17th February
We all said our goodbyes but are sure we will meet up once more. We took Moby for an oil change at Ethio Lakes, a Land Rover dealer and then continued about 8 kilometres out of town on the Debre Zeyit Road to the Crown Hotel, as we decided it was time for a bit of luxury. A new extension was in the process of being built and we were given a beautiful room that looked as if we were the first to use it. The bathroom was an absolute treat! We had a traditional, Ethiopian evening in the restaurant, watching a dance group as we ate.
18th February
Happy Birthday Will, we hope you have a wonderful day!
We left Addis today on the Haile Selassie Road and continued on tarmac toward Debre Birhan, about 130 kilometres northeast of Addis and famous in Ethiopia for its woollen carpets and blankets. We passed through farming country with many herds of cattle and goats, horses and donkeys, grazing the dry patchwork of yellow and brown fields. Golden, dome-shaped stacks of threshed barley were piled outside the thatched huts, that were now surrounded by carefully laid, stone walls, which often included a decorative, thatched porch and door.
We climbed to over 3000 metres where the temperature dropped drastically with a bitter wind. Dense cloud covered the mountains and grey figures wrapped in blankets loomed out of the mist, holding out woven, woollen hats to sell. Patches of sun far below, picked out terraced fields and areas of blue/green eucalyptus trees, their thin, straight trunks being perfect for building use.
We passed through three tunnels cut through the mountains, all in total darkness and barely room for two vehicles to pass. The Mussolini Tunnel constructed by the Italians was the scariest, 587 metres long with many bends, where no light could be seen until we neared the final stretch. Many vehicles were driving without lights!
As we descended to the town of Debre Sina situated at the northern foot of the immense Mezezo Escarpment, it became much greener and many degrees warmer, with the almost dry Robit River meandering along the valley.
Late afternoon and everyone was heading home carrying large loads, particularly the women, who were bent almost double with huge bundles of wood on their backs. We drove through one town however, where the women looked very beautiful in long dresses of rich, dark colours and patterns, tied in at the waist with other fabric or belts and wearing large, decorative, silver necklaces. The men wore a short cloth around their waists with more piled and folded on top of their heads, they carried long sticks and some had guns.
With light fading now, we reached a town that we thought must surely be Dessie but it was Kombolcha, so we still had another 25 kilometres yet, through mountains and along rough roads, with lightning in the distance.
People and animals became a real hazard once it got dark, all still making their way home but very often in the middle of the road. Other vehicles that we passed were again without lights.
Rain fell in sheets as we approached a steep, mountain pass blasted out of sheer rock in a series of bends. Rocks and earth were piled at the sides making it impossible for 2 vehicles to pass. The lights of Dessie finally appeared below us, still at an altitude of about 2600 metres, situated at the base of Mount Tossa. Two hyenas, picked out in our headlights, crossed the road in front of us. Lightning was directly overhead as we entered the town, with water gushing down the dirt streets and everyone sheltering from the rain. We were thankful for the street map and list of hotels in the Bradt book on Ethiopia that we had bought in Addis and eventually, at almost 9 p.m. found the recommended Qualiber Hotel, where the room was clean and there was hot water. The umbrella had blown inside out and we were both cold and damp by the time we had got in and out of the Land Rover a number of times and finally parked in the very small parking area. We took our last, two bread rolls with cheese, tomatoes, cucumber and mangoes to our room, we were really tired after nearly 12 hours on the roads, mostly rough ones!
19th February
The girl in charge of the hotel was delightful and gave us a great breakfast. She really tried very hard to be helpful and to make our stay comfortable.
The road out of Dessie was still under construction and after the rain, it had also become a sea of mud and water. It was a slow journey, winding up and around the mountains and back down through fertile valleys before making our way up again, often having to wait for huge, construction vehicles to clear rocks and earth from the road so that we could pass.
The scenery continued its patchwork carpet of rich greens and browns, terraced fields, wooded hills and thatched, mud and stick dwellings. Oxen still ploughed the fields, donkeys plodded wearily, weighted down with heavy rocks collected from the dry river beds and piled in wooden carriers over their backs and camels swayed haughtily, often 3 or 4 roped together and making light of their loads. Life hadn't changed I wouldn't think for years.
We slowed continually for traffic, animals, people and potholes. The cattle were always led by a bull with a handsome pair of massive horns.
It took 4 hours to cover the 120 kilometres to Woldia, a small town set amongst rolling hills, birthplace of the tycoon Al Amoudi, the owner and constructor of the very beautiful, Sheraton Hotel in Addis.
From the small town of Dilb, 25 kilometres from Woldia, the road ascended steeply through low cloud to over 3000 metres, a bitterly cold, flat and rugged landscape, where people once again were wrapped in blankets and the horses and donkeys had kept their long, woolly coats.
At Gashena we were soon on an asphalt road into Lalibela where we camped in the car park of the Seven Olives Hotel and met up once again with our French travelling friends, Claude and Alain!
20th February
Lalibela is an isolated town, set high amongst wild and craggy mountains at 2630 metres. It was once the capital of the Zagwe dynasty that ruled Ethiopia between the 10th & 13th centuries. Its name today, comes from the most famous of the Zagwe rulers, King Lalibela. As soon as he was made king, Lalibela gathered together superb craftsmen, in order to carve the churches from the rock below ground level. Each church is unique in shape and size and decoration. Many are connected by a maze of tunnels and passages and carved steps in the rock. As we wandered through these, we passed men in white robes, bibles in hands, sitting in the shadows or in the sunlit doorways, elderly women sorting through wheat grains and laying them out on large pieces of sacking to dry, an old man sewing together a book and incense wafting through the windows set high in the stone walls. Inside one of the churches, dimly lit with a candle but with the sun streaming through the small window, a group of men and boys in long, white robes, chanted and swayed to soft drumbeats.
The church of Bet Giyorgis (St. George), was one of the most impressive that we visited, carved once again below the ground but in the shape of a symmetrical cruciform tower. The story goes, that St. George was so upset that none of the churches had been dedicated to him personally, that he visited the king who responded by promising to build St. George the finest of all his churches. We were just in time to go inside this church where the priest stood holding the crosses of both King Lalibela and St. George. Leaning against the walls were four, very beautiful paintings of St. George killing the dragon and a massive, wooden chest, said to be about 900 years old, stood at one end. The story continues to say that St. George was so eager to see his church, that he rode his horse straight over and down the wall into the entrance tunnel and the marks in the wall are said to be the hoof prints of St. George's horse! In an alcove in the rock in front of the church, lay the skulls and bones of some pilgrims who had travelled the world and decided they would like to be laid to rest at the church of St. George.
Leaving this church by a tunnel, we came across another priest, sitting by the holy water that was covered by a curtain but which had special powers to heal the sick.
We walked back past the ancient, round, stone houses on the hillside and watched the sun slide down behind the mountains from the terrace of the Seven Olives Hotel. It was quite cold but at least there were no mosquitoes!
The Lalibela churches were a wonderful experience and were certainly another highlight of our journey.
In the evening there were loud gunshots in the street just below our camping, followed by a commotion of people running and shouting. It continued for some time until the police arrived firing more shots into the air, adding to the confusion but hoping to disperse the angry crowd. We discovered later, that the riot had been caused by a small group of Muslims who had slaughtered a goat and which had angered the Christians as they were fasting.
21st February
We took the road back to Gashena and then the turning for Bahir Dar, reached by a superb, asphalt road and approached through tree-lined dual carriageways. We camped in the grounds of the Ghion Hotel at the edge of Lake Tana, Ethiopia's largest lake and met up again with Claude and Alain. It was much warmer here at an altitude of about 1800 metres but the mosquitoes were back!
22nd February
We drove north to Gonder today, about 185 kilometres from Bahir Dar on another smooth, tarmac road but where huge lorries, buses and other vehicles travelled at tremendous speed, dodging donkey carts, goats and people. Farming continued right to the edge of this super-fast highway. People carried on their lives as they did in the mountains, almost oblivious it seemed, of this dangerous strip that separated their fields, where oxen ploughed and animals grazed and wandered freely across the highway as and when they pleased.
A couple of diversions created clouds of dust but a group of little girls waved to us as they carried their school books on their heads. Small boys carried long sticks across their shoulders like their elders, driving herds of cattle, goats and donkeys along the edges of the road to grazing or water. Women balanced huge baskets of tomatoes on their heads and men, heavy sacks of wheat and bundles of wood. Women sieved wheat and laid it out to dry on the gravel sides of the road, not concerned about the fumes and dust. Oxen were being driven in circles to thresh the wheat. This modern highway, cutting through scenes that could have been from Biblical times!
The asphalt took us all the way to Gonder where we had lunch at the Ghion Hotel, set high up on a hill with panoramic views over the town.
We had decided that we would visit the Simien Mountains National Park, about 100 kilometres north of Gonder, one of Africa's largest mountain ranges, with many peaks of nearly 4000 metres. Photographs that we had seen of this Park, had shown an amazing landscape.
As we left Gonder however, the asphalt soon changed to a murderous, dusty, stony and corrugated piste, that was to stretch the whole 100 kilometres to Debark, where we would turn off for the Park. We rattled and banged hardly able to hear ourselves speak, completely enveloped in a cloud of thick, choking dust as vehicles passed us from the opposite direction. When we caught up with vehicles going the same way as ourselves, the dust was so dense that the road was completely obscured, we had to sit on their tail until the wind swept the dust the other way, enabling us to see ahead to overtake. After 3 hours on the 'road', we arrived at the Park headquarters where they insisted that we needed a guide to enter the park. Although we explained that we had no room in our vehicle for a third person, they were emphatic about the rule and so we had no choice but to turn around and return for another 3 hours on that dreadful road! We found camping at the Fogera Hotel once back in Gonder and where we once again found Alain and Claude. Moby needed a complete clean out, everything being coated with dust. Not a good day!
23rd February
We walked into the main street of Gonder where we found some good tomatoes and bread and a very fast Internet to check our emails at the Golden Internet Café.
In the afternoon we visited the Debre Birhan Selassie Church with Claude and Alain, a 1 kilometre walk from town. This amazing church was of great importance in 18th century Gonder, as it was the sight for many royal burials. The original church was thought to have been circular in shape but the rectangular church there now, is famous for housing the most beautiful paintings. The ceiling was completely decorated with 80 cherubic faces and the many paintings on the walls depicted the life of Christ, various Saints and one of the devil surrounded by flames. The outer wall around the church had twelve, round towers that represented the 12 apostles and the gateway (the 13th tower) was said to represent Christ.
24th February
We left Gonder today with our French friends and took the dirt road to Azazo for the border with Sudan, where we will cross at Gallabat. This 200 kilometre stretch of road took us about 5 hours, battling once again through clouds of dust, with many people and animals walking along the edges of the road between the towns and villages.
About 30 kilometres from Metemma, the last, dry, hot and dusty town in Ethiopia, we showed our letter for the Land Rover that we had obtained from the customs in Addis Ababa. On reaching Metemma, we waited patiently in a very hot, little hut for our passports to be stamped. The official thumbed through many pages in numerous files, (for what reason we were not quite sure) but we were told, when we asked if there was a problem, that it was official and secret! We refrained from changing our last birr into Sudanese dinars or pounds with the insistant money changers at the low rate that they offered. We think it may be wise to keep our birr, as we are concerned about the mistakes on our Sudanese visas, caused by Moonah's tippexed alterations. Who knows, we could be heading back along those roads to Addis again. What a thought!
So we leave Ethiopia and are not entirely sad. The scenery has been spectacular in parts, the tribes in the south were very interesting, particularly the Hamer people and Lalibela was definitely a highlight. Ethiopia has some wonderful history to share and many of their ancient cultures have been fascinating. However we will not be sorry to leave behind the screaming children with hands thrust out, although this did improve the further north we went. All fellow travellers have complained about the same experiences and many had stones thrown at them when they refused to give handouts. Sometimes we wondered where all the proud people were that the guidebooks continually told us about.
However, I will always remember one little girl at Lalibela who came up to me as we were walking back from the rock-hewn churches. She gave a lovely smile and said, 'Hello, welcome to Lalibela' and walked on. What a truly welcome change!
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