Travels in Africa, June-July 2008

Day 35 - Return home to Hong Kong

Sat, 5 Jul 2008 15:53:38 +1000

The great adventure is over, and Andrew and I have returned home safely to Hong Kong. Our flight home began last night in Djibouti. We arrived at the airport a couple of hours before departure, which didn’t worry me as there was lots of action to see, including a never-ending sequence of military helicopters taking off to go on patrol somewhere or other, and a real highlight for me - watching one of the few remaining flying Ilyushin Il-18s in the world coming in to land on a flight from Somalia (see photo to the right).
We flew from Djibouti to Addis Ababa on a short 50 minute flight in an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 (see photo above, taken at Djibouti Airport, plus the image to the lower right showing Andrew boarding the plane). Upon arrival at Addis Ababa, we had a five hour transit stop, which allowed more than enough time to obtain our boarding passes and stock up on a few extra gifts for the family. At a little after midnight, we boarded our Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 767, which flew from Addis Ababa to Hong Kong via Bangkok (where there was a refuelling stop of one hour) on a very comfortable flight lasting 11 hours and 35 minutes. We had a perfect end to a great flight as we arrived on time into the late afternoon golden light of a clear and fine Hong Kong.
While at Addis Ababa airport, I bought a copy of “The Sign and the Seal” by Graham Hancock. The book is a detective-like investigation into the claim that the original Ark of the Covenant is now held in the northern Ethiopian town of Axum, in the small chapel that we visited on Day 6 of this trip. The book is a great read, and looks at several of the places we visited besides Axum - notably the rock-hewn churches in Lalibela, which it hypotheses were built with the aid of French Templars. Although I have not yet finished the book (although I did manage to read the first 237 pages on the flight), the sense of excitement generated in me by the text suggests that the book’s finely printed 600 pages will be finished before too much longer.
If you happen to have come directly to this page, which covers the fairly uninteresting but necessary last day of our trip, and you wish to read the travel diary in the correct sequence starting from the beginning, please click HERE to access Day 1, and then follow the green “Next” buttons at the bottom of each page.
If you wish to access a gallery of photos of Andrew and me while away, and you have password access to the Family section of this website, click HERE.
You can also access galleries of all the photos contained in the daily travel diary entries by clicking HERE for photos of Ethiopia, HERE for photos of Namibia, and HERE for photos of Yemen, Eritrea and Djibouti.
Whew! What a fantastic experience - one of the most rewarding but far from the the easiest trips I have ever made. It didn’t always go according to plan, as shown when we had to leave Eritrea early, but that is probably to be expected when travelling in Africa.
Was it all worth it?
Yes - a thousand times over!!!
Would I do it again?
Yes, of course I would - although I probably should clear some of those pieces of paper that have been accumulating on my office desk first :-)

Day 34 - Djibouti

Fri, 4 Jul 2008 05:59:18 +1000

Andrew and I had a much-needed good sleep-in this morning, with the alarm set for a very late 8:00 am. Friday is a weekly day of rest in Djibouti, being the Muslim holy day. After a basic but enjoyable buffet breakfast at our hotel and a luke-warm, low-pressure shower, we decided to spend our morning exploring the city centre of Djibouti, including the ‘Marché Central’ (Central Market). We knew that everything would be less busy than on other days of the week, but this would be our only opportunity to see the area as we had to fly out in the afternoon.
Unfortunately, like everywhere else in Djibouti, our hotel had no maps. That must be a long-term problem throughout Djibouti, because even our guidebook contained no map of Djibouti City and offered no useful suggestion where to obtain one. No matter - the helpful staff at the hotel gave me a description and a sketch map of the way we should walk to the city centre. Actually, there was a small problem - the map bore no relationship to the pattern of the streets, and the description sent us entirely in the wrong direction. Fortunately, Djibouti is quite small, and having realised that we were in the wrong area (i.e. the shipping port!), we caught a minibus into the city centre. I guess we were also fortunate that the weather was cooler today because of some thin cloud cover - the temperature during our walk was ‘just’ 41 degrees, which was certainly enough to work up a sweat, but which was nonetheless bearable.
The centre of Djibouti was certainly a quiet, sleepy place today. Nearly every shop was closed, and the almost empty streets contained just a few largely aimless pedestrians (like us) plus a number of people reclining on deck chairs enjoying the morning sun.
We found the Marché Central just a few blocks away from the city centre. The market was vibrant rather than chaotic as it apparently is on the other days of the week. One section contained fruit and vegetable sellers, with a smaller section selling meat (but not pork) off to one side. Across the street, a larger area contained a mix of stalls selling electronic goods, shoes, clothes and household products, all interspersed in a confusing mix with minibus stops and waiting areas. At one side of this zone, a street of souvenir stalls offered a wide array of masks, carvings and T-shirts, very few of which actually seemed to have originated in Djibouti.
It did not take us very long to explore every street in central Djibouti quite thoroughly, and after being out for about two and a half hours we decided to take a taxi back to our hotel, where it was time to cool off, shower, change and depart for the airport to begin the long journey home to Hong Kong.

Day 33 - Lake Assal, Djibouti

Thu, 3 Jul 2008 02:40:50 +1000

I think I have discovered the perfect way to get tired - really, fully, seriously tired - just take a three hour flight that is scheduled to fly in the early hours of the morning, and get no sleep whatsoever all night! Our flight from Dubai to Djibouti was scheduled to depart at 3:00 am. Daallo Airlines requires that passengers check-in three hours prior to take-off, so we left our hotel in Dubai at about 11:30 pm, arrived at the airport at a few minutes before midnight, and began the long check-in process.
Our plane was a vintage Boeing 727, parked at a remote stand at Dubai Airport that required a long trip in a bus from the terminal. The plane had been wet leased from a company in Kazakhstan - it had a Kazakh registration (UK-B2703) and a Kazakh flag on the side, but no name of any airline anywhere on the plane. The pilots were Kazakh (or maybe Russian), and the members of the cabin crew were mainly Kazakh with one Djiboutian also present to make in-flight announcements. The flight, which lasted three hours, departed an hour late, and therefore we arrived in Djibouti at 6:00 am (when the photo above was taken) rather than the scheduled 5:00 am. Even though no food or drink was served on the flight, it was not easy to grab any sleep, and we arrived in a pretty tired state.
Most of the passengers on our flight transferred to a connecting flight into neighbouring Somalia - straight to a waiting Ilyushin Il-18, so I was more than a little jealous! Because so few passengers were terminating their journey in Djibouti, the interior of the airport was a fairly quiet and calm as we waited for our baggage, apart from the swarms of mosquitoes that had stirred themselves into action with the arrival of the day’s human victims. The outside of the airport terminal was not so calm, however; just after we arrived a squadron of Mirage fighters taxied on to the runway and took off, accompanied by a large aerial refuelling tanker - it was obvious that we were entering a zone of considerably heightened tensions as we came into the Horn of Africa.
We arrived at our hotel at about 7:30 am, having had virtually had no sleep whatsoever. I was hungry and thus had a quick shower to freshen up and then went to breakfast; Andrew just lay down on his bed and went straight to sleep. Breakfast confirmed the importance of Djibouti as a centre of peace-keeping operations in north-east Africa, as most of the other guests in the hotel proved to be German Army peace-keepers, all dressed in full camouflage gear, even in the hotel restaurant. It was a compelling reminder that Djibouti occupies a key strategic position at the narrowest point of the entrance to the Red Sea - it is thus no wonder that powerful nations such as France and the US go to such great lengths to remain friendly with Djibouti.
It was not possible for Andrew’s rest to last for long, as we had not returned to Africa in order to sleep, but to explore! Because of our delayed arrival in Djibouti (my original plans had us on a flight from Eritrea that was scheduled to fly in yesterday), today was to be our only full day in Djibouti, and my aim was to travel 110 kilometres west of Djibouti City, inland to Lake Assal, the lowest point on the African continent. I quickly made arrangements to find a car and a driver, and we agreed to depart at 9:00 am. The driver was a local school teacher who was currently on his three month long holiday for summer. The subject he taught in school was French, which we used as our language of communication for the drive as he had no English whatsoever. The drive through the Djiboutian countryside (see two photos immediately above as examples) revealed that this former French colony was quite different from either of the neighbouring countries of Ethiopia and Eritrea, with Djiboutian people displaying much more colourful local dress, there being considerably stronger influence of Islam, and the level of economic development being somewhat higher.
Lake Assal is a huge salt lake, formed in the collapsed crater (caldera) of an extinct volcano, known as the Ardoukoba Volcano. It was approached by driving across an extensive lava field. It is known to be one of the hottest places on earth, being over 500 feet (about 155 metres) below sea level and surrounded by high hills. Perhaps we were lucky in that respect today, as it was “only” 48 degrees Celsius when we were there. When we arrived at the lake, we walked out on to the salt flat to the edge of the water, rejoicing in the crackling sound of the salt under our feet. Predictably, the water was very hot, and the taste was probably the strongest salt water I have ever tried. The taste of the rock salt was also something amazing to experience, as the salt was rock hard and highly concentrated; a small piece just 3 millimetres in diameter took several minutes to dissolve in my mouth, all the time emitting an extremely strong salt flavour.
We returned to Djibouti city at about 2:30 pm. To be honest, despite the fascinating arid scenery we were driving through, I was finding it hard to stay awake, perhaps a combination of the dry heat and the lack of sleep. Nonetheless, I did manage to stay away sufficiently to get a few more photos to give some idea of the scenery we saw - see the images below (which like all images in this diary, can be clicked to enlarge).

When we returned to our room, Andrew and I started discussing what we might do for the rest of the afternoon, but we both quickly fell asleep and before we knew it, it was 7:30 pm, dark outside, and time to have some dinner.
If it had been only Andrew who had fallen asleep, I would have dismissed it as a lack of stamina or simple adolescent lethargy, but as I also fell asleep involuntarily, I know that what we were dealing with was a serious a case of genuine fatigue.

Day 32 - Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Wed, 2 Jul 2008 23:20:11 +1000

Today was the final day (I hope) of our enforced exile from Africa. Tonight we are scheduled to catch a flight from Dubai into Djibouti, which will enable us to retrieve the last of our planned stops in Africa before returning to Hong Kong this coming weekend. Our time in Djibouti (like Eritrea) will be shorter than planned, but at least we should get the chance to experience something of the place - and hopefully to see as much as possible within the confines of the emerging international conflicts on the Horn of Africa. After all, Djibouti is not all that huge!
I gave in to Andrew today and allowed him a day at rest on the beach at Jumeirah. Our hotel, which overlooks Dubai Creek, provided a free bus service to a beach at Jumeirah, so it was a good opportunity to experience some first hand ‘tourism geography’ - unfortunately the coastal geomorphology was nothing special. The drive to Jumeirah began on the same 14-lane expressway that we had used yesterday on the drive to Liwa Oasis, and it was a good opportunity to see something of the extraordinary building boom that Dubai is experiencing. There were cranes and construction projects everywhere, and every single one of the thousands of building sites was for a huge, high-rise building, including one that will be the world’s tallest building when it is finished.
Not unexpectedly in a Muslim nation, Jumeirah Beach seems to be used exclusively by foreign tourists rather than locals, and judging from the accents overheard, many of the tourists are from Russia and the UK. I thought the camels on the beach were a nice touch - just a hint of tradition amidst the jungle of high rise development that is Jumeirah. Lying on a beach in temperatures of 42 degrees (with no wireless internet!) is not necessarily my first preference for a way to spend the day, but Andy had a great time, which is the important thing.
Having surrendered the integrity of our planned itinerary today, I am looking forward to getting into Djibouti tomorrow morning.

Day 31 - Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Tue, 1 Jul 2008 03:23:59 +1000

Day 2 of our enforced “Out of Africa” experience - Dubai is a much more developed and comfortable location than anywhere we have been in Africa during the recent weeks. As a result, I am a little worried that Andrew might start to lose the mental grittiness that I have managed to build in him during our time away together in Africa. Consequently, we spent today at Liwa Oasis, which is as barren a desert as you could find anywhere on the planet. The visit involved a round trip drive of 787 kilometres from Dubai, south-west to Abu Dhabi, and then a couple of hundred kilometres further inland to the very edge of Saudi Arabia’s Empty Quarter. With temperatures exceeding 50 degrees Celsius and strong hot winds blowing sand in our faces, I was hopeful that the experience might help Andrew overcome his natural adolescent tendency towards comfort, sleep, eating and resting. Actually, we both found the day extremely stimulating and enjoyed the experience very much - in Andrew’s case, I suspect, partly for the sleep he managed to get while I was doing the driving :-)
Liwa Oasis is a 150 kilometre long belt of villages with near-surface water, set within a huge surrounding field of extensive sand dunes, the largest of which (the Moreeb Dune) is said to be 287 metres high. They say ‘you can’t miss it’, which is true because the road ends when it hits the dune! To a large extent, however, it was the drive to and from Liwa Oasis that was even more enjoyable than the destination. The late afternoon sun on the dunes formed beautiful abstract patterns with light and sand, and when we came upon a herd of camels making their way over the tops of the dunes, it was one of those exquisite and magical desert experiences that is not easy to forget. For much of the trip, we were driving on isolated roads through mesmerising drifts of sand blowing in wispy patterns across the bitumen; this would not have been a good place to have a car breakdown. Fortunately, the quality of the roadway was consistently excellent, and for much of the time, we were driving at a speed of 150 kmh without any sense of moving rapidly whatsoever.
Meanwhile, the border tensions between Eritrea and Djibouti that forced Andrew and me prematurely out of Eritrea seem to be worsening. This website http://www.ww4report.com/node/5723 purports to give some background to the conflict, and the current meeting of the African Union has made the dispute the second most important matter on its agenda (after the situation in Zimbabwe) - as described in http://www.mg.co.za/article/2008-07-01-au-demands-eritrea-withdraws-from-djibouti . I wonder how many people around the world are actually aware of this conflict on the Horn of Africa.

Day 30 - Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:30:59 +1000

As the photo above clearly shows, Dubai is NOT Africa! The enforced experience of spending a few days in Dubai is definitely a deviation from Andrew’s and my planned African experience. Still, it should make an interesting dinner time conversation starter to say - quite accurately - that we had to change our travel plans because of the threat of war in the region where we were due to travel. Despite having access to the internet here in Dubai, I am still not quite sure why Eritrea and Djibouti are at each other’s throats. I found a few websites on the subject (for example http://www.awate.com/portal/content/view/4876/19/), but I am still not much wiser. Neither was anyone in Eritrea able to explain the breakdown in relationships to me. It seems to me that a poor, isolated nation like Eritrea needs all the friends (and investors!) that it can get, and yet it seems to be going out of its way to make enemies, including its largest neighbour (Ethiopia) and its ‘gateway’ to the outside world (Djibouti).
We had three main tasks to achieve today. The first was to catch up on much needed sleep. We managed that by remembering to close the curtains before going to bed (yes, we have curtains in Dubai) and setting the alarm for a late sleep-in of 8:00 am. It was a fantastic sleep in a wonderful bed, so task number 1 was achieved.
Task number 2 was to obtain tickets for our proposed flight to Djibouti so that we could resume what was left of our African itinerary. Achieving this task was not quite as straightforward as we might have hoped. We had managed to make an unconfirmed booking while in Eritrea for a Daallo Airlines flight later in the week. However, the ticket had to be paid for after arriving in Dubai. We asked at the hotel where the airline’s office was located, and we were told that ticketing for all airlines should be done at a government travel office that was only ten minutes walk from the hotel - at the Dnata office to be precise. Andrew and I walked to the Dnata office, only to be told that it could not handle reservations with Daallo Airlines, and we had to deal directly with the Daallo Airlines office. The person attending to us had no idea where the airline’s office might be, but she phoned them, got an answer on the fourth attempt, and found out that the office was located a few kilometres away, across the road from the Hyatt Regency Hotel.
We went outside, and fortunately managed to flag down a taxi after just a few minutes waiting beside the road. We arrived at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, to find that it was a huge establishment, over half a kilometre long, and it was very unclear in which direction ‘across the road’ the airline office might be. We thought the best idea would be to ask at the hotel’s reception desk because they would surely know the locations of nearby airline offices. No-one there had ever heard of Daallo Airlines, and they suggested that we ask at a Singapore Airlines office in the hotel’s shopping arcade. No-one there had ever heard of Daallo Airlines either, but they were extremely helpful, looked up the number and phoned the office, and obtained walking directions to get there. They also offered the helpful advice that the airline’s office was actually “Al Yousef’s Travel Shop” and that was the sign we should look for.
A short ten minute walk brought us to Al Yousef’s Travel Shop, a small shop-front that did actually advertise itself also as the Daallo Airlines head office. Once we had found the office, the rest was comparatively easy. A helpful assistant retrieved the booking made by the travel agent in Asmara, we paid for the tickets and received our tickets. Thus task number 2 was successfully completed.
Our third task today was to survive Dubai’s searing heat. It is summer in Dubai, and although today’s temperature of 44 degrees was cooler than yesterday’s 47, it was still extremely uncomfortable to be outside. Fortunately, everywhere in Dubai seems to be air conditioned, including the taxis. It was a stark contrast with Eritrea where we never encountered an air conditioner, anywhere, in spite of having temperatures only a little cooler than Dubai. After managing to secure our tickets to Djibouti, Andrew and I therefore spent most of the afternoon indoors, catching up with internet and e-mails. Task number 3 was thus successfully accomplished.

Day 29 - Asmara (Eritrea) to Dubai (UAE)

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:14:44 +1000

Last night was not a great night for catching up on sleep. By the time I had finished making the hotel booking in Dubai for our unexpected diversion and downloaded photos for the day, it was just after 1:00 am when I finally got to bed. The alarm sounded at 5:30 am as we were being collected early in order to get to the airport. Four and a half hours of sleep is certainly sub-optimal when you have to face the rigours of Asmara Airport. We were due to fly at 10:00 am, and as they require that departing passengers check-in two and a half hours before departure, we were due at the airport at 7:30 am.
We had an early breakfast that was quite a different experience to yesterday’s breakfast - this morning we were there well before the flies, but also before most of the food. Haile, our taxi driver, came to collect us at 7:00 am in his little yellow taxi, and stating quite categorically that we only needed to be at the airport by 8:00 am, took us on a circuitous drive to show us the key highlights of Asmara that we had not had time to see the previous day because we had driven to Massawa.
Fortunately, Asmara has very few highlights as such - its charm lies in its general ambience. Our first stop was the railway station where some old steam locomotives are stored. We then drove through the city to see some of the (sadly deteriorating) art deco buildings that had been constructed by the Italian Fascists during the period of occupation. Perhaps Asmara’s most famous art deco landmark is the Fiat Tagliero Building (see top photo). The Lonely Planet guide expresses its significance within Asmara’s architectural wonders with the sentence “Don’t even think of leaving town until you’ve seen the Fiat Tagliero Building”, adding that it is “perhaps the most outstanding (building) in Asmara”. The cynical might claim that this is indeed an accurate statement, and one that says more about Asmara in general than the Fiat Building itself. It was built in 1938 and is designed to look like an aircraft, with the central tower resembling a cockpit and the two huge unsupported awnings resembling wings. Almost next door was another of Asmara’s top art deco buildings, the Irga Building, which is regarded as being so outstanding that it features on many postcards of Asmara.
We arrived at the airport, as expected, at a little after 8:00 am. The two hours we allowed for check-in were sufficient, and happily the bureaucratic processes involved with departing, while still excessive, took a fraction of the time of the processes we had encountered upon arrival. Still, four separate people were involved in the stamping and inspection of passports, a new set of currency declaration forms had to be duly completed (but were never looked at), and the security inspection included turning on laptop computers, taking off shoes and belts, and so on.
The flight from Asmara to Dubai was on a very old Boeing 767-200 operated by Eritrean Airlines. The plane had a very patchy paint job that didn’t really inspire confidence, and although the lighting was not great, you may be able to see what I mean if you click the picture to the right. Not only was the plane very old, but it was also very full, highlighting Andrew’s and my good fortune in securing seats out of Eritrea. The plane made an unannounced transit stop in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) for refuelling. The plane was parked out in a remote space well away from the terminal, and no passengers disembarked or embarked. Presumably the cheap fuel available in Saudi Arabia was sufficiently attractive to the airline for them to choose to make a considerable diversion from the direct route (see map above) to get the cheap fuel.
Dubai was an extraordinary place to come into after the relative hardships and discomfort of travelling in Africa. Abundant energy, reliable lighting, air conditioning, good infrastructure, internet access, hot water - these were all things that we no longer took for granted. We checked into our hotel, and after a couple of hours enjoying ‘normal’ internet access speeds, we walked to a small nearby restaurant, the Grand Abu Shakar, and enjoyed a great meal of soup, grilled chicken and ice cream.
Hopefully, we can catch up on sleep tonight, as the last couple of nights have been somewhat sleep-deprived. We need to be ready early tomorrow morning to finalise arrangements for our flights from Dubai to Djibouti.

Day 28 - Asmara, Eritrea

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 15:50:18 +1000

After the late night last night, it was good to have a sleep in until the alarm sounded at 7:15 am. Andrew and I both had enjoyable showers - we have come to appreciate it when we arrive at a hotel that has enough hot water for two people to have showers in the morning. No blackouts, reliable running water, including hot water - these are the signs of an above average hotel! We had a buffet breakfast in the hotel restaurant, which had the nice touch, I thought, of doubling as a wildlife refuge - even though flies were the only type of wildlife present, they were there in huge abundance, crawling over the food, the plates and the utensils. We really do feel close to nature in such situations :-)
Our aim today was to explore Asmara, and for this purpose we had arranged for a driver and his little yellow taxi to take us around. My initial impressions of Asmara were that it was a kind of African version of Adelaide - clean, orderly, slow (in fact, very slow), wide streets, well laid-out, and low-rise. Many of the buildings had been constructed by the Italian Fascists during the 1930s and 1940s, often in art-deco style, and although sometimes crumbling and lacking maintenance, they combined to make a very elegant city.
Before starting to explore Asmara, we had one important stop to make, which was the Eritrea Airlines office. I had booked tickets by e-mail several months ago for our flight from Asmara to Dijbouti on 2nd July, but I had to pay and collect the tickets after arrival in Asmara. So you can imagine that we somewhat dismayed to be told a little dismissively that the flight had been cancelled. Apparently Eritrea and Djibouti are having some kind of conflict which, I was told, has not yet erupted into war, but has resulted in all contact between the two countries being suspended.
That discovery initiated a search for a replacement way out of Eritrea, which was not an easy task. Neither Eritrea nor Djibouti has very many international flights in or out. Egypt Air had a flight to Cairo on Wednesday 2nd July, but there were no flights from Cairo to Djibouti. Yemenia had a flight to Sana’a on Tuesday 1st July, but its connecting flight to Djibouti was on Friday 4th July, arriving after our flight back to Hong Kong (via Addis Ababa) was due to have already departed. Land access between Eritrea and Djibouti was impossible in the current situation, and the only other option to leave Eritrea was tomorrow morning on the Eritrea Airlines weekly flight to Dubai. Having found a way out of Eritrea, we started to explore flights between Dubai and Djibouti. As it turned out, there are four weekly flights between Dubai and Djibouti, all on vintage Boeing 727s operated by Djibouti’s Daallo Airlines. The flights on Monday 30th June and Tuesday 1st July were already full, but we managed to get the last two seats (we hope) for the flight on Thursday 3rd July. I say “we hope” because although the reservation has been made, the tickets can only be confirmed after they have been paid for, and this must be done in Dubai. Thus, we spent the whole morning finding a way out of Eritrea, and the only solution that was possible for us has meant that, unfortunately, most of our Eritrean plans have had to be cancelled.
However, all was not lost. Haile, our taxi driver, offered us the choice of spending the afternoon exploring Asmara (as planned) or taking a round-trip of about 250 kilometres for Massawa, a town of 40,000 people on the Red Sea coast to the north-east of Asmara. As our original plans had involved a full-day trip to Massawa, which was described in the guidebooks as one of Eritrea’s ‘must-see’ locations, we accepted the offer of the long drive - certainly a long drive for a little yellow Kia taxi that usually plies the streets of Asmara.
The choice was a good one, as it enabled us to see something of Eritrea’s countryside. The drive from Asmara to Massawa involved a descent from about 2500 metres to sea level, necessitating extremely winding roads both going down and on the return trip up to Asmara. For the trip to Massawa, we took a newly built road via Filfil, which provided dazzling views of the remarkable escarpment and the road that twisted back and forth to make the descent. At one stage, we came across a rusting Soviet tank that had been used by Ethiopian to defend a mountain pass during the war that resulted in Eritrea’s separation from Ethiopia. As we made the descent, the air became noticeably hotter, and by the time we were 60 kilometres from Massawa, the temperature was in the mid-40s, with the hot drying air being almost painful to have blowing on our faces. However, as the car had no air conditioning, the alternative of driving with windows up would have been unthinkable. We were certainly pleased when we emerged from the parched desert scenery and entered Massawa, with a slight sea breeze from the deep blue waters of the Red Sea providing welcome relief - as did the three bottles of mineral water that we consumed as soon as we arrived.
Our main aim in going to Massawa was to explore the old town, which was described in my reading as a gem of a place, reminiscent of the old stone town of Zanzibar. To be fair, I thought Massawa was well short of being another Zanzibar, but it did have great character, and the combination of whitewashed portico buildings and narrow alleyways was without doubt worth the long, hot drive to get there. Sadly, it was very clear that Massawa had suffered extensive damage during the most recent war (in the late 1990s), and many of the buildings were just shot-up empty or half-destroyed shadows of their former selves.
The return drive to Asmara took a different, slightly more direct route that passed thorough many more towns than the route we had used to get to Massawa. We arrived in Asmara just before 7:30 pm, all in good time to enjoy an extremely unglamorous but edible (in small quantities) buffet dinner at our hotel.
After dinner, I spent a couple of hours in the hotel foyer where a glacially slow (but free) wireless internet connection made it possible to try and find some accommodation in Dubai - which I needed for the following night. It was an extremely frustrating exercise, because many websites timed out with the slow connection, and others refused to accept a booking because they ‘thought’ that it was already 29th June (which it probably was where the sites were being hosted) and that therefore it was too late to make a booking for that date. After almost two hours, I finally managed to secure a booking, so at least we can fly tomorrow in the knowledge that a room will be waiting for us when we arrive.
My next task is to devise an appropriate educationally-oriented program for Andrew so that his time in Dubai is not wasted by relaxing.

Day 27 - Sana’a (Yemen) to Asmara (Eritrea)

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 07:03:47 +1000

It didn’t help my peace of mind when I picked up a copy of “Yemen Today” before breakfast and started reading an article entitled “Danger - Terror attacks are on the rise... More to follow we are told... Is Yemen still a safe place?”. The article described how Sunni rebels from Yemen’s north had brought their fight against foreigners right into Sana’a, and had shifted their focus from the vague category of ‘Western interests’ such as hotels and businesses to foreign tourists as part of their declared aim to rid Yemen of all infidels. Rather than the occasional car hijacking and beheading, they were now using explosives, machine guns and heavy weaponry. The article described how al Qaeda was actively recruiting young men in the mountain villages - just the types of places we were due to visit today.
Despite the contents of the report, we found the Yemenis today just as warm and welcoming as we had on our previous days. There was a genuine interest in finding out where we had come from, and we always received huge smiles and the words “Welcome” or “You are very welcome to Yemen”. I have seldom found the people of any country as warm, hospitable and welcoming as those in Yemen.
Our aim today was to explore six villages within about 60 kilometres in the Haraz Mountains to the north-west of Sana’a prior to returning to Sana’a to catch our evening flight to Asmara in Eritrea. Because the program was quite full, we left the hotel with our armed driver, Abdullah, at a little after 7:30 am. Being Friday, the Muslim holy day, the streets of Sana’a were almost deserted as we drove out of the city, although as we later found out, this was not because everything was closed for the holy day, but because everyone was sleeping in - the markets (including the sales of qat - see photo at left) picked up just like any other day a little later in the morning.
As an aside, I learnt today just how significant qat is in Yemen - apart from the obvious point that almost every male from the age of 11 or 12 upwards seems to spend their afternoons and evenings chewing it. Apparently one of the reasons that food costs have risen so much in Yemen is that fields are being diverted from food production to qat because it is more profitable, in part because it can be harvested (and can thus produce an income) all year round. On average, 10% of all household incomes are spent on this narcotic, its cultivation consumes 20% of Yemen’s water use and its production constitutes 6% of the country’s GDP - even though Yemen is currently importing between 75% and 90% of its food requirements. In the current inflationary situation, households are cutting back on food and other expenses rather than reduce their qat use. In the choice between food and qat, qat is clearly winning, even though it is responsible for a range of other problems, including mouth cancers. Yemen seems like a nation of addicts.
But back to our travels for the day. Our first stop was Wadi Dhar, just a short drive beyond the outskirts of Sana’a (see top photo and photo at left). Wadi Dhar is situated in a watered valley, surrounded by steeply sided, flat-topped hills. The star attraction in Wadi Dhar is the Imam’s Palace, constructed in the 1920s for the Imam Yahya. It is spectacularly located on a tall rocky outcrop of rock, rising skywards like a toadstool on steroids. The palace was open for inspection, so we spent an hour exploring its rooms, corridors, secret passages, deep wells and beautiful stained glass windows that cast kaleidoscopic illuminated patterns on the floors of the building. The drums, music and dancing outside added to the festive atmosphere, as did the friendly police who were delighted to have their photos taken, holding their very shiny black sub machine guns, including one photo with Andrew.
Our second stop was in the village of Shibam. Shibam is situated at an altitude of 2300 metres, and is backed by a steep escarpment called Jebel Kawkaban that rises 500 metres (to 2800 metres). Being Friday, the weekly market was in full swing, and it was great fun to walk along the main street and engage in ‘people watching’ before heading off to the side where the vegetables and animals (mainly live poultry) were being sold.
Our third stop followed a drive up the spectacularly steep and winding road that ascended Jebel Kawkaban, up to the village located on the flat top of the hill - the village’s name was Kawkaban (see left). Kawkaban’s hilltop location was originally chosen for defensive purposes, and it was only with the advent of air power that the village was finally conquered during the civil war of the 1960s. Kawkaban was a very quiet and relaxed village, offering spectacular views from the edge of the escarpment over the village of Shibam and beyond. Andrew and I spent three-quarters of an hour walking around the streets and houses of the village before having a simple but very tasty traditional Yemeni lunch in a tiny eating house near the centre of the village.
After lunch, we descended the same steep road that we had climbed a couple of hours previously, passed by Shibam again, and headed to our fourth stop, the tiny village of Hababah. Hababah was situated on a small hill, but had a distinctive large open water cistern that was used to provide household water and water for animals to drink. It was beautiful to look across the waters and see the old traditional tower houses reflected in its waters, as children looked down from a tall nearby building, men came to worship in the nearby mosque, and herds of goats scuffled by, stirring up fine dust from the track.
Our fifth stop involved another climb up the escarpment to what must be one of the most sensational locations for any village anywhere in the world. Zakati (which is pronounced more like ‘Zagati’) was a tiny village perched on a rock outcrop that leaned out over the edge of the steep escarpment (see photo at right). Zakati would be a VERY bad place for anyone suffering from vertigo, as the paths and steps (more steps and pathways) zig-zag on the very edges of the cliffs, with no railings or protection of course. Andy and I entered Zakati with a young local man through the village’s only gate (that had a thick wooden door for protection), and climbed up to the roof of the tallest building in the village - right on the edge of the escarpment. Needless to say, the views were astonishing.
Our sixth and final village was Thula, a slightly larger village that was set against the backdrop of a tall pillar of rock, on the top of which was a fortress (see photo at left). Although the village was once an important centre of theological studies, it attracts visitors today for its fabulous situation and its beautiful old buildings. A stone wall still surrounds the village, which contains some 25 mosques.
The six villages we had seen were stunning, unlike anything anywhere else in the world I suspect. As I couldn’t stop myself saying to Andrew as we drove away from Thula, “Why would anyone want to spend their holiday lying on a beach when they could be experiencing scenery like this?”.
We left Thula at about 3:15 pm and headed back to Sana’a and straight to the airport. We thus arrived in plenty of time to catch our Yemenia Airlines Airbus A310 flight to Asmara. Unfortunately, neither the airport staff nor the airline were quite as efficient as we had been, and the experience of passing through Sana’a Airport was less than positive. The airport does not display any signs to direct passengers to the correct gate, nor does it make any announcements apart from a staff member standing at an exit door, shouting without the help of any microphone, trying to make himself heard over the abuse of the passengers waiting nearby. Unless you are near the correct exit door, you could very easily miss your flight. We had passengers for three flights in our waiting hall, one flight to Aden, one to Riyadh, and ours to Asmara. There were only enough seats for about 15% of the passengers present in the waiting hall, and it was a constant, crushing jostle as passengers for a flight that had been called had to squeeze their way through to the doors, past other passengers who had nowhere to move to in order to make way for them - all without air conditioning in temperatures in the high-thirties. Our flight was one hour late, which meant that Andrew and I were standing in these conditions for about two and a half hours. Finally, a rumour (which was correct as it turned out) began circulating that the Asmara flight was leaving from a different doorway in a different waiting hall of the airport. We were caught up in the rush to the other door. The final exquisite touch came when a little girl started vomiting all over the feet of the passengers who were near her, which included the people standing right next to me.
The flight itself was extremely crowded and, dare I say, smelly, as the plane was extremely old and worn out. Dinner consisted of a small, swollen box of fruit juice plus three slices of dry bread. Andrew couldn’t face it and went without eating. Upon landing in in Asmara at about 9:00 pm (rather than our scheduled 7:50 pm), we passed through immigration, a process that involved no less than six people to process each passport. After that, a currency declaration form (in triplicate) needed to be filled in, on which the precise value of all currencies being carried had to be entered. We then waited for our luggage, which finally emerged at 10:20 pm. Then the customs process began. In Eritrea, they manually inspect - thoroughly - the contents of every bag and suitcase brought into the country, which is quite a large number from a full A310 aircraft when the luggage allowance in economy class is 50kg per person. Moreover, every electronic device had to be declared (in triplicate, without carbon paper), including make, model, serial number, country of manufacture, etc. To cut an agonisingly long story short, Andrew and I finally emerged from the airport, quite tired, at 11:45 pm.
We took a taxi to our hotel, the Ambasoira (also variously spelt Embasoira and Ambassoira in various places in and around the hotel). Check in at the hotel also took quite a while because of the multiple forms that needed to be filled in, passport checks, etc, but it was good to get into bed, finally, at a little after midnight. It had been a long day.

Day 26 - Sana’a, Yemen

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:59:13 +1000

The overwhelming aroma in the air when I woke this morning was dust. The sky was filled with the grey-brown colour of airborne dust, but I didn’t need to look at the sky to know this -I just needed to inhale. Notwithstanding the dust, the view from the rooftop of our hotel, where we had breakfast, was wonderful; old Sana’a must be one of the great sights (and sites) of the world. Actually, that previous sentence may be a bit misleading. We were told that breakfast would be on the rooftop terrace of the hotel, but after waiting there for a while, snapping photos, and finding there was no-one else around, I decided to check downstairs whether there had been a mistake with the time. The reply was “no mistake with the time, sir, but you need to go to our OTHER roof”. The ‘other’ roof was a much lower terrace on an old side-wing of the hotel that we had not known existed, where we found a very pleasant buffet breakfast (if not nearly such a good view) waiting for us.
If dust was the pervading aroma, the pervading sound has been the calls to prayer from the mosques. We have many mosques around us in the old city, and judging by their frequent and quite long calls to prayer, they seem to be very active. Some of the calls to prayer have been so loud and fervent that they echo and reverberate against the stone walls of the houses in the narrow streets of the old town.
Our plan today was to travel with a driver to the Manakah region, a mountainous area over a hundred kilometres west-south-west from Sana’a. Having read the reports about armed car hijackings that can occur in Yemen, I left my wallet, passport and cards at the hotel - just in case. I need not have worried. Everyone we met was extraordinarily friendly and welcoming (this has been our constant experience in Yemen), and in any case our driver, Abdullah, was not only carrying his knife like every well-dressed Yemeni man, but also a pistol in a holster at his side. Security is obviously an important thing in Yemen, as shown by the three heavily armed road blocks we passed through on the road from Sana’a to Manakah, which had not only officers armed with machine guns and protected by bullet-proof vests, but jeeps with machine guns, armoured personnel carriers, and in the case of one hill that we passed, a tank.
The scenery we passed through to get to Manakah was dramatic and magnificent - there are few other words that can describe it. The entire drive was on sealed road of good quality, but because of the rugged terrain consisted of twists and turns that in some places meant the road completely doubled back on itself. At one stage, the road climbed through a pass that exceeded 3100 metres in altitude, at which point the summit of Yemen’s highest mountain (Jabal an-Nabi Shu’aub, 3660 metres) could be seen clearly.
On reaching the Manakah district, our first stop was the village of Al-Hudhaib, centred on the hilltop mosque of the same name (see image at left).This is a pilgrimage site for Muslims of the Ismaili sect, and we were told that every year large numbers of pilgrims come from India. Upon arrival, we met the imam who offered to show us around (although not inside, of course, as that area is accessible only to Muslims). We had to wait for a few minutes while he said some prayers as a goat was sacrificed (see above right), but he then happily showed us the various facets of the mosque. After saying goodbye to the imam, Andrew and I continued to walk around the tracks at the foot of the rock pinnacle, past some spectacular prickly pear growth to see the surrounding valleys, the sides of which were covered in extremely well constructed and stable terraces.
After exploring Al-Hudhaib, we took the short 6 kilometre drive into the main town of the district, known as Manakah (see image at left). We sat on floor-level cushions to have a traditional Yemeni lunch in a small hotel, the lunch comprising rice, potatoes, a piece of grilled chicken and Yemeni bread that was used to dip into a spicy green hot paste made from beans, all washed down by a very welcome bottle of cold water. After lunch, two of the hotel owner’s sons gave us a spontaneous demonstration of a traditional Yemeni dance, the focus of which seemed to be avoiding each other’s knives in the midst of fast, energetic, extroverted movements. Lunch was quite a prolonged process lasting two hours, partly because our driver and his friends wanted to relax chewing some of the gat that the driver had stopped on the way from Sana’a to Manakah to purchase (from a small roadside stall where the seller was proudly displaying his semi-automatic sub-machine gun - gat is obviously a valuable commodity in Yemen).
Having finished lunch, we drove 5 kilometres to the final village we would visit in the Manakah region, the spectacular hilltop village of Al-Hajara (see the photo at the top of this page and at right). This small village was originally started by the Turks during the 11th century. The location was chosen for defensive purposes, and even today there is only one access gate into the village. At one time, there was an extensive Jewish presence, but all the Jewish people left and moved to Israel in the 1950s. The village comprises old stone and whitewashed tower buildings, some of which are up to eight storeys in height.
When we arrived, we were approached by many children and young men wanting to be our guides. Despite our best efforts, we had an entourage of 6 to 8 ‘friends’ to show us around, and although they could not help but get into many of our photos in the narrow laneways of the village, they did make sure that we saw all the important sights (and often had some arguments among themselves as to whether something was worth seeing or not). One of our ‘friends’ was the youngest son of the village leader, who occupied the highest house at the top of the hill, and he invited us up to the roof for a great view looking down on the village and its surrounding valleys. The village residents were extremely friendly and hospitable, and it was great to sense their pride in their home village as they showed us almost every pathway, step and laneway that could be accessed.
We finished our walk around Al-Hajara at about 3:15 pm, by which time it was time to head back to Sana’a. We were glad that we had taken so many photos of the mountain scenery on our way to Manakah because the return journey was undertaken under heavy clouds that completely deadened the vibrancy of the landscape. In fact, at one stage, we drove through a heavy shower of rain, something that is quite rare at this time of year in this very semi-arid area.
After relaxing for a while in our room, we headed off to the Arabia Felix Backpackers Hotel for dinner. Although at times our conversation was difficult because the calls to prayer from the nearby mosque were so fervent, we had a thoroughly enjoyable meal - Chicken in Lemon for Andrew and Mixed Grill for me, followed by yogurt with honey for dessert for both of us.
We had to try and get an early night because we were due to check out from the hotel and 7:30 am the next morning. We didn’t quite manage an early night, but it was at least earlier than the previous evening. Thankfully, it was also a bit cooler, making sleep with the window open much more pleasant - if somewhat more difficult because of the cacophony of noise drifting in from the mosques and the laneways outside.

Day 25 - Sana’a, Yemen

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 04:10:15 +1000

Although last night in Addis Ababa should have been a long sleep, with a sleep-in until 7:00 am, it didn’t quite work out that way. There were so many e-mails to answer that I didn’t get into bed until 1:15 am. And then I was woken at a little after 6:00 am by the brightening Ethiopian sky outside the room; we have had so many mornings when it has been necessary to set the alarm for a time well before dawn that I didn’t even think to close the curtains before going to bed.
When I got out of bed and checked e-mails, there were another 35 that appeared that had not been accessible the night before because the LPC e-mail server had been out of action again. So I checked off all the e-mails, had a shower, and then Andrew got out of bed at about 7:45 am with a surprising spring in his step that could only be explained by the promise of a buffet breakfast waiting for him downstairs.
It was indeed a fantastic breakfast, with perhaps more choice than all the breakfasts on the whole trip to that point combined. Thank you Ethiopian Airlines! The Airline bus arrived right on time at 9:00 am, as promised, to take us to the airport. We already had our boarding cards from the interline desk the previous evening, so all we had to do was check in our luggage, pass through immigration and board the plane.
Our flight to Sana’a was in two sectors. First was a one hour flight from Addis Ababa to Djibouti, followed by 45 minutes on the ground, followed by a short 45 minute hop across the Red Sea to Sana’a, capital city of Yemen. The flight was in an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 and it couldn’t be faulted; as you have probably gathered by now, I have been extremely impressed with Ethiopian Airlines (with whom I had never flown prior to this trip) in every way in these travels. Although we had to remain on the plane, the brief stopover in Djibouti was a real bonus with excellent views of this very brown city (see photo at left) as we came in to land. It was a good introduction to a place that we will be visiting in just over a week from now.
I know that Yemen is not in Africa (it is at the extreme corner of South-west Asia). It was obvious that Sana’a was a ‘different’ sort of place when we were driving in from the airport and we passed a car with the boot lid fully up to reveal a smiling passenger, sitting sideways in the boot, waving to us. I had wanted to visit Yemen for some time because I had read about its great geography, and it was so close to Ethiopia that it seemed a waste not to include it in this itinerary. At one stage of my planning I had hoped to explore Yemen for about a week, but some car hijackings in the east and north of the country at the time I was doing my planning persuaded me to cut short the time and stay close to the capital city, Sana’a.
Sana’a is said to be the world’s oldest city. It was apparently started by Shem, one of Noah’s sons. Whether this is true or not, it is certainly a very old city, and nowhere is this better displayed that in the old centre of Sana’a. I always try to choose my accommodation by location as the paramount consideration, and the hotel we stayed at was brilliant in this regard - it was the Burj al Salam Hotel, located right near the middle of Sana’a’s old city. The buildings in Sana’a are now protected as a UNESCO World Heritage site, and comprise stone or mud brick high rise buildings, usually decorated in an extravagant ‘lace-like’ pattern (see the photo at the top of this page and the image above left, both of which were taken from the roof of our hotel). The setting of Sana’a makes it even more spectacular, as it is backed by the high hills of surrounding mountains; Sana’a itself is at an elevation of ‘only’ 2250 metres.
After checking in to the hotel, and encountering the first instance of one chronic problem - the key didn’t easily unlock the door - we spent the rest of our daylight hours exploring the old city of Sana’a. What an assault on the senses! The old city is visually stunning, and the hectic and busy life evident everywhere meant that there was a huge amount to take in at every turn. We wandered along the narrow streets of the old city, noticing that almost every man had a mouth full of green leaves. These were ‘qat’ or ‘gat’, the equivalent of the mildly hallucinogenic ‘chat’ that we encountered in southern Ethiopia. In Sana’a, chewing ‘gat’ seems to be a near-universal pastime for the men in the afternoon and evening (see upper right image); it certainly seemed to make people quite relaxed and happy. That was reassuring given that most men walk around carrying a huge dagger or knife on display. Being an almost 100% Muslim country, the women were covered from head to toe in black, sometimes with the eyes showing, sometimes not. To reinforce the image of smiling, welcoming people, which had begun with smiles and handshakes from the heavily armed police who were patrolling the road into Sana’a from the airport, I lost count of the number of people who came up to us to say ‘welcome to Yemen’ or just ‘welcome’ - I have never received so many welcomes in one afternoon. As I recall now as I write this, though, every greeting was from a male, either a man or a boy. But then again, I would estimate that 95% of the people out on the streets were males.
In the markets, there were colours and aromas everywhere, whether in textiles, grains, metalwork, shoes or whatever. One surprise was coming across several small shops where we looked inside to find a blindfolded camel walking in a seemingly never-ending sequence of circles to mill sesame seeds to produce oil. It was like looking back into pre-industrial society. At sunset, we returned to our hotel to enjoy a drink on the roof, watching the skies darken and the lights of Sana’a come on (see photo below left).
We had a great dinner at a (much cheaper) hotel, the Arabia Felix Hotel, which was about 5 minutes walk from our hotel. It was the perfect dinner for anyone who likes spicy food (which I do), being Chicken Yemen Style (which means cooked in a black bowl and served sizzling with a spicy curry sauce), accompanied by Yemen-style flat bread, a couple of glasses of mango juice, and followed with a dessert of yogurt with honey. The photo above right shows us at dinner.
Upon returning to our hotel, we had another ‘Ethiopian’ experience - the electricity cut out. I was on the ground floor when the blackout happened, although Andrew was already up in our room on the 3rd floor. I made an extremely slow but ultimately successful ascent up the 100% pitch black stairs, grateful that there were no nasty surprises in the stairwell. Unlike our experiences in Ethiopia, the electricity returned within half an hour.

Day 24 - Windhoek (Namibia) to Addis Ababa (Ethiopia)

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:32:25 +1000

Unlike yesterday morning, a sleep-in was not possible, as this was a big day of travel and it was important not to miss our flight. The alarm sounded at 4:45 am, and I sprang out of bed, showered, and then at 5:10 am began the long process of coaxing Andrew out of bed. He is not always as easy to get out of bed in the pre-dawn darkness as one might hope.
We left the guesthouse a few minutes after our anticipated departure time of 5:45 am and took the long 55 kilometre drive to Windhoek Airport. Needless to say, there was not much traffic to slow down our journey. Everything went smoothly at the airport - we farewelled our driver (who had warmed up and become much more affable and chatty in the last couple of days) and boarded our short one-and-a-half Air Namibia flight to Johannesburg.
We had a two hour transit at Johannesburg, which was easily enough time to access the internet (for the first time in a week), clear just over 60 work-related e-mails, and board our Ethiopian Airlines flight (five and a half hours) to Addis Ababa.
Our accommodation for this evening was the only night of our entire trip that I had not arranged before leaving Hong Kong. Because our stop in Addis Ababa was an enforced overnight transit en route to Yemen, the Ethiopian Airlines office in Hong Kong had told me that the airline would provide accommodation free of charge. All I had to do was approach the interline desk at Addis Ababa Airport - there was no need, I was assured, to make any prior arrangements.
So, after landing at 9:30 pm, it was with some trepidation that I approached the interline desk at Addis Ababa Airport. I need not have worried; the system worked perfectly. We were allocated a room at the Hilton Hotel no less, including transfers, dinner and breakfast, all paid for by Ethiopian Airlines. It was, however, not a quick process, and it was 11:45 pm before we finally reached the hotel to check in.
However, the late night didn’t really matter, because the next day was scheduled to be our biggest sleep in for the entire trip. The alarm is set for a 7:00 am wake up, and both Andy and I are ready for that buffet breakfast that awaits us.

Day 23 - Windhoek, Namibia

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 02:52:18 +1000

It was great to have a sleep-in this morning. We didn’t need to be up as early as usual, so I set the alarm for 6:15 am. We had arranged to have a 7:15 am breakfast in the campsite dining hall. Even though there was a glow of light in the sky at 6:45 am, it wasn’t very easy to persuade Andrew to pull himself out of bed and get ready. I think he is too leisure-oriented sometimes.
We had our buffet breakfast as arranged with the aim of leaving at 7:45 am. We were about a quarter of an hour late because there was so much happening at the waterhole near our cabin - it was all quite a distraction. There was a wildebeest, about a dozen zebras, lots of springbok and four very playful young black-backed jackals. It was a quintessential African scene as they came to the mirror-like still waters of the waterhole, under the shade of an acacia tree, to have their morning drink of water.
One important task for today was to get to Windhoek by 2:00 pm, as the place we were due to stay (actually 28 kilometres south-west of Windhoek) conducted a rehabilitation program for ‘big cats’, and a drive to see them was due to start at 2:30 pm. We managed the 450 kilometre drive quite comfortably on excellent roads, arriving at our accommodation (Armani Lodge) at 1:45 pm, having stopped just twice, one for petrol and one for a coffee and to pick up some toasted ham and cheese sandwiches for lunch.
The drive at Armani to see the cats was fascinating. Not only did we get to see cheetah, lion and leopard, but we learned quite a bit about the rehabilitation program that Armani was conducting. On balance, it appeared to be highly ineffective.
Our accommodation at Armani was in a free-standing cabin with its own ensuite bathroom, but extremely minimal lighting and no heating, the latter being an issue as it was situated on a hilltop and the temperature dropped quite low as soon as the sun dipped below the horizon. We had a great dinner, followed by a fairly early night, although getting to sleep was not as easy as you might expect - it is quite off-putting when you are trying to go to sleep with a lion roaring down the valley from your cabin.

Day 22 - Etosha, Namibia

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 03:36:03 +1000

Another day - another early morning. Today was spent entirely in Etosha National Park with the intention of exploring several physical environments and observing the rich diversity of wildlife found in the park. Because the wildlife is most active at dawn and dusk, that meant that we also had be most active at those times. With that in mind, we didn’t mind at all when the alarm sounded at 5:30 am - I am speaking for myself when I make that statement; Andrew rolled out of bed more reluctantly at a little after 6:00 am.
We had an excellent breakfast, buffet style, in the camp’s dining hall, and then hit the road at about 7:10 am, staying out until shortly before sunset (which was at 5:25 pm). The day was photographically superb, with crystal clear blue skies, transparent clean air and temperatures in the mid 20s.
I know that the place names will not mean anything to anyone who has never visited Etosha, but from our campsite at Okaukuejo, we drove north to the waterhole at Okondeka, then south-west to the waterhole at Leeubron, and then back through Okaukuejo and east past waterholes at Nebrowni, Gemsbokvlakte, Olifantsbad and Aus before driving further east to the campsite and waterhole at Halali. Our driver told us that he had studied the typical movements of animals in Etosha and that we could expect to see a herd of elephants at Halali. Sadly, the elephants hadn’t bothered to check their arrangements with our driver, and the only animal at Halali was a sole oryx. We had a picnic lunch in the shade overlooking the waterhole, and then started heading back to Okaukuejo via waterholes at Nuamses and Rietfontein, the latter waterhole containing a pride of eight lions. We reached Okaukuejo about half an hour before sunset, which gave us the opportunity to watch a small herd of seven elephants come and drink from the waterhole near our cabin in the golden glow of the late afternoon sunlight.
During the day, we managed to see a vast range of wildlife; Etosha is simply teeming with animals. Among the notable animals we managed to see and photograph were giraffes, Burchell’s zebra, blue wildebeest, ostrich, lions, pied crows, springbok, kudu, oryx, black rhinoceros, warthog, a rare spotted hyene, red hartebeest, steenbok, impala, kori bustards, hornbills, secretary birds, and of course, elephants. I took a total of 443 photographs today, and at the top of this page and in the space below is just a small sample of the images captured. Like all images in this trip diary, each can be clicked to enlarge it.

Day 21 - Etosha, Namibia

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 06:37:26 +1000

Although the temperature when we woke in our tent at Mowani was just 10 degrees, it actually felt quite a bit warmer than that, probably because the air was so dry. Furthermore, the shower at the campsite was one of the best we have had on our travels, with hot water at a constant temperature and with a reasonable flow. Things like that become important after almost three weeks on the road in Africa.
The reason we had woken up so early was so that our driver could take us out to look for the herd of elephants that he had heard was in the area. I think he was a bit embarrassed that he had spent three hours of our time on the previous afternoon in a vain search for the pack of elephants, and he was determined that he would find them this morning.
He didn’t. We left the campsite at 7:15 am after an excellent breakfast of fresh, tasty foods, and drove around until he finally acknowledged defeat at 9:30 am. At times it was like living through a Russell Coight adventure. He asked directions at one stage, but seemingly convinced that the people he was talking to at the motor garage were trying to mislead him, he drove off in the opposite direction. He kept taking tracks that he “knew” were good short-cuts, only to find them peter out in the scrub. We did find some fresh elephant tracks, with some fresh droppings and even some recently deposited elephant urine, but rather than follow the way the elephants seemed to have gone, he preferred to stay on established tracks despite having a 4WD, and follow his instincts. It wasn’t exactly like Russell Coight of course; Russell sometimes actually knows the difference between right and left, and Russell doesn’t use mascara.
Having helped our driver to maintain his run of bad luck in finding elephants, it was time to see something of Twyfelfontein’s geography, which was actually why I had chosen to include the place in our itinerary. Our first stop was the ancient (6000 years old) rock engravings made by San Bushmen. This was much better than I had expected. There are many boulders with engraved pictures, mostly showing animals with some also showing hands and other details. It is speculated that the engravings were made by Bushmen as teaching tools and to communicate with other Bushmen groups who would come to the area at a later time. In that context, one engraving that especially captured my interest showed a map of waterholes together with the animals that were found there - this must be one of the oldest maps in existence. Another thing that excited me was the pattern of weathering in many of the rocks, which showed the typical pattern of salt weathering on sandstone that is commonly found on cliffs beside the ocean. However, Twyfelfontein is about 150 kilometres from the ocean, and the only possible explanation is that the area experiences frequent fogs that blow in from the ocean, and these fogs must carry the salt particles that cause the weathering. Also fascinating was the visitor’s centre where the guides meet all visitors before accompanying them to the engravings (in order to prevent any damage or graffiti) - the building is almost entirely made from scrap metal drums, cut and arranged to resemble armoured animal skeletons. There was one down-side of my visit to the rock engravings - I missed seeing a low tree branch and cracked my forehead open when I hit it. Andrew now says I resemble Mikhail Gorbachev with my red zig-zag cut on my hairline.
After this fascinating visit to the rock engravings, we drove just a few kilometres to a dry river bed housing a feature known as the Organ Pipes. The steep, almost vertical sides of the valley resemble a pipe organ because they contain thousands of columns that have formed by weathering in the dolerite (coarse grained basalt). It was one of the best and clearest examples I have ever seen on columnar weathering.
Another short drive brought us to another geological feature of interest, a volcanic ridge known as Burnt Mountain. In contrast to the surrounding bright orange sandstone, Burnt Mountain is a dark violet-brown colour that looks as though it has been burnt in a fire. It is a desolate area on which nothing grows, and the effect is quite eerie.
From Burnt Mountain, we embarked on quite a long drive to the Petrified Forest. Actually, the drive was about 50 kilometres longer than it should have been as our driver either mis-read his map or didn’t consult his map, and we headed out of Twyfelfontein quite confidently for about 50 kilometres on the wrong road before he realised the mistake. This necessitated a 46 kilometre drive across the countryside to the correct road, and then a drive back towards Twyfelfontein along that road. Maybe Andrew and I were spoilt by Francois, the brilliant guide we had at the Kunene River, but this driver does not really seem to have his act together. He seems to be quite knowledgeable about identifying different types of birds (which are of close to zero interest for me), but he is not so hot on other facts, reading maps or finding directions (which seem important skills for a guide/driver). Perhaps because I told him yesterday that there was an explanation for the formation of his Wonder Hole, he has not offered any explanations of how anything was formed today - instead he has actually asked me how they were formed. This is good in one way, but I do feel that we are not getting the detailed input or explanations that we might reasonably expect. I enjoy teaching, but when I travel, it is because I want to learn.
The Petrified Forest was an area of open scrubland that has a large number of petrified tree trunks. The longest log is 45 metres in length, and others are also of considerable size. The area is also covered with the smaller fragments of trees that have been broken up, such as the pieces shown in the photo to the left. The original logs, which were of a type of conifer, were supposed to have been washed down from central Africa in a major flood about 280 million years ago. After the logs arrived in Namibia, they were buried and subjected to extreme heat and pressure which turned the timber into rock. Today, the rocks still resemble timber in appearance, but they are definitely hard as you would expect rocks to be.
We had a great picnic lunch while at the Petrified Forest, and then we began the afternoon drive to the Etosha Salt Pan, our destination for the evening. The drive of almost 300 kilometres took us along generally smooth and mostly sealed roads, passing through only two towns en route. The first town, Khorixas, was used as a refuelling stop and an opportunity for me to get some cash from an ATM. In almost every way, Khorixas reminded me of a typical town in central Australia, such as a smaller version of Alice Springs for example. It is the nearest thing I have seen to a central Australian town outside central Australia.
The rest of the journey was completed shortly before sunset, a necessary deadline as the gates to Etosha National Park closed at that time. Our room at the campsite is a recently renovated cabin that is situated only about 30 metres from a floodlit waterhole where animals come and drink after dusk. After settling into our room, Andrew and I paid a first visit to the waterhole, which is when the photo of the giraffes at the top of this page was taken.
We had a fairly late dinner, starting at 7:50 pm, which was buffet style in the main cafeteria of the campsite. The desserts of ice cream and chocolate mousse were really appreciated - African food at its best!
After dinner, we paid a few more visits to the waterhole, and saw springbok, rhinos and elephants coming to drink. Perhaps the highlight was at about 10 pm when a herd of about 35 elephants came to drink. What a fantastic experience, to watch a herd of elephants plus about three rhinos drinking simultaneously, all the time with a solitary jackal wandering about - just a few tens of metres from where we would sleep for the night. Simply magic!

Day 20 - Twyfelfontein, Namibia

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 06:13:48 +1000

It was just 9 degrees at 6:00 am when we woke this morning beside the Kunene River. It was cold, but with the stunning scenery we were experiencing, it didn’t matter. Our flight to Twyfelfontein was due to depart at 10:45 am, which is why we had a bit of a sleep-in this morning. Like yesterday, tea was brought to our room - it was a small gesture that made a big difference in how we felt at the start of the day.
We packed bags ready for our departure and then had breakfast at 7:00 am; like all meals at our campsite beside the Kunene River, it was great. We set off to the airstrip at Hartmann Valley at a little after 7:45 am in a 4WD Land Rover; this departure time was well before we needed to leave if we were driving directly to the airstrip, but it was early enough to give us time to take in some more of the spectacular scenery of this very special area en route.
We made two stops on the way to the airstrip. The first stop was at the Himba encampment that we had visited yesterday. The reason for visiting again was to see the encampment with all the cattle and goats present, and therefore with all the people present also. During the day, the men take the cattle out to graze, while the children (both boys and girls) take the goats out to graze. This repeat visit really brought alive many of the things we had heard about yesterday but had not seen. To be frank, the visit yesterday was a bit dead, with just a few (mainly older) family members present and no animals to be seen, whereas this morning’s visit placed everything into context because Himba culture is centred on the raising of their livestock.
Our second stop was at a beautiful secluded oasis on the Lion River. This tributary of the Kunene River is named because it was traditionally a place where lions gathered to drink and to hunt for prey that had come to drink the water in the river. The presence of the lions was the reason that several nearby Himba encampments had been abandoned, and we stopped on the way to see the remains of these abandoned settlements. Lions have not been seen at the oasis for about seven years, although with several recent very good wet seasons, there are reports that the lions are starting the process of migrating back towards the oasis. Luckily, or unluckily depending on your perspective, we didn’t see any lions or lion tracks this morning, but we did get to explore this superb oasis in the midst of the surrounding desert, with several types of plant and animal life (including wasp larvae that never mature into wasps) and evidence of porcupine habitation (lots of spikes lying around). We stayed exploring Lion River oasis for almost an hour, and the longer we stayed the more we came to understand the unique ecosystem and physical processes operating there.
We reached the Hartmann Valley airstrip about 20 minutes before our plane arrived. With a total absence of security checks (or buildings, or personnel, or even a sealed runway), this timing was more than adequate. Our plane landed, disgorged its two passengers and cargo, took on Andrew and me as the replacement passengers, and then we took off for the one and a half hour flight to Twyfelfontein.
The scenery on the flight was like flying through a superbly illustrated textbook on the landforms of arid terrains. Just about every arid landform imaginable could be seen with perfect examples in copious quantities. Suffice to say it was a geographical and photographic delight.
We arrived in Twyfelfontein ats about 12:30 pm, where we were met by Paolo, our driver for the next few days. Paolo was born in Angola, but with various conflicts his family moved to Zimbabwe and then later to Namibia. He looked Portuguese, but having learned English in Zimbabwe, sounded (to me) South African (because my untrained ears can’t distinguish Zimbabwean accents from South African). Having unloaded our baggage from the plane and into the 4WD, we drove to our campsite, the Mowani Mountain Camp.
The accommodation at Mowani is in tents that are permanently erected, set among the huge weathered granite boulders that make up the spectacular landscape of the area (see top photo). The accommodation was certainly smaller and more basic than we had enjoyed at the Kunene River, but it was more than adequate and very comfortable, and one of the highlights was the spectacular view from the front of our tent (the photo directly above shows the grand view that we encountered as we stepped out through the flaps at the front of our tent).
After loading our things into the tent, we had a great lunch and then headed off in search of an elephant herd that our driver had received reports was in the area. Actually, it was all a bit strange. As we drove along rough dirt roads, along dry river beds, across grasslands and overland through scrub - for 3 hours - the driver explained that he had very bad luck in finding elephants, as he had been trying for the past two days without success, and had even driven within 200 metres of a herd of elephants yesterday without seeing them. His bragging about his inability to find elephants did little to inspire confidence with either Andrew of myself - but it did prepare us well for the outcome of our three hours of searching; we didn’t find the herd of 26 elephants that we were told was in the area. That made three days in a row that our driver had searched for the elephants without success.
Actually, although neither Andrew nor I are experts in tracking elephants, we would have probably taken a different approach to our guide. When we were on the dirt roads or driving along the river bed, we saw quite a lot of fresh elephant tracks, easily recognisable by their wide pad-like appearance. We could see them going in certain directions, but in every case the driver had “a better idea” or a “feeling that they were elsewhere”, and took us in entirely different directions accordingly. At one time, he agreed the elephant tracks were fresh, but didn’t want to go in that direction because the road was extremely dusty - he seemed much more concerned to keep his car clean than to find the elephants. Yes, Andrew and I were somewhat underwhelmed by the astuteness of his tracking skills. However, to be fair, he has a damaged eye, and although he can spot many things well at a distance. he often misses things that are right next to the road. Still, good eyesight and a good sense of direction would seem like useful skills for a driver/guide to have.
We returned to our campsite, where the other campers were gathering on the top of a large granite boulder to watch the sunset. I was pleased for my fellow campers that most of them had seen the elephants during the day at an intersection that we had passed through three or four times - those times all being bare of elephants. Nonetheless, we did get to see some interesting wildlife, notably a pair of ostriches with some young hatchlings in tow, some secretary birds, and a Welwitschis - a strange two-leafed desert plant that derives most of its moisture from dew and which can survive for up to 2000 years.
Our driver was very excited to show us something called the “Wonder Hole” that local people knew about but only a select few visitors ever got to see. It was reported to be a deep hole in the rocks, so deep that when a stone was thrown in, it could be heard rattling its way down into the subterranean depths. We were told that no-one knew how this strange, deep hole had formed. When we got there, we found it was a fairly average sink hole of the kind that commonly forms as water dissolves limestone (which was the rock type in which the ‘Wonder Hole’ had formed). I explained to the driver that the Wonder Hole was a fairly common feature of limestone landscapes, and described its formation to him. Andrew later said I had been very cruel to dispel the magic of the Wonder Hole to the driver by explaining how this fairly common feature had been formed. As an educator, I simply felt I had a duty to perform, and I performed it. (I later found out that the Wonder Hole is mentioned as a site on page 296 in the Lonely Planet Guide to Namibia, where it is correctly identified as a sinkhole. I decided that as a gesture of sensitivity to the driver, I would not tell him that *his* special place is mentioned in a tour guide).
Dinner this evening was at the campsite, and it was delicious. Both Andrew and I had kudu in mushroom sauce, followed by a malva slice with sauce made from wild fruit. We ate with our driver who told us that he was determined that after three days of failing to find the elephants, we should all rise as early as possible tomorrow morning so that we could set off at 7:00 am and have another try. He was determined that he would not fail four days in a row.
Consequently, my alarm has been set for 5:30 am. I can hardly wait...........

Day 19 - Kunene River Valley, Namibia

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 07:28:27 +1000

When the alarm sounded at 5:30 am this morning, it was unexpectedly cool. Even having warm water in the shower seemed to make little impact to warm us up. However, having a cup of tea brought to the room at 6:00 am did help; African hospitality here is brilliant.
The reason for the early start was to have an early morning boat trip on the Kunene River, while the river waters were fairly still and the wildlife could still be seen. It was an almost primordial experience to drift along the river as the sun was about to rise, watching the mist rise in apparent slow motion from the water’s surface, listening to the chorus of bird calls and watching seemingly prehistoric reptiles such as large lizards, monitors and crocodiles slink into the dark water. We even saw a few of the nomadic Himba people, some gathering water and one fishing. The Kunene River forms the border between Angola and Namibia, and as we travelled upstream, we had Angola to our left and Namibia to our right. Few international borders could be as scenic or as tranquil as this one.
We returned to our accommodation at about 9:30 am, totally caught up in the magic of our experience on the river. After a short rest, we set out at about 10:00 am to visit a Himba encampment that was about 20 minutes drive from our camp. The Himba are a nomadic tribe of pastoralists who still largely retain their traditional lifestyle. We passed a couple of abandoned Himba encampments before arriving at our destination, an encampment inhabited by a family comprising a married couple, several children (of which only a teenage daughter and a young son were present at the time of our visit), and their aunt.
Francois gave us an excellent 20 minute introduction to the Himba people, which I was delighted to be able to record on my iPod. He explained Himba etiquette, the structure of the Himba encampments (each of which accommodates just one family plus their animals), and the significance of the red colouring that the women smear on their bodies and through their hair every day (which is mainly for protection against the sun). Interestingly, the women invariably still wear traditional dress, but the men these days tend to wear T-shirts and trousers “because of their (the men’s) importance”.
We returned to our camp where we had a light lunch of salad and samosas followed by fruit salad. This effectively kept us out of the heat of the day until 3:00 pm, at which time we had reserved some quad bikes to explore the dune ecosystems. Both Andrew and I were really looking forward to riding the quad bikes, partly for the ‘action’ component of riding over remote rough roads and getting into isolated sand dunes, and partly for the opportunity they provided to explore some unusual desert ecosystems at close hand.
We were not disappointed. It was surprisingly easy to learn the techniques of riding the quad bikes, and having done so, we spent over three hours on the bikes and saw some spectacular scenery. Our long circuit took us initially along quite rough roads to take us into the elevated dune areas that I was especially keen to visit. In the golden light of the afternoon sunlight, the sand dunes for which the Namib Desert is famous looked magnificent. Just before sunset, we climbed a rocky outcrop with gave us a bird’s eye view over the extensive dune fields. For both Andrew and me, the experience on the quad bikes was an unforgettable experience that opened up new understandings of the very special place that the unique environment of the Namib Desert is.
We returned to our campsite at about 6:30 pm, having driven for the previous 15 to 20 minutes with headlights on. We then enjoyed a great dinner; there was no choice on the menu but it didn’t matter as it was great anyway. Dinner gave us an opportunity to talk and reflect on the three quite different experiences of the day, each of which had been very special in its own way. We agreed that this had been an excellent and memorable day.

Day 18 -Windhoek to Kunene River Valley, Namibia

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 22:47:03 +1000

The first time I went to China, which was in 1982, 5 imposed a quota on myself for the number of photos I would take each day. The limit I imposed on myself was 36 photos per day, mainly because I was using colour slide film which was reasonably expensive. Now that I have changed to digital photography, cost is no longer an issue and I tend to take as many photos as I think can be useful. But before today, I had never taken 687 photos in one day! That number of photos is a measure of the fantastic day that Andrew and I have had.
We woke in Windhoek to the sound of the alarm at 5:45 am. We were due to leave our guesthouse at 7:15 am to catch a small plane that would take us to the Kunene River Valley, which is in the remote, isolated north-west corner of Namibia on the border of Angola. We were a little late leaving, for two very good reasons. First, we we had a shower with hot water, which was a much appreciated novelty after a week in southern Ethiopia and we wanted to make the most of it. Secondly, the guesthouse served each of us some of the best breakfasts we have ever had. Andrew ordered eggs Canadian style, which meant they came with warm slices of bananas and cranberry sauce. I ordered eggs Norwegian style, which was scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and cottage cheese. To accompany the eggs, there was a delicious granola, fresh fruit with yogurt, and some of the best filtered coffee I have tasted for a long while. That is simply not the kind of breakfast that should be rushed.
The drive to the Eros Airport from the guesthouse confirmed my earlier impression that Windhoek is a modern, clean,prosperous that resembled a very tidy version of many middle-sized Australian towns. Unfortunately, we saw only a small part of Windhoek as the minivan took us fairly quickly to the airport for our intended 8:00 am departure.
The only way to reach the north-west corner of Namibia, known as the Kaokeveld, within our time limit is to fly. We took a small Cessna 210 operated by Sefofane Air which flew two legs. The first leg was a two and a half flight west to Swakopumund, where the plane had to refuel. The second leg was a three hour flight north to Hartmann Valley airstrip, from which we needed a one hour drive in a 4WD to reach our campsite. The photo to the right shows our plane after arrival at Hartmann Valley airstrip, together with the 4WD that came to meet us and transfer us to our accommodation.
The flight was fabulous - an intense geographical, observational experience. We took off in perfectly clear weather and initially headed south-west towards an area of towering red sand dunes of the Namib Desert. This was perhaps the one disappointing feature of the day; there was a thick fog over the dunes. The pilot claimed that he had never seen a fog in that area before, and started taking photos with his digital camera. I have to say that he was much more excited about the fog than I was! However, knowing that we wanted to see the dunes, he circled downwards in an effort to get under the fog (without hitting the ground), and for the most part he succeeded. Although there were sections of the dunes that were hidden from us, we did get a reasonable if patchy view. We continued heading west towards the cost, flying over Walvis Bay (Namibia’s main port city) before touching down at Swakopmund.
Swakopmund resembles a small, German town situated between the desert and the Atlantic Ocean. While the plane was refuelling, we spent a couple of tours looking around Swakopmund, and we were very impressed with what we saw. The town had some wonderful examples of historical German architecture, as well as some fascinating sights such as a recent shipwreck, salt evaporating flats, and a large coastal lagoon where several flocks of flamingos were seen.
After the plane had refuelled at Swakopmund, we continued north, flying along the Skeleton Coast. This stretch of coastline derives its name from the many rusting shipwrecks found along the shoreline. Although the sands of the Namib Desert stretch right to the western shoreline, the coast is often shrouded in fog (as a result of the cold ocean current that flows along the coast), and it is thus notorious for its danger to shipping. We saw at least 8 shipwrecks as we flew along the coast, and no doubt many more lie buried beneath the shifting sands. Even more surprising was seeing several seal colonies, each containing several hundred (and perhaps a thousand or more) seals. Other points of interest were several old diamond mines, a number of large dry river beds, and some huge dune fields.
When we reached the mouth of the (dry) Munutum River, we turned inland, initially following the course of the river, but later turning northwards to cross a spectacular dune field and then a succession of arid and semi-arid landscapes with features such as mesas, buttes, ephemeral streams, braided river channels, alluvial fans, and so on.
We landed at Hartmann Valley airstrip at little before 4:00 pm. The airstrip is simply a narrow dirt stretch with no buildings except for a tiny, fairly rudimentary (i.e. non-flushing) toilet.
We were met by Francois and his 4WD from the campsite where we were to stay for the evening. He was extremely well informed about the environment of the Kunene River and equally eager to share his knowledge with us. Therefore, we stopped on several occasions to look at birds or animals or interesting plants that he had spotted, or to explain various facets of the local ecosystem, or to take in the beauty of this very special area under the setting sun. I am certainly looking forward to learning more from him when we explore the area in detail tomorrow.
Our accommodation at Serra Cafema was far more luxurious and spacious than anything we had experienced during our time in Ethiopia - and everything worked. We were even welcomed with a wet face washer when we arrived to wash the dust from our hands and faces! And most excitingly of all, they offered to do any of our laundry for free. As it had been a week and a half since we had stayed anywhere for more than an overnight stop that had running water (either hot or cold), this was a true godsend - although the people who do the laundry may not have viewed it in quite the same way when they saw the dirty condition of my shirts after southern Ethiopia’s dusty roads.
The campsite was arranged in elevated cabins as protection them from flooding and crocodiles, with each cabin connected by an elevated wooden walkway to a main building where food was available. Andrew and I enjoyed one of the best meals so far of this trip when we had dinner this evening; fresh ingredients that were prepared to perfection. The campsite was right beside the Kunene River that marks Namibia’s northern boundary with Angola (which is why all the buildings are elevated). If we were 50 metres further north, just across the narrow river, we would have been in Angola.

Day 17 -Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) to Windhoek (Namibia)

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 17:58:21 +1000

Today was essentially a day of travelling, flying from Addis Ababa to Windhoek via Johannesburg.
Like so many recent days, our wake-up was very early once again. I set the alarm for 5:30 am, which meant I had only four and a half hours sleep; this was as a result of spending several answering e-mails for work the previous night. I managed to answer all the messages I had received on Google’s G-mail, but the LPC server (which hosts messages for my other e-mail address) was down and I could not access any of these messages. However, when I checked this morning at 5:30 am (which was 10:30 am Hong Kong time), I found the server had been repaired and was working again. The problem then was that I didn’t have the couple of hours needed to clear the backlog, as we had to go to the aiport to catch our flight. I did spend almost 45 minutes clearing as many as I could, but with the slow connection speed in Addis Ababa, that number was depressingly small. That left me 15 minutes to shower, dress and finish packing before leaving for the airport - yes, it was a bit rushed.
Our first flight was from Addis Ababa to Johannesburg on an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737. The flight took five and half hours, and was very smooth and pleasant with excellent food (both Andy and I had the Nile perch).
We had a two hour transit in Johannesburg, and discovering that wireless internet access was available, we decided to spend an hour catching up with e-mails. By using internet sharing, we both had internet access on our respective computers. The connection speed was an order of magnitude better than we had been receiving in Addis Ababa, so I was able to clear the entire backlog of about 70 messages that were banked up on the LPC server. Holidays for this school principal are never really very distant from the decisions that still need to be made, even when travelling in remote parts of Africa.

Our second flight from Johannesburg to Windhoek took just over two hours on an Air Namibia Boeing 737. The plane was quite lightly loaded, so we had plenty of room to spread out and move around. I had not only the two seats between me and the aisle free, but also two entire rows in front of me and four rows behind me completely free.
Upon arrival in Windhoek, we travelled by minivan from the airport to our guesthouse in Windhoek. Initial impressions of the Namibian landscape upon leaving the airport (post-sunset) were of landforms and vegetation not unlike the area around Alice Springs in central Australia. Initial impressions of Windhoek are of a small city that is modern, clean, prosperous, ordered and fairly affluent - certainly the level of economic development is considerably higher than anything we experienced in Ethiopia! In many ways, it is reminiscent of a medium sized Australian town such as Canberra, except for the dominance here of German cars (Mercedes, BMW and Volkswagens) and the preponderance of German street names - consequences, I guess, of Namibia’s former status as a German colony.
Our accommodation, the Olive Grove Guesthouse, is heaven compared with anything we experienced in Ethiopia. The rooms are light, clean, modern and spacious, and everything works - even wireless internet! We had dinner this evening at the guesthouse, a superb meal of vegetable soup with home-baked bread, salad, fish and home-made chocolates with coffee.
Yes, everything works here - after two weeks in Ethiopia, I no longer take that for granted.

Day 16 - Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 05:54:28 +1000

The photo at the right shows the exquisite view over the Rift Valley lakes that Andrew and I enjoyed as we ate our breakfast this morning in Arba Minch. Sadly the food was not up the quality of the view, but we felt that the view more than compensated for the greasy, oily omelette that I was served, and the surprisingly greasy, oily club sandwich that Andrew ordered. But it didn’t matter - after several days of having no running water, enduring rough dusty roads and dodging voracious mosquitoes, we had enjoyed a night with continuous electricity and hot water. Both failed just half an hour before we checked out, which was still by far the most reliable supply we had encountered for a week. We were happy and ready for the final 500 kilometre drive into Addis Ababa.
Because of the long drive, the only stops that we planned were for lunch and refreshments. Sightseeing today would be restricted to looking through the windows of the car. And yet the state of Ethiopia’s highways meant that there was a constant stream of interesting things to see, both on and off the road. Ethiopia’s roads serve not only as a channel for vehicle and (even more so) animal movement, but as community centres - places where children can play and people stand and have conversations, safe in the knowledge that vehicles will simply zig-zag around them. After a couple of weeks on Ethiopia’s roads, it all seems so normal now!
The first section of our drive north of Arba Minch to Sodo was on a heavily broken road that had once been sealed, but now the potholes comprised more than 50% of the surface area. Dodging the huge potholes reduced our average speed to just 25 kilometres per hour in places. We stopped in Sodo to stretch our legs and have a much-appreciated macchiato. To drive from Sodo to Addis Ababa there was a choice of roads. We could either take the same road through the Rift Valley and the town of Shashemene that we had used when we had driven south, or we could take a new road through Hossana. We opted to drive through Hossana as it was slightly shorter, the road was of better quality and it gave us the chance to see some different countryside.
We did stop on one occasion a little to the north of Sodo. We had been observing a large number of farmers ploughing fields in preparation for the hoped-for coming rains, and when we saw one farmer doing ploughing right next to the road we decided to stop and have a closer look. The farmer was extremely friendly and offered Andrew the opportunity to make a furrow with the plough behind his two cows. As Andrew commented, it isn’t as easy as it looks.
After a stop for lunch in Hossana, where we both enjoyed some excellent spaghetti, we continued the drive northwards on smooth sealed roads of a type we had not encountered for almost a week. Although some areas we passed through had problems with severe soil erosion in the form of gullying, the farmlands in general appeared to be very green and productive. We reached our hotel in Addis Ababa at a little before 5:00, having spent almost an hour driving through the traffic clogged streets from the city’s outskirts.
After checking in to the hotel, I spent the next three hours answering as many as possible of the 124 e-mails that were waiting for me. At 8:30 pm, our driver called at the hotel to take us out for dinner at a restaurant specialising in Ethiopian food (which really means a cuisine based on injera). This was a great experience. The restaurant was named the ‘Habesha Restaurant on Bole Road’, and it was the best injera that Andrew and I have ever had! Furthermore, there was a floor show featuring singing and dancing, the dancing being modernised adaptations of traditional tribal dancing. It was a very loud, very tasty experience, and an excellent way to spend our final evening in Ethiopia.
We returned to the hotel at about 10:30 pm. I was intending to finish answering e-mails, but remembering that it had taken about half an hour to pay the bill at this hotel when we stayed here previously, I decided instead to pay our hotel bill this evening. That was a wise move; it took just over two hours. I finally managed to get to bed at 1:00 am, which was later than I had hoped as we had to rise at 5:30 am the following morning to catch our flight to Namibia.

Day 15 - Arba Minch, Ethiopia

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 00:09:57 +1000

Today was our fourth day without running water - until the end of the day, that is, when we arrived back in in Arba Minch. Running water is great! Not only did water come from the tap, but it was hot water. Heaven!!!
Today was also the day we experienced our first shower of rain in southern Ethiopia - and also our second. Both were brief, so the concern about the possibility of drought and famine later this year continue to be major topics of conversation in Ethiopia.
Today was the day we experienced our first flat tyre - and also our second. It was the day we had our first (and so far only) push-start because of a flat battery.
Although Andrew found it fine, I had a very uncomfortable night in the tent in Turmi, waking several times with a painful back and neck. It was actually a pleasure to rise and start walking around at about 6:20 am. Having taken down the tents, we walked up to the same place for breakfast where we had dinner the previous night, breakfast comprising omelette with sparking mineral water, followed by tea (for Andrew) and coffee (for me), each with the compulsory pre-added 3 teaspoons of sugar in the tiny cups.
Having reached the limit of our travels into the remote parts of southern Ethiopia, today was spent on the first part of the two-day drive back to Addis Ababa. Today’s sector, from Turmi to Arba Minch, was almost all on unsealed roads, but in general the quality of the roads was better than we have experienced at any time during the past few days.
In order to arrive in Arba Minch before dark, we made only three stops. One was unplanned, to change a wheel that had a flat tyre. The other two stops were planned (although one was also used to change the other wheel that had a flat tyre).
The first planned stop was in a small village inhabited by the Erebora (or Ebora, or Arbore) people. Little research has been done on this relatively small tribe whose lands are centred in a semi-arid area about 70 kilometres east of Turmi, and who have a language that is unrelated to any other language in Africa (and the world, obviously). Their origins may be unclear, but it is known that they are pastoralists who raise cattle. Because this work is done by the men and boys, most of the people present in the village when we called in were women and girls, although a few men and young boys were also present. The villagers were very friendly and extremely keen to have their photographs taken, and of course to see their pictures on the digital display at the back of our cameras afterwards. While Andrew and I were taking photos, the driver changed the back left type of the 4WD which had punctured just before we arrived at the village.
After leaving the Erebora village, we drove until almost 1:00 am to Konso, a town inhabited by people of the Konso tribe. We would have arrived considerably earlier than 1:00 pm, but an unanticipated stop to change the front right tyre delayed us by about 45 minutes.
Lunch in Konso comprised injera with goat meat and bean paste, washed down with a Coke and strong, compulsorily sugared coffee. Towards the end of lunch we met Choo-Choo, who was a 23 year-old Konso man who spoke excellent English and has trained as a guide to show people his village, called Dara, which was about 10 minutes walk from Konso. We agreed to go with Choo-Choo to see his village, and this was an excellent decision - Choo-Choo was very keen to help us understand Konso culture. He was both proud and knowledgeable of his village, and we had a great time exploring Dara.
Like many Konso villages, Dara is strongly Christian, having been evangelised by Swedish missionaries in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Dara has its own church with a Konso pastor, who replaced the former pastor (also a Konso) who died last month at the age of 110. When we arrived at the entrance to the village, a young man held out an open English language Bible and asked if I could read some of it. He seemed deeply moved as I gladly read him the first three verses of Mark chapter 6.
Choo-Choo was the 4th in a family with 10 children. He said that there has been 12 children in his family, but two had died. He mentioned that his parents’ marriage was monogamous, but that some Konso husbands had two wives, and in such cases it was not unusual for a family to have about 20 children. He mentioned that the normal age to marry is 18, and marriages are ‘always’ within the Konso tribe but between members of different clans (of which there are nine). However, as Choo-Choo has been educated, he has fallen outside this ‘system’, and is engaged to be married in August this year - interestingly to a girl who is not Konso (somewhat against his parents’ wishes).
Unique in Ethiopia, the Konso practice quite a sophisticated form of terracing to make use of the steep hillsides for farming. No irrigation or water management is involved; they reply simply on natural rainfall. Like all Konso villages, Dara is located on a hilltop and is surrounded by a high wall (about 4 metres high). This combination of situation and structure was originally adopted as defence from attack by people from nearby villages, and although such attacks no longer occur, the walls are still built as protection against marauding animals (such as hyena) that attack the villagers’ animals. Dara has about 950 inhabitants, and as the village has expanded, houses have been erected outside the fortified wall, after which the wall has been expanded to include them. In this way, Dara has developed separated walled sectors over the years.
Our walk around Dara revealed many of the activities involved in daily life, such as winnowing seeds, tending animals, gathering honey from hives in the overhead branches of the trees, and lots more. The Konso women wear very elegant, distinctive billowing, striped skirts that reminded me of old photographs taken on US southern cotton farms during the era of slavery in the mid-1800s; the universally filthy T-shirts that they wear above the shirts do detract somewhat from the image of elegance, however. A highlight of the visit to the village was seeing the community hut where boys live from the age of 12 until they are married (at age 18). They sleep on the upper level on animal skins, and the lower level is used for meetings. Just in front of the community house is a series of curved steps where meetings are held every Sunday to settle disputes; as recommended in the Bible, the Konso prefer to settle disputes among themselves rather than go before the national courts. Just down another set of steps is a large open area that is used for community meetings (of both men and women) - today it was being used for an informal volleyball match. We were followed around the village by about 20 delightful children, who never stopped smiling, and who screamed in mock terror whenever a camera was pointed towards them.
It was a pleasure reaching Arba Minch after today’s long drive and several days in the dusty wilderness areas. After a cleansing shower, we shared a great dinner on the terrace overlooking the Rift Valley lakes. At first it was a bit confusing to be confronted with a menu - there has really been no choice to make in food for the past four days. I chose fish soup followed by Chicken Hunter Style to see whether the advice we received during our last visit was indeed true (that Chicken African Style and Chicken Hunter Style are in fact the same). They are. Andrew chose minestrone soup followed by fish kebab with hot sauce. Both meals were delicious.
Arba Minch is Ethiopia’s malaria capital. So far Andrew has managed to avoid getting bitten by mosquitoes. I was bitten twice during our last visit. Fortunately it was in the middle of the day when malarial mosquitoes are supposed to be dormant (they are said to be active at dawn and dusk), so hopefully there will be no consequences. I couldn’t believe how fast the mosquito was in attacking me - the two bites occurred within about 20 seconds while I was using the toilet. For the record, and to avoid any grubby speculation, I was bitten on the back of my hand, on my knuckles - not elsewhere.

Day 14 - Turmi, Ethiopia

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 03:44:06 +1000

I woke this morning in Jinka at 6:00 am. History continued to repeat itself - there was no electricity and no running water. After a cold bucket shower, we had a breakfast of plain bread and plain omelette at the nearby Goh Hotel, just down the hill from our hotel, the Orit, which does not serve food.
As we left the hotel, the Jinka boys were still there at the gate, waiting. The youngest one had good news for me. The price of a plastic football had come down from 100 birr to just 50 birr, and he suggested I should use the opportunity of this bargain price to buy one for him. I politely gave him the answer you would expect (and I think he expected too). We left on good terms with waves and big smiles.
Our drive to Turmi in Ethiopia’s far south-western corner was only a relatively fairly short distance, but it was expected to take about five hours of driving because of the rough road conditions. We had only one stop planned, but it was a great one that took almost four and a half hours.
Saturday is market day in Dimeka, a small town that borders the territory of the Banna and the Hammer tribes. Both tribes still attire themselves in traditional dress, and the market was a riot of colour and activity. We arrived at 11:00 am, spent an hour and a half walking around, then had a long slow lunch of goat meat on injera followed by some of the strongest (and best!) coffee I have ever tried, before spending another hour or so exploring the market. Rather than trying to explain too much about the market, I will let a small sample of the photos I took today (shown above) do the talking for me. As with all the photos in this trip diary, each can be enlarged by clicking on the image.
From Dimeka it was a short drive downhill to Turmi, a tiny Hammer village where we spent the night camping in tents beside the dry river. I had feared that mosquitoes might be a problem at this low altitude so close to the river, but there were none to be seen, and the dry river bed, even at this stage of the wet season, revealed the threat to Ethiopia’s food supply situation if the rains do not come soon. Our campsite can be seen in the image to the right. Although it is the wet season here in southern Ethiopia, we have not had one day of rain during our travels in southern Ethiopia, which has been great for our travels but definitely not so good for the farmers.
The campsite did not serve any food, so at about 7:00 pm we took a short walk into town to have dinner at an eating house. To the accompaniment of 100 decibel music being played through miniature speakers, we had vegetable soup (the only kind on the menu - or it would have been if they actually had a menu) followed by goat meat on injera for Andrew and spaghetti for me. We ate outdoors in the shade of an acacia tree in the post-sunset dusk, with a refreshing breeze blowing a never-ending supply of flying ants into our faces. It was great!
Actually, to say there were no mosquitoes to be seen at the campsite is not quite the whole story. The toilets at the campsite, basic in the extreme, were actually alive with mosquitoes which seemed to be thriving in the green, stagnant water there. Andrew and I found a nearby tree preferable to the multiple health risks associated with the toilets. Today marked our third consecutive day with no running water - we are starting to look somewhat dusty.

Day 13 - Jinka, Ethiopia

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 04:14:12 +1000

I don’t think it would be possible to get too much further into the wilds of Africa than we did today without taking some fairly serious risks. We began the day without electricity (what’s new?) and without water (like yesterday); this was our second day without water which has made washing something of a problem. The owners of this 4-UN-car hotel did manage to get us a bucket of water to use, but unfortunately Andrew emptied 80% of it down the toilet within half an hour of arriving in our room in an unsuccessful attempt to ‘flush’ away his floater that he was embarrassed to leave there. Having thrown away most of our day’s supply of bucket water, and with no prospect of getting any more, we found that having to do all our body washing (for both of us) with the remaining two litres or so of water was a thorough (if odoriferous) challenge. The planned clothes washing simply didn’t happen. By the way, the hotel’s ranking was reduced today to 1-UN-car.
After a fairly plain breakfast of plain omelette, plain bread and not-too-bad coffee in the nearby hotel just down the hill, we left at about 7:30 am for our drive into Mago National Park. This involved a drive of about 3 hours to the west of Jinka, and a descent from Jinka’s 1200 metres altitude down to about 200 metres, where the weather was understandably considerably warmer. The Lonely Plant Guide to Ethiopia sums up a trip into Mago National Park quite nicely, saying:
“Not for the pusillanimous, a visit to Mago National Park is a two-footed leap into true African wilds. You’ll battle roads that eat Landrovers for brunch, wage war with squadrons of mosquitoes and tsetse flies, and sweat more than you thought humanly possible. The payoff? It’s more adventure than you can shake a stick at! You’ll have the chance to visit Mursi villages along the Mago River and spot some animals too. One thing is for sure, you’ll never forget your time here”.
Yes, the road was very rough, and yes the weather was hot, but we didn’t see any mosquitoes (and we were definitely watching for them!). By law, we needed to have an armed escort accompany us. I asked, half jokingly, whether the armed escort was for wild animals or hostile people, and I was told “for hostile people, of course”, as though such a response should have been self-evident. Maybe that makes sense - after all, it is illegal to shoot animals in a national park! And I did notice that the list of regulations on the notice board at the entrance to the park included “No carrying machine guns” immediately below “No collecting wild flora”.
Our main aim was to visit a village of the nomadic Mursi people - presuming we could find one, because the Mursi people move camp every few months. As it turned out, we did find a village of unusually friendly Mursi people just a couple of kilometres beyond an abandoned encampment, and what a memorable experience it was!
The main activity of the Mursi people is raising cattle, which is why they are nomadic; they move according to the seasons. When they settle in one place for a while, they cultivate some sorghum, and we saw evidence of that this morning with cultivated fields beside the village compound, and some women were milling sorghum by hand while others were winnowing the seeds. Most of the people in the village when we visited were women and girls because the majority of the men and boys were away tending the cattle.
One of the unique features of the Mursi people is that women wear lip plates. These are made of clay and may be up to 15 cm in diameter. At about the age of 12, a slit is made between the lower lip and the jaw, and plates of increasing size are inserted as the lip stretches. The lip plates are not worn all the time, and many of the women we saw this morning were walking around with their lower lips swaying around below their jaws.
There are various theories as to why the lip plates are worn. Some suggest that it was originally a way of discouraging slave traders from stealing the women, because they generally wanted unblemished girls for slaves. Another theory is that it is done to prevent evil entering the body via the mouth. Yet another theory is that it is a sign of social prestige. The real origins of the practice are probably lost in antiquity, and these days it is simply an accepted, universal social custom among Mursi women. Our visit to the village this morning did nothing to shed light on the practice.
After we had spent quite a while at the village (I was enjoying myself so much that I didn’t notice exactly how long we were there), we left for the return trip uphill to Jinka. On the way, we saw several examples of wildlife, including kudu, miniature gazelles, harriers and several groups of baboons. But the highlight was seeing an elephant, something that was so unusual for the middle of the day that our armed escort almost wet himself with excitement. And what an elephant it was - it was far larger than any of us had ever seen before, with very long mammoth-like tusks and huge ears. As we approached, it walked off into the scrub at the side of the road, where it began attaching a tree, almost completely uprooting it. Just as we were preparing to get the perfect photograph, it noticed us, snorted loudly, screeched, and started charging. I have never seen an armed escort run so quickly, so we naturally followed his example, running for life’s sake back to the relative safety of the 4WD.
We returned to Jinka for lunch, which was vegetable soup like last night (it is the only kind of soup they offer), followed by spaghetti for me (same as last night) and injera with lamb for Andrew. After lunch we relaxed for a while in our room, hoping in an unfulfilled way that the water might be turned on so we could flush away the putrid smell permeating into our room.
We had heard that there would be some traditional dancing by the Ari tribe on the outskirts of town at 4:30 pm this afternoon, so we made the trip there. Apparently someone had forgotten to tell the dancers - this is literally what we were told had happened - so there was no dancing to be seen. We therefore thought it might be interesting to have a look through Jinka’s museum, which gets a reasonable write-up in the guidebook. We arrived there at about 5:00 pm, and although the advertised closing time was 5:30 pm, the curator had gone home for the day and everything was in darkness.
Therefore, we decided to walk back to our hotel, taking the long way round that passed through the market. This was probably more interesting than either the dancing or the museum would have been, and even though it was not market day (which is Saturday), there was a lot of activity and many things to see. Jinka’s streets are dusty, but being bright orange dust, picturesque in their own sort of way. I was especially impressed to see a sign at a small roundabout (yes, such things exist in Jinka!) proclaiming ‘Education for All’ under a larger sign that read ‘I am proud to be a teacher’. This is clearly a town with its priorities sorted out!

Day 12 - Jinka, Ethiopia

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:47:00 +1000

We woke this morning in Arba Minch to another electricity blackout. About two-thirds of our time in Arba Minch was spent without electricity, and given that most of the time the electricity was working was between about 11 pm and 5 am, it was difficult to make effective use of it (apart from leaving camera batteries or laptops connected before going to sleep in the hope that some electricity might flow during the night).
We slept in a little this morning, rising only at 7 am and wandering up to the dining terrace at 8 am. The photo at right shows the superb view we enjoyed over breakfast as we looked across the still waters of Lake Abaya. Like all the food we ate in Arba Minch, breakfast was fresh and full of flavour, and we savoured every mouthful of our freshly baked, crusty, coarse, lightly toasted bread and jam, cheese omelettes and coffee with milk.
The focus of today was driving to the west of Arba Minch into the Omo Valley and on to Jinka. I am not sure how many kilometres the journey comprised, but it took about six hours of driving along a mixture of some good sealed roads and a larger proportion of very rough, unsealed, corrugated roadway. We began the journey at an altitude of 1500 metres at Arba Minch, descended to 500 metres as we entered the hot, dry Omo Valley and then climbed again back to coller weather at about 1400 metres altitude at Jinka.
The first part of the journey was very slow in spite of being on a good, sealed road. The reason was that we were sharing the road with thousands of head of cattle on their daily trip to pasture. Every morning, boys of school age (but who obviously do not attend school) drive cattle from their owners’ compounds to pastures to graze for the day. Every afternoon, the same boys bring the cattle back to their owners’ compounds. The highway is evidently the easiest transport route for the cattle - and it probably reduces the erosion that would occur if the cattle were moved along dirt pathways.
We drove without stopping until we reached the small village of Weyto, where we had lunch. There were very few buildings in this hot, dusty village apart from the restaurant where we ate. Andy and I had injera with lamb, although as we looked around, it seemed that we were almost the only ones eating a meal that could be called nutritious. Almost every other patron was chewing on “chat”, which were hallucinogenic green leaves picked from a bunch of stalks. Chat is obviously in plentiful supply in this area, and the restaurant seemed to to be doing a roaring trade in it. For the record, ‘chat’ is legal in Ethiopia, but not in most other countries.
After about 45 minutes driving from Weyto, we began climbing into the mountains that form the border between Ethiopia and Sudan, and about 45 minutes after that, we stopped in a small town called Key Afar. Key Afar is found in the area inhabited by the Banna tribe, a group that still dresses traditionally and raises cattle. As it was Thursday, the town’s weekly market was underway, with hundreds of Banna people together with people from the neighbouring Tsemay tribe.
The market was a riot of colour and activity. It was wonderful to see people who were obviously proud of their heritage and their culture showing off their best traditional dress, whether this was beads, hair colouring, animal skin dresses, feathers or other head-dresses, shawls made from shells, or every possible combination of the above.
There was an active cattle market, although it was only possible to get photos from a distance because the men explained that if we were to take photographs of the cattle it would make the blood of the cattle curdle, making it undrinkable (drinking cattle blood is a common practice in this part of Ethiopia). The shoes section was interesting, as all the shoes had obviously been hand crafted from old truck tyres - and everyone who was wearing shoes in the market was wearing this particular type of shoe. There were spices, fruits, vegetables, fabrics and pottery on sale - in fact, everything that a respectable Banna or Tsemay household might require. There were even bags of wheat being sold in “US Aid” bags, marked as being a gift “from the American people” that was “not to be sold or exported”. We stayed for about an hour before having a cool drink and driving on to Jinka.
Our hotel in Jinka was the Orit Hotel. I have come to measure the quality of hotels here in southern Ethiopia not by a rating system of stars, but by how many UN vehicles are parked in the grounds. By that criterion, the Orit is a 4-UN-vehicle establishment. Notwithstanding this grand ranking, it didn’t have either running water or a restaurant, so dinner tonight was vegetable soup and spaghetti in a nearby hotel just a short walk down the hill from the Orit. The planned clothes washing will just have to wait for another day.
Jinka reminds me of some towns in Papua New Guinea, in that it is built around the airstrip runway. Unlike most towns in Papua New Guinea, however, Jinka’s airstrip is used as a football field and for grazing cattle. Fortunately, the only scheduled flights into Jinka are from Addis Ababa, and there are only two such flights each week. Hopefully this is a sufficiently simple timetable for the cattle to memorise so they can remember to move off to one side of the airstrip before the plane lands.
One feature of Jinka that is found in most Ethiopian towns, but to a greater extent here, is the organised operation of scams. In just about every Ethiopian town or city, local youths wait around the entrance gates of hotels to try and get foreigners to contribute to some personal version of a Nigerian e-mail scam. In Ethiopia it is usually a word perfect story about how the youth is a student who has no mother, and wants money for something such as a notebook (exercise book) for school or, more commonly, money for his school football team to buy a new football - “you can choose sir, 100 birr for a plastic one or 200 birr for a leather one”. The scam is well documented and seems to be very well organised in a smooth operation that might make the mafia envious.
This evening, Andrew and I wanted to go for a short walk. A young man had come up to walk beside us even before we left the hotel grounds. The conversation began the same way that it always does: “Hello. What is your name? Where are you from? Do you like Jinka?...” He then proceeded to point out some “sights” - ‘there is the airstrip, there is a shop...’. I told him politely that I wanted to be alone with my son to talk, at which point he said that it was not desirable for foreigners to walk around Jinka alone. I insisted, at which point he told me that I was ‘a very bad person’. I responded by telling him that in my country, older people are treated with respect by younger people, and perhaps if he showed more respect rather than intruding, he might be more successful in getting us to listen to him.
No sooner had he left us than two others took his place- “Hello. What is your name? Where are you from? Do you like Jinka?...” We successfully got them to agree to leave us alone, but about 30 seconds later, two younger boys - students - approached us: “Hello. What is your name? Where are you from? Do you like Jinka?...” Then there was a twist - “Do you like football?” I explained that I didn’t really like football, and that I wanted to be alone with my son, buy they said they just wanted to ask me a question. They then took about 5 minutes to explain that they were students in a school football team, but they didn’t have enough money to buy a football. I could help them by paying them 100 birr for a plastic football or 200 birr for a leather football. I politely declined, explaining that I had heard an identical story in almost every Ethiopian city I had visited. They argued, somewhat unconvincingly I felt, that it is true that the story in other cities is a scam, but in Jinka it is genuine.
As Andrew and I returned to our hotel, we saw the two young boys together with the three others we had encountered all talking together in a circle, watching us as they did so. They have been hanging around the hotel gate ever since. Our driver tells us they are known as ‘the Jinka Boys’. I smile and wave each time each time I go through the hotel gate, and they all give me a big smile and wave back except for the one who thinks I am ‘a very bad person’. He just glares.

Day 11 - Arba Minch, Ethiopia

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:14:49 +1000

I can’t believe the good luck we have been having with the weather. Despite the forecast we received before leaving Addis Ababa, we have not had any rain yet whatsoever during our journey into southern Ethiopia, and unlike the past two days which were largely overcast, today was actually sunny for most of the day.
When we woke this morning (at 5:45 am), the electricity blackout had started again after a meagre few hours of power during the early morning. That made showering uncomfortable, and dressing involved quite a bit of tripping over things on the floor. It also meant that certain items were not available for breakfast, but despite that, we did enjoyed very much. The food in this part of Ethiopia is full of flavour and always fresh. We had freshly baked, crusty, coarse, lightly toasted bread with jam, accompanied by a superb cheese omelette (for me) and a mortadello omelette (for Andy) that used mushrooms rather than Italian sausage (not that Andrew actually had any idea whatsoever what to expect - he was just fascinated by the name).
In many ways, Arba Minch is a bit of a frontier town. As you can see by the photo above, its streets are wide and dusty, and perhaps less sophisticated than one might expect of a town with about 80,000 people. However, its location between two Rift Valley lakes is superb, and it makes a great jumping off point for some very interesting things to see. The two lakes are quite different in appearance; the northern lake (Lake Abaya) has a distinctive reddish-brown appearance that is caused by high levels of ferrous hydroxide (no - it is not the result of the crocodiles’ feeding frenzies on the local cattle). The southern lake, Lake Chamo, on the other hand is a more normal blue colour - despite having a huge population of crocodiles :-) But more about that later.
The focus of today was the natural environment around Arba Minch. During the morning we visited the Nech Sar National Park, which lies on the narrow, mountainous strip of land (known as the Bridge of God) that separates Lake Abaya from Lake Chamo. The park is quite small (just 514 square kilometres), and is apparently seldom visited. This morning, for example, the only cars in the park were ours plus one other. That is a pity, as the scenery and the wildlife are magnificent. My guess is that there are two reasons that so few visitors go to Nech Sar National Park. The first is that the number of travellers in southern Ethiopia (especially at this time of the year) is extremely small. The second reason is probably the extremely rough, bone-jarring roads that traverse the park. The round trip we undertook this morning was 49 kilometres, and this took us about four and a half hours - you can do the maths to calculate our average speed. The road is one that is best attempted with stable bowels, a strong bladder and an even stronger back!
But the rewards for the rough travel were certainly abundant. We began to encounter wildlife soon after we entered the park, with a slightly aggressive group of baboons blocking our road. The first section of the drive passed through thick bushland, which provided protection for the very shy, miniature gazelles which we saw in great numbers - usually scampering off into the undergrowth to hide (see photo above right). The more distant section of the park comprised open acacia woodland and savannah grasslands - in fact, the name “Nech Sar” means “white grass” in Amharic in recognition of the plain’s bleached savannah grasses. It was here that we saw large numbers of Burchell’s zebra (see top photo) and various types of antelopes, as well as great flocks of birds that including soaring eagles. There were also squirrels and monkeys of various kinds. With the fine weather and clear conditions, together with the prolific wildlife that was clearly visible, the visit was a photographic feast for both Andrew and me - a morning to remember for a long while.
We returned to the hotel for lunch. As usual, there were surprises in store. I noticed two items on the menu, ‘Chicken Hunter Style’ and ‘Chicken African Style’. I asked what the difference was, only to be told that they were the same thing. On that basis, I chose the ‘Chicken African Style’, and enjoyed it very much, just as Andrew also enjoyed his Grilled Nile Perch.
This afternoon, our focus was on the aquatic environment of Lake Chamo. We drove a few kilometres to the edge of the lake, where we hired a boat and driver to go out onto the lake. The vessel was a small steel 6 seater (or thereabouts) motor boat, although the boat had to be pushed by pole out beyond the reeds that were growing along the edge of the lake. We were worried for quite a while that the motor might not start, but after the 273rd (or thereabouts) pull of the rope, the engine finally spluttered into life.
The boat trip lasted a couple of hours, during which time we saw pelicans and many other types of water birds, some huge crocodiles, and a few dozen hippos (well, the tops of them anyway, because they spend most of their time almost completely submerged). We were blessed with superb weather, as the skies were blue with just a few high, wispy clouds, and a gentle breeze was blowing across the lake. By the time we returned to shore, the afternoon sun was casting a beautiful golden hue on the green reeds and blue waters of the shoreline.
Driving back from the shoreline, we had another encounter with a group of baboons. One of the baboons, presumably the alpha-male, was very active in trying to communicate with us, running from side to side of the 4WD and making all sorts of unintelligible gestures. Our driver mentioned that sometimes baboons spring up and jump into cars through their open windows, and some have even been known to assault female (human) passers-by.
Dinner tonight was on the hotel terrace, and was quite a different experience to last night as there was electricity. With lights turned on, the dining terrace took on quite a pleasant appearance as the last rays of the sun faded over the two lakes that could be seen from our table. Both Andy and I chose the steak with hot sauce this evening - it is great to be in a country where a well-done steak with lots of charcoal on the edges is the norm.

Day 10 - Arba Minch, Ethiopia

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:25:16 +1000

I thought that today would be largely a day of travelling, driving 270 kilometres south from Awasa to Arba Minch. I was right - it was a long day of travelling (leaving at 8:30 am and arriving at 7:30 pm), but it was also much, much more than this. With unexpectedly good weather and lots to see, I took more photographs today than on any previous day on the trip (387 in fact).
We had a great breakfast despite the continuing electricity blackout in Awasa, and then loaded up the 4WD. However, it took some time before we could get on out way because a group of long-tailed baboons had surrounded the car on overhead trees and aggressive actions on the part of our driver to chase them away only seemed to result in reciprocal hostility. It was quite a while before we could safely enter the vehicle.
Our first stop was the side of Lake Awasa where the fishermen were sorting through their overnight catch. Hundreds of people were there, untangling nets, cleaning fish, selling produce and just hanging around - I guess we fitted into this last category, together with the many waterbirds that were also attracted to the scene. It was simultaneously scenic, active, colourful and insightful, and it provided a great start to the day.
We set off on the highway, and the first town we came to was Shashemene. I had read the previous night that Shashemene is the centre of the Rastafarian movement in Ethiopia. Although Rastafarianism is more often associated with Jamaica and other Caribbean islands where slavery was once practised, the name comes fron Ras Tafari, the name of Ethiopia’s Haile Selassie before he was crowned emperor in 1930. Haile Selassie made land available in Ethiopia - in Shashemene to be precise - to descendents of former slaves who wished to return to their African homeland. The Rastafarians thus treat him as a god. They have some interesting practices, such as refusing to eat some fresh foods such as pork, milk and coffee, but holding the smoking of marijuana as a holy sacrament. The Rastafarians are patiently awaiting the restoration of the Ethiopian monarchy.
I was interested to learn more about Rastafarianism, so we called in to one of the tabernacles and introduced ourselves to the priest in charge. He was everything one might imagine a Rastafarian might be (see photo to the left). Originally from Jamaica somewhat spaced out, and having no front teeth, he gave us an excellent introduction to Rastafarianism, including the importance of Bob Marley, the medicinal benefits of cannibis (“a God-given, natural medicinal plant”), the reasons why women should not wear make-up or try to look masculine in ways such as by wearing slacks instead of dresses, and above all, the supreme importance of Haile Selassie (who he said was the fulfilment of the prophesy in Revelation that Jesus would return to earth - he referred to Haile Selassie as ‘King of Kings and Lord of Lords’). It was fascinating insight into one of the world’s smaller and more obscure religions.
We made only one other stop before lunch, which was in a small village that specialised in pottery making. All the pottery was hand-made by the women for sale in the local markets. As might be expected, the process was extremely labour-intensive, and the quality of the finished products could best be euphemistically referred to as ‘individually hand crafted’.
We stopped in a middle-sized town called called Sodo for lunch before continuing to Arba Minch on a road that was deteriorating markedly in quality the further we went. Even more so than yesterday, there were diverse and interesting things to see every inch of the way. Today was obviously market day in several places that we passed, as long lines of mules carrying people and goods filled the highway as we approached (and left) each town that we came to. It was interesting to note that many of the settlements had signs identifying various projects (especially in the area of farming) as being sponsored by World Vision; the organisation seems to have quite a large presence in southern Ethiopia. Even when we stopped for 10 minutes - seemingly in the middle of nowhere - so that the driver could talk on his mobile telephone to his brother in the US, there was plenty to see - some nearby huts, a herd of cattle being moved, some significant soil erosion, xerophytic plants beside the road, and the always fascinating passing traffic, both motor and animal propelled.
About 15 kilometres before we reached Arba Minch, we took a turnoff to climb 1000 metres (to an altitude of 2500 metres) up to the top of the cloud-covered Guge Mountains that rise directly above Arba Minch and the Rift Valley lakes. Our destination was a small village known as Dorze, inhabited by people of the tribe of the same name. The traditional architecture was as fascinating as it is unusual. At the entrance to each village compound was a large community house, 8 metres high and looking somewhat like an elephant from the front. The reason that it is built so high is that the area has termites that eat away the lower walls, and the building gradually loses height over the years as the termites do their work. The community building has space for animals on one side, sleeping areas for people on the other, while in the middle there is a place for people to gather around a fire which, like the grass huts of the Dani in Irian Jaya, collects the smoke inside the hut for warmth as there is no chimney; the smoke slowly oozes upwards and outwards through the thatched roof. To the left of the community house was the honeymoon house, where newly married couples spend the first three months of their marriage. To the right of the community house was another small hut, outside which men and boys weave cloth that may only be worn by the men.
In the main section of the village, a woman was shredding the leaves of mock banana trees. The fibre is buried for three to four months, during which time it ferments. After that time, the resulting paste can be cut and pressed between banana leaves into a dough to make a type of flat bread called ‘enset’, which is prepared by cooking for about 5 minutes. Andy and I were invited to try some of the hot bread, which we did, finding it very tasty indeed - though it was perhaps more to our liking without the hot chlli paste that the local people spread on it.
The village we visited had made a fledgling entry into the ecotourism market, despite its extremely isolated location, by building half a dozen single and double-bedroom huts in the traditional style for visitors to stay. We were told that, on average, one car of guests comes each week or so.
One of the (very few) things that irritates me about travelling in Ethiopia is the widespread practice of children begging whenever they see a foreigner (and they can spot a foreigner at 500 metres!). As there are so few tourists in this part of Ethiopia, I can only surmise that many of the aid workers with organisations such as the UN, FAO, WFP and UNESCO must be very free in the way they hand out money to children (which is hardly a great incentive to keep them in their classrooms so they receive an education!). Even in the most isolated villages, children of all ages will run up to a foreigner, waving, smiling and shouting “hello, hello, hello”, followed immediately by “money, money, money”.
Related to this issue, we had a very interesting experience while descending the hill back down to the road into Arba Minch. Many of the children were dancing in the middle of the road, singly or in groups, as they saw our car approaching. I would not say it was a very safe thing to do (rap dancing in the middle of a steep, dirt road is not something I would ever do!). On the other hand, it was perhaps a more pleasant way of asking for money than begging or shouting demands, although it still reflected the same ‘cargo cult’ mentality of chronic dependence. As we descended the mountain from our visit to Dorze, we saw that even some of the children who were carrying heavy bundles of fuelwood were joining in the dancing - an amazing feat of energy when even carrying the fuelwood up the steep mountainside must have been a significant effort for a small child. We stopped and watched one group, and the children did put on quite a performance. Sadly, it was all in the expectation of a small payment. As there were about 10 children present, and the driver suggested I should pay 5 birr in total, I gave him the money to make sure it would be distributed fairly. At this moment, the dancing abruptly stopped and the event turned into a frenzy around the beleaguered driver, who just managed to handle the situation of the shouting and clamouring for cash with dignity and patience.
Our hotel in Arba Manch was the Bekele Molla Hotel, situated overlooking two of the Rift Valley lakes, Lake Abaya and Lake Chamo. The rooms were in semi-detached cabin style, quite large but also mosquito-infested and quite run-down. The atmosphere we encountered was not improved by the fact that the area was on its twice-weekly rostered blackout day. Andy had I had dinner on the hotel’s terrace overlooking the lakes by candlelight, together with the only other guest in the hotel, a history professor from Poland. The food was great despite the lack of power. Andy had minestrone followed by “stake” with “hot blak pappa sos”, whereas I had Hungarian soup followed by grilled Nile perch.
The power blackout lasted longer than anticipated. We were told that the power would return at 9 pm. It finally came on at a little after 10 pm, but last just 17 minutes before fading out into darkness again. The power finally came on at 2:30 am, but cut out again at just after 5:00 am. For that reason, preparing today’s diary entry has been quite some hassle, taking six attempts over two days. Hopefully the electricity will be a little more reliable tomorrow.

Day 9 - Awasa, Ethiopia

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:49:41 +1000

Ethiopia could not really be called a common destination for travellers - and it is even less common as a destination for tourists. (Note that I regard myself as a traveller rather than a tourist!). Almost all travellers who do manage to get to Ethiopia spend their time on the ‘northern circuit’ where Andrew and I spent most of last week. Only the very intrepid make the journey into southern Ethiopia. On the subject of travel into southern Ethiopia, the Lonely Planet guide comments “know that travel here is as tough as it is outstanding; we’ll make only one guarantee - it will be memorable”.
This morning we began our adventure into southern Ethiopia. Our destination for the day was Awasa, capital city of the province known as Southern Nations, situated 270 kilometres south of Addis Ababa. The weather forecast was certainly not auspicious. The wet season has begun in southern Ethiopia, and before I closed my internet connection in Addis Ababa I checked the weather widget for three of the places we intended to visit during the coming week (see the screen snap at right, which tells its own depressing story). (By the way, unlike all the other photos in this trip diary, the image at the right has not been set to enlarge by clicking it). As it turned out, our weather today was considerably better than the prediction, with overcast conditions and evidence of recent rainfall, but almost no rain falling where we were at the time.
We enjoyed a last breakfast in Addis Ababa, and yet again there was a surprise in store for us. Today’s surprise was mine - maybe Andrew could have had another surprise with his cup of tea (like yesterday), but as he had still not received it by the time he had finished his breakfast (also like yesterday), he left without waiting for it. I asked for coffee with milk, and after a long wait it did arrive - in a way. The waitress dutifully filled my cup to the brim with hot milk, and then left the pot of coffee on the table for me to add incrementally as I sipped the coffee (or rather milk). I have never had coffee served like that before. It wasn’t bad after a while, but it was unusual.
Before leaving Addis Ababa, we needed to pay a visit to the Djibouti Embassy. We are planning to pass through Djibouti in a couple of weeks, and the Consulate in Hong Kong is not empowered to issue visas. The Djibouti Consulate in Hong Kong suggested (helpfully?) that the best way for us to get our visas would have been for me to travel to their embassy in Beijing, where it could be issued within 24 hours; it had to be done in person, although I could have obtained Andrew’s on his behalf as he was under 18. The problem was that I didn’t have a couple of weekdays spare to go to Beijing in the latter part of the term, nor did I particularly want to pay for a return air fare to Beijing just to obtain a visa for Djibouti.
The staff at the Djibouti Embassy this morning were very helpful. They accepted the forms, and even offered to process the visas using just one passport-sized photo rather than the required two. However, they also noted that no-one would be present in the Embassy today to process visas, and therefore they would be ready by tomorrow afternoon at the earliest. That was not very convenient given our plans to head off into remote areas of southern Ethiopia that morning, but fortunately my friend in Addis Ababa, Habtamu, agreed to go to the embassy tomorrow and collect the passports on our behalf. If all goes well, they should be waiting for us when we return to Addis Ababa a week from now.
The road south from Addis Ababa was very smooth, and made for a comfortable ride in the 4WD drive vehicle we had. The scenery on the trip was fascinating, with activity everywhere and things to see all the way, including animals ploughing in the fields, children tending cattle, women carrying fuelwood, large covered areas to cultivate flowers for export to Europe, a few (very large) herds of camels, all within a landscape that was stereotypically African, with flat-topped acacia trees providing welcome shade to groups of animals and people alike. One strange sight - a naked man wandering aimlessly on the road towards the oncoming traffic - led Andrew to question why the practice of grown men wearing shorts (rather than long trousers) is considered underdressed in Ethiopia. There are some parts of the world where a certain sameness emerges in the scenery after a while, but today’s drive towards Awasa could not be viewed in that way.
We continued without stopping for 160 kilometres, when we reached the town of Ziway. This town presented the opportunity for a welcome lunch stop, and we called in to a lovely, shady courtyard beside a roadside hotel to enjoy a meal of spaghetti bolognaise followed by a great macchiato. Our route south was following the Great Rift Valley, and Ziway was situated beside the largest of the northern Rift Valley lakes, appropriately named Lake Ziway.
After finishing lunch, we took a short diversion to the lake’s edge to observe the prolific bird life and lakeside activities. Lake Ziway was visually stunning, and Andrew and I had a great time taking some wonderful photographs (well, I think they are good!). The image at the top of this page was taken at Lake Ziway, and shows some young boys fishing. The photo at left shows some red-beaked pelicans at the same place.
We were a bit sorry to leave the beauty of Lake Ziway, but we had a further 120 kilometres to drive before we reached our destination, Awasa. Like the drive before lunch, the drive from Ziway to Awasa never had a dull moment - there was something interesting to see the whole way. We reached Awasa at about 3:30 pm, and checked into our accommodation, the Shebele Hotel. Accommodation at the hotel was bungalow style, and although the rooms were huge, the beds and chairs were seriously sagging and worn out - and had been for many years I suspect. An interesting feature of the hotel was that about a hundred monkeys and chimpanzees roamed freely through the grounds and the huge shady trees - the fact that some of them could be seen wandering around carrying sugar bowls from the dining hall and other odds and ends was a warning not to leave any personal property lying around. On the positive side, however, the hotel was located right beside another large Rift Valley lake - Lake Awasa - and the banks of the lake constituted a bird nesting area. So almost as soon as we arrived, Andy and I took the short walk to the edge of the lake to do some serious bird watching - well, it would have been ‘serious’ if we had been able to identify any of the birds we were observing. There were various types of waterbirds as well as ducks (and ducklings) - you know, the sorts of things you would expect to find at the edge of a large lake in southern Ethiopia (such as the birds shown in the image above right).
Dinner this evening was in the dining hall at the hotel (as the hotel’s isolated location made anything else impractical). The meal was excellent in both quality and value. Andy started with vegetable soup whereas I began with chicken soup. We then both had gilled tilapia (that was actually fried), followed by fresh pineapple and coffee. There always seems to be some noteworthy feature of each of our meals in Ethiopia. For this meal the distinctive feature was that we had almost all of it during a blackout. The lights all went out just as we arrived at the dining hall, but we were ushered in by the waiter (who reminded me of Lurch from the Addams Family in stature, manner and ‘cheerfulness’ - but maybe it was just the darkness). He lit a candle which he placed elegantly into a soft drink bottle (Mirinda, as I recall), and showed us to our table. And that was how we ate tonight’s dinner.
The southern part of Ethiopia is an endemic area for malaria, as we were reminded when we entered our room and saw the large mosquito nets over our beds. Mosquito nets may be hot to sleep under, but they are preferable to catching malaria, so we slept AND used insect repellant as well, just to be sure.

Day 8 - Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Mon, 9 Jun 2008 00:04:10 +1000

Those who know the way I plan my intense travel itineraries won’t believe this, but we had nothing scheduled for today apart from resting and doing a bit of light sightseeing. I still set my alarm, of course, because I didn’t want to miss breakfast, but by the time the alarm rang at 8:00 am, Andy and I were already stirring in response to the bright sunlight streaming in through the windows of our room.
In the spirit of enjoying a restful Sunday, we took our time getting ready and went downstairs to breakfast at about 9:00 am. Even breakfast in a place like Addis Ababa can have its surprises - beyond the obvious ones of trying to work out what some of the food is. For example, I would estimate that about one-third of the other guests in the large dining room were American or European couples who seemed to have just collected an Ethiopian child or baby for adoption. In some cases, the happy couples seemed to have taken on two or (in one case) three children. I had heard that adopting African children was ‘fashionable’ in some circles, but the reality of the scale of these adoptions does not hit home until you see all the white couples getting to know ‘their’ new children in a hotel restaurant in Addis Ababa.
The other ‘surprise’ this morning was especially for Andrew. We really had a hard time getting a cup of tea (for Andrew) or coffee (for me), both of which had to be served by the staff even though everything else was buffet-style. We had asked three times, and we had even finished our breakfast, but still there was no sign of the tea of coffee. And then it came - a nice cup of coffee with milk for me, but Andrew was served a saucer with a tea bag on it. No cup. No water. He was a bit disappointed by this, as it was not quite what he had in mind when he ordered his tea, so we asked yet again. There was another very long wait, during which time I finished my coffee, before Andy finally got his cup and hot water, delivered simultaneously with the bill.
After breakfast, we spent a little while washing clothes in preparation for our week in the south of Ethiopia that is due to begin tomorrow - the forecast is wet weather all week, so we wanted to have a ready supply of clothes. Actually, to be precise, every time I have used the word “we” in this paragraph, I really should have written “I” :-)
Having finished washing the clothes, we decided to use the sunny weather to explore Addis Ababa on foot. We resolved to try and see four places before the inevitable afternoon rains began, and we almost met our target. First stop was Meksal Square, situated just a couple of hundred metres from the hotel. This was the same square with the 16-lane road through the middle that we had been exploring last week when the heavy rains began, and we wanted to see it more fully than last week’s weather permitted. It was also the same place where yesterday’s photo of the grotesque dove in overcast conditions was taken. The experience this morning was quite different, with clear sunny weather, bright lighting, and lots of activity with children playing football on the paved surface, together with throngs of people walking, sitting, jogging, and simply enjoying the sunshine.
From Meksal Square, we walked a little more than half a kilometre along Ras Desta Damtew Street to the Derg Monument. We had visited this area briefly last week, but this time with the sun shining, we entered the park that contained the monument. This park looked like something uplifted from North Korea or East Germany, and was a memorial to Ethiopia’s painful socialist era following the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974 until 1991. This era coincided with a period of war with Somalia, a tragic drought and famine, war with the separatist movement in Eritrea and a series of failed policies to promote rural collectivisation.
The centrepiece of the Derg Monument park was a tall obelisk topped with a red star and decorated with a golden hammer and sickle. At the foot was a sculpture in socialist realist style glorifying the revolutionary spirit of the workers, soldiers and peasants, flanked by two huge sculptures that could have been found in any Chinese city during the Cultural Revolution if it were not for the different ethnicity of the figures. Flanking each side of the park were gates into quiet parklands that were shaped like missing soldiers, surrounded by photographs of revolutionary martyrs. The whole park was a surprisingly well executed and deeply moving memorial.
Our third destination was a further one kilometre walk from the Derg Monument, and we approached it with some trepidation. We were heading to the area known as Merkato, a crowded zone of markets, shanty housing and narrow laneways whose mere mention always brought the comment “Be Careful!”. The area is famous for its pick-pocketing, and several people had warned us to leave all our valuables behind before going there (which I did), to be on guard, and to enter only in the company of another person, and so on. I had read about scams where a person does something to cause alarm, and while you are recovering from the surprise, his friends have bumped into you and emptied your pockets. I had read about another scam where a local person squirts liquid manure on your shoes as you walk through, and then in the resulting confusion, removes your valuables before showing you to his friend who runs a shoe cleaning business. So what was the attraction of going there? I had heard it was Africa’s largest market, full of colour and action (though much less so on Sundays), where anything could be bought from camels to Kalashnikovs - both of which could be tried before buying! It sounded wonderfully photogenic.
It was quite an experience! Even as we entered the Merkato, we were surrounded by a group of young boys who started trying to distract us in various ways. Fortunately they soon lost interest, but a more worrying figure emerged in the form of a very drunk (or maybe highly drugged) man who decided to take a special interest in Andrew and me. He reached down and picked up a 4 metre long bamboo pole to swing around and hit us, but then he lost his balance as the bewildered locals looked on. However, he persisted in following us, shouting things that we couldn’t understand before reaching a wood cutter’s stall, at which point he picked up a heavy block of freshly chopped solid wood, measuring roughly 1 metre by 25 cm by 10 cm and started swinging it towards us. Needless to say, we moved on fairly quickly, and feeling we had probably got as good an understanding of Merkato as we were likely to get, we moved out onto a main road and away from the depths of Merkato.
Our fourth and final destination was much further away, perhaps 8 to 10 kilometres walk. Although neither Andrew nor I were particularly fond of museums (especially following our recent experience in Aksum), the guidebook’s description of Addis Ababa’s Ethnographical Museum was sufficient to entice us to undertake the long walk, partly to get some exercise before starting the long drive south tomorrow, and partly because we thought we might see some interesting things.
We were right on both points. We saw some classic sprawling shanty settlements, some interesting shops, several herds of goats crossing busy traffic intersections, women carrying fuelwood, busy churches, the university, interesting signs, fascinating people, the high security of the US Embassy, smoky vehicles, and lots more. I have included a few images here to give you some idea of the diversity of the sights we encountered.
Having walked a total of about 16 kilometres, there was, however, one small frustration. We never managed to find the Ethnographical Museum. We were following the map in the Lonely Planet Guide, and although most of the streets were found (sometimes in the wrong places if the map was to be believed), we never found the street where the museum should have been, we never found a sign for the museum, and no-one we asked had any idea about its whereabouts.
By 3:00 pm, the dark grey afternoon rain clouds were starting to build up and we decided to return to our accommodation. We found a taxi driver willing to take us to the hotel, negotiated the fare, and off we set in an old blue and white, weather-beaten, traffic-beaten Lada. As most of the journey back to the hotel was downhill, the driver decided to save fuel by coasting with the engine turned off for much of the trip. Even so, he still felt the need to stop at a petrol station to buy 2 litres of petrol so that we could finish the journey. Although the sun had still been shining brightly when we started the journey, within 10 minutes the afternoon downpour had begun, including a couple of minutes of hail.
Reaching the hotel at about 3:20 pm, we decided to have a light liquid lunch of Coke and coffee, which were very welcome after the long walk. It was great simply to sit down and relax! The subsequent two and a half hours were not quite so relaxing, however, as a new batch of 67 work-related e-mails suddenly arrived as the College’s server sprang back into action in Hong Kong (it had been down yesterday afternoon when I had handled all the other e-mails that were on G-mail).
We had dinner this evening in our hotel, and I think it was one of the best meals we have enjoyed so far on the trip. After some mulling through the menu, we both decided to have the same three-course meal - French onion soup, followed by grilled Nile perch, finishing with creme caramel. The dinner included a couple of hot bread rolls, drinks and then tea/coffee at the end, all for a cost of just under US$7 each plus taxes - a splurge by Ethiopian standards, but great value for us.
All in all, it has been a great day, despite the somewhat adventurous interlude in Merkato. Walking about 16 kilometres through the streets of Addis Ababa has given us a much better insight into everyday life in Ethiopia’s capital than any tour or any book could ever do. I feel as though it has been a genuine privilege to be out on the streets today.

Day 7 - Axum to Addis Ababa

Sun, 8 Jun 2008 00:30:44 +1000

Today was not a day of sightseeing, but of travel and catching up with things. We woke in Axum to the alarm at 5:30 am, and after an excellent breakfast, went to the airport by bus to catch our flight to Addis Ababa. We were scheduled to get a direct flight in a Boeing 737 jet, but the low passenger numbers meant that we were allocated a much smaller and slower Fokker F-50, and instead of a direct routing, we flew via Gonder to pick up some extra passengers.
I had an interesting conversation with a fellow passenger at Axum Airport before our departure. He was a theologian from Princeton, New Jersey, and he had come to Ethiopia to join the celebrations for the Ethiopian millennium (in the Ethiopian calendar, 2008 is the year 2000). He had been featured as a visiting scholar on Ethiopian television during his visit, but the interesting point of our conversation was that he had met the hermit who guards the Ark of the Covenant yesterday afternoon - a very rare experience indeed! He described him as a largely inarticulate man with pale, wrinkled skin, whose hair and beard had been let grow over many years, who never left the dark interior of the small chapel where the Ark is kept, and who remained largely hidden under a large cloth-like robe. I asked whether the hermit seemed to have had very much theological training, and the American visitor felt that he had probably had no education of any sort at all, and that he was extremely difficult to comprehend. He did mention, however, that Moses had visited him the day before yesterday, as he frequently does, to make sure that the Ark of the Covenant was okay, and that Enoch also calls in from time to time.
It is interesting to reflect on the mix of reality and legend that surrounds the Ark of the Covenant today. The visiting scholar from the US felt that the Ark’s presence in Ethiopia was probably the result of a myth that began during the Middle Ages, although it is conceded that no other nation currently claims to possess the original Ark, adding some credence to Axum's claim. And as the visiting scholar said, myth and reality start to become enmeshed when you see the powerful impact for good that the belief in the Ark's presence has among local people in Ethiopia. Whether the Ark is physically present or not, it does seem to work as a very powerful agent to promote peace, brotherhood and love among the Christians in Ethiopia.
Our flight to Addis Ababa took two and a half hours, including the 10 minute stop-off in Gonder to collect passengers - a stop that transformed a one-third-full plane to an absolutely full one. The flight into Addis Ababa was somewhat bumpy because of the storm clouds in the immediate vicinity, clouds which burst into steady rainfall just as we reached our hotel.
Our original plan was to have some lunch and then visit the markets in Addis Ababa. The rain changed that plan, however. We had a light buffet lunch at the hotel, and then connected to the internet, as lack of access had meant I had several days of this diary to upload. As I did so, I began attending to the 155 e-mails that had built up during our time in northern Ethiopia. Spending a cool, wet afternoon in Addis Ababa answering over a hundred work-related e-mails is a hell of a way of spending one's summer vacation, but the messages were almost all important and in some cases quite urgent, and it was certainly necessary that they be done.

Day 6 - Axum, Ethiopia

Fri, 6 Jun 2008 04:57:18 +1000

Axum turned out to be better than I had expected. A few weeks ago, a colleague who had visited Ethiopia many years ago advised me to ‘give Axum a miss’. The Lonely Planet guide begins its description of Axum with the words “Sprawling, dusty and rural - Axum is modest almost to a fault”. And it is true that initial impressions are of a frontier town rather than the former capital city of an ancient empire that in its day rivalled Egypt, Persia and China.
But I am getting ahead of myself, because I woke up this morning not in Axum, but still in beautiful Lalibela. Andrew and I were actually a bit reluctant to leave Lalibela, as the experience we had enjoyed over the previous two days had been wonderful in every way (apart from a mild tummy upset). And after a great breakfast of toast and muesli, our final Lalibela experience lived up to the high standard of all the others; the half-hour drive to the airport in a minibus that was much more crowded than we had expected revealed spectacular scenery and insights into daily life (much of which seems to be conducted roadside), all superbly illuminated from a photographic point of view. I wish I had the space to share a dozen or more photos taken on the half-hour drive, but the one to the left will have to suffice - it is far from being one of the most spectacular images, but it does give a good overall idea of the road and the things we saw.
Andrew and I were the only passengers joining this final sector of the daily “milk-run” flight to Axum, so we received excellent attention from Ethiopian Airlines. The airline rang our hotel the previous evening to tell us we could delay our arrival at the airport by half an hour if we wished because it would not be a busy flight. We were greeted by name upon arrival at the airport (“Ah, you must be Mr Stephen and Mr Andrew”), and after checking in our bags, we were invited to have a coffee in the upstairs cafe with the promise that someone would come and collect us when it was time to move down to the departures hall. Of course, there were more than just the two of us on the flight, as several other passengers were continuing to Axum after having joined the flight at an earlier airport. Nonetheless, there were only about 15 passengers in total, and with the free seating that Ethiopian Airlines operates on its Fokker F-50s, Andrew and I each had plenty of options to choose window seats with not-too-badly scratched windows.
Upon arrival in Axum, it was immediately apparent that we were in a very different part of Ethiopia from where we had come. Part of the difference was physical; this far northern part of Ethiopia is markedly more arid than the areas further south, and this was reflected in the dry, rocky soil, scattered and stunted trees, and the abundance of various types of cacti. As a result of the difficult physical environment, the people seemed markedly less affluent than in other parts of Ethiopia where we had visited. The other difference between this area and other parts of the country was slightly more sinister. Axum is in Tigray province, which like Eritrea before its separation from Ethiopia in 1993, has an armed separatist movement. The lines of troops we saw outside the airport and the strong overall military presence were reminders that Tigray has a slightly different status than any other part of Ethiopia today.
Entering Axum township after the drive from the airport confirmed that it had an elusive charm. The roads were (with the exception of the main street) dusty, the buildings low and often run-down, and even the mules, goats and camels that wandered randomly along the streets seemed to be moving in slow motion. Our first stop in Axum was, as usual, our hotel so we could drop our bags and be free of luggage for sightseeing. Our hotel was the Remhai Hotel, a surprisingly comfortable establishment with large (though quite dark) rooms, electricity that worked and even a minibar that sold Pepsi for the same price as the local supermarket.
It was too early for lunch, so we decided to start looking around town. Our first stop was the Queen of Sheba’s Palace. To understand the importance of this place, and many others in Axum, you need to understand that the Queen of Sheba holds a very significant place in the history of Axum and the Axumite Empire that once stretched north into Yemen and Saudi Arabia as well as beyond the borders of present day Ethiopia. She is said to have lived in about 1000 BC, and during her reign, she apparently went to visit King Solomon in Israel to present gifts and learn from his famed wisdom. She stayed for several months, and while there, Solomon assured her that he would take nothing of hers if she took nothing of his. One night, however, after serving her a particularly spicy meal, he placed a glass of water beside her bed. The Queen woke up and drank the water to quench her thirst. As she had thus taken something of Solomon’s, he demanded something in return, and to cut a long story short, she returned to Ethiopia pregnant with Solomon’s child. It is for this reason that Ethiopia’s royal rulers claimed direct descent from King Solomon right through to the last emperor, Haile Selassie. Ethiopians still believe that they are a special nation chosen by God.
The palace was somewhat less interesting than the legend, comprising a collection of rocks said to represent the excavated lower walls of the palace. Apparently, some archeologists date the walls at the 6th or 7th century AD, more than 1500 years after the Queen of Sheba is said to have lived, but as with most excavation sites in Axum, there is usually layer upon layer upon layer, with older remains underlying the newer ones, so it is hard to be too critical. At this palace, we did see evidence of a partly excavated older palace of which only a small part had been revealed. It is said that 98% of Axum’s remains remain undiscovered beneath the ground; it is an extremely difficult statistic to refute! Or to verify :-)
After having travelled to the edge of town to see the palace, it was definitely lunch time, so we returned to the hotel (where lunch was included in the cost). I was certainly ready to have a change from injera, and the menu did not disappoint; Andy had vegetable soup followed by “fish in hunnie and mastud sors” while I had chicken soup followed by steak and mushroom sauce (this is my ‘translation’ from the menu).
After this excellent lunch, we were ready for a full afternoon of exploring Axum. Our first stop was the tomb of King Kaleb, dating from the 6th century. The tomb itself was not particularly impressive, being quite small and covered by some of UNESCO’s aesthetically insensitive protective roofing. However, what WAS impressive was the view from the hilltop location, looking northwards across the farmlands to the distant, jagged mountains of Adwa near the border with Eritrea. The view had special historical significance for Ethiopians because it marked the site of a huge battle between the Ethiopians and the Italians in 1895, which the Ethiopians won (as every Ethiopian knows).
On our way down the hill, we stopped at an insignificant looking little hut beside the road, which contained something quite remarkable - Ethiopia’s version of the Rosetta Stone. Unlike the Rosetta Stone, which is found today in the British Museum in London, this stone tablet still stands where it was erected in about 350AD - perhaps because it contains a message in the engraving proclaiming that “the person who should dare to move this tablet will meet an untimely death”! The stone tablet contains a description of military campaigns of the Christian King Ezana between 330 and 350 in Ethiopia and in southern Arabia, as well as his efforts to return the Ark of the Covenant from Lake Tana to Axum (more about that later in the day!). The inscriptions were in three languages - Greek (the ‘universal’ language of the day), Ge’ez (the old form of Amharic, which is Ethiopia’s main language today) and Sabaean (the ancient language of southern Arabia, which the Axumite empire occupied).
A little further along the road we stopped again, this time beside a large pool of water. Known as the Queen of Sheba’s bath, and allegedly once the royal swimming pool, it is said by archeologists to have been built at least 1000 years after the Queen of Sheba’s reign. It looked more like a water reservoir than a royal swimming pool, and indeed several women were taking buckets of water from the pool while we were there. Much more interesting, for me, was what was happening on the other side of the road. From our stop, we had a great view overlooking the old residential part of Axum, with its small stone houses and rocky streets, and we could observe everyday life without intruding. One particularly fascinating moment occurred when an Orthodox priest approached a house and two small boys ran to him, knelt down to kiss his feet, then stood up to kiss his hands before leading him by the hand into their home where their mother was waiting by the door.
Our next stop was claimed to be Axum’s most significant and distinctive feature, the town’s largest stellae field. There are many stellae fields in and around Axum, stellae being stone obelisks that were built to mark graves or to proclaim the authority, power and greatness of the sponsor’s family. In that sense, they are perhaps the Ethiopian equivalent of Egypt’s pyramids. Some of the stellae date back 5000 years, and while most were simply roughly-hewn lumps of rock, some were beautifully carved from solid pieces of granite. They vary in height from 1 to over 30 metres in height, although sadly most have fallen over completely or lean at awkward angles. While we were there, a team of Italian engineers was in the final stage of re-erecting a fallen stele, using modern machinery rather than the teams of hundreds of labourers that were originally used. To be frank, I found some of the collapsed stellae (the vast majority) more interesting than the ones that were standing (both are shown in the photo to the left), as many of the standing stellae resembled fairly plain, out-of-proportion and over-sized tombstones to my eyes - which I guess is what they were!
Beside the stellae field was a small museum, which we decided might be worth exploring. That was probably a mistake on our part. The museum comprised a dusty collection of earthenware flasks, coins and other objects recovered from excavations and graves. The objects were held in wooden and glass cabinets, and the curator insisted on giving us a fairly detailed description in heavily-accented, slow, deliberate, broken English of every clay vessel in the museum - fortunately the collection is not huge so this took only about 20 minutes or so. More interesting, and certainly more colourful, were the souvenir stands outside the museum where the woven baskets brought a rare splash of colour to this somewhat colourless town.
After a quick look at some excavated tombs near the stellae field, we crossed the road into the compound containing the St Mary of Zion churches. This was a great way to finish the day, and we spent quite a long time there. There have been four churches on this site since the first was built in about 350 AD - the first Christian church in Africa. The remains of the foundations of this first church can still be seen, although that was not why we had come to visit.
The fourth and newest church was built by Haile Selassie in the 1960s. Its design was an interesting combination of a dome rising from a square base, and was remarkably light and spacious inside. It contained some very interesting modern religious paintings in traditional Ethiopian style, but for me the highlight was seeing an illuminated Bible, hand-written in the Ge’ez language, and produced in about 800 AD. Although wrapped in several layers of cloth, it is kept on a podium at the back of the church, and we were honoured to be able to view some of its pages - and photograph them provided we didn’t use a flash. The colours remain vibrant despite the age of the book and the darkened, worn edges where the pages have been turned over the centuries, but the quality of the work was certainly a testimony to the artistry of the early monks who produced it.
Having admired the new church and its contents, we quickly explored a subterranean museum housing a collection of church regalia, crosses and other paraphernalia, before making our way across to the third St Mary of Zion church, built in the mid-1600s. It is still used as a monastery, and indeed the reason that the fourth church was needed was that women were not (and are still not) allowed to enter this building. Having declared that we too were Christians, we were privileged to be invited inside the monastery by the priest and his associate and there is no doubt that the interior of the monastery has a very special, contemplative atmosphere.
But perhaps the most remarkable building in the St Mary of Zion complex was in many ways the one that was least assuming architecturally. In the grounds of the monastery was a small chapel said to contain the original Ark of the Covenant. Ethiopian Christians believe that the Ark of the Covenant was brought from Israel to Ethiopia a little after 1000BC by King Menelik, who was the son of the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon. Every Ethiopian Orthodox church today has a replica of the Ark of the Covenant (which comprises the stone tablets on which God gave Moses the Ten Commandments), and these are kept in the Holy of Holies that all Ethiopian Orthodox churches have. The original Ark is protected by one guardian who devotes his life to the task, never leaving the monastery compound and cutting himself off from all worldly contact. No-one ever gets to see the original Ark of the Covenant as it is claimed that anyone who does so will immediately burst into fire.
Axum is clearly a city that takes its Christianity seriously. There is a very small Muslim population, but there is no mosque, for much the same reason that there are no Christian churches in Mecca or Medina - Axum is regarded as a holy city because it is the place where the original Ark of the Covenant resides. There is no doubting that this rough frontier town does have a very special spirit and focus, and it has been great to experience it.

Day 5 - Lalibela, Ethiopia

Thu, 5 Jun 2008 13:59:04 +1000

It was a joyous sight to behold when I woke in Lalibela at 5:45 am this morning - clear blue skies, sunny weather, and a magical view looking across the valley of the River Jordan. The view was the nearest thing I have ever experienced to the pictures one sees of Israel during biblical times, as white robed people criss-crossed the arid hillsides, some with mules in tow following them.
The reason that the good weather made me so happy was that I had organised two mules to take Andy and I for a trek up the mountain that looms over Lalibela on a track that leads to the Ashetan Maryam monastery. Actually, the monastery was not the main attraction; I was keen to see something of the spectacular countryside around Lalibela, and I had heard that this trek involved amazing views across the valleys from cliff-side pathways and passages through several small rural villages.
So after breakfast, we met the mule handlers outside our hotel at 7:30 am. The mule trip began by riding through the town, and then onto a steep, winding ascent up into the mountains, a trip of 8 kilometres involving a climb of 600 metres up to an altitude of 3200 metres. I think mules must be the ultimate all-terrain vehicle, as they were able to negotiate the treacherous, rocky pathways with apparent ease, if not speed. Actually, my mule seemed somewhat more reluctant than Andrew’s to attempt a few of the steeper sections of the trail, maybe being a bit lazy, or less likely because my mule was carrying a greater weight, or even less likely because it had a more philosophical temperament - that is until the mule handler’s whip cracked. People claim that mules are stupid creatures, but I think that any animal that can defecate and keep walking at the same time has skills of multi-tasking that other creatures should admire and learn from!
Some sections of the climb were so steep that we had to dismount and walk on foot, and it was actually a pleasure to be using different muscles to those we were using to maintain our grip on the mules. We completed the climb in two hours, arriving at our destination - the Ashetan Maryam monastery - at about 9:30 am. The air was crystal clear after yesterday’s rainfall, and the views from the monastery were superb in all directions. The local priests believe that they are closer to heaven and God in this high, isolated monastery, and on a day such as we experienced, it was easy to feel that were indeed at a very special place.
Compared with the churches we had visited yesterday, the architecture of this rock-hewn monastery was unimpressive despite its stunning location. It was carved in a softer volcanic rock than the churches in Lalibela town, and thus the ravages of weathering and erosion had taken a greater toll. But what it lacked in architectural elegance, it made up for in atmosphere. We were fortunate to be visiting on the 5th day of the month, which coincided with a special communion ceremony conducted on the hilltop rock to mark Jesus’ feast day. Priests were distributing barley wine and holy bread, and we were invited to take part, which of course we did.
Rather than ride the mules downhill again, Andy and I chose to walk the whole way. We wanted the exercise (not that an 8 km downhill trek is very arduous, even at this moderately high altitude), but in any case, the steepness of the descent and the loose rocky surface made about half the trek unsuitable for a mule ride anyway. We arrived back in Lalibela township a little before 12:30 pm, just in nice time for yet another lunch of injera.
At a little after 2:00 pm, we began exploring the remainder of the rock-hewn churches that we had not had time to see yesterday, the four churches known as the south-eastern group of churches. These were more intimate in scale than the ones we had explored the day before, but no less interesting for that.
Our first church was Bet Gabriel-Rufael. The outward appearance of this church was quite distinctive for two reasons, First, flanking the pathway approaching the church, there was a thin ridge of sloping hewn rock known as the ‘Way to Heaven’, symbolising that the journey of life without faith is treacherous and that the fall is fatal. Second, whereas most of the churches in Lalibela are entered from the excavated pit surrounding them, Bet Gabriel-Rufael was approached via a new (i.e. only 500 years old) elevated bridge that crossed the moat-like pit beneath. The interior had an unusual irregular shape that has caused scholars to speculate that it was originally used for a different purpose. A large portion of the roof collapsed during an earthquake about 60 years ago, and so all-in-all, the interior really failed to live up to the promise of its quite spectacular facade.
A long, unlit tunnel joined Bet Gabriel-Rufael with the second church of our visit, Bet Merkorios. The tunnel was supposed to symbolise the journey from the darkness of hell into the light of heaven. A large proportion of this church had also collapsed, and so the size of the interior is now a small fraction of its original size. Thus, its main areas of interest were some beautiful but somewhat worn frescoes and the priest’s crosses which, as always, he was happy to show us without asking in return for the expectation (and I mean extremely strong expectation!) of a small donation.
The third church. Bet Amanuel, is considered to be the most finely carved church in Lalibela, and perhaps therefore it may have been a former royal chapel. Its exterior and interior walls featured a very precise, horizontal banding in the carving of the rock, imitating an ancient Ethiopian building style that alternated layers of wood and stone.
The final church we visited was called Bet Abba Libanos. This was unique in Lalibela as it was a hypogenous building. ‘Hypogenous’ was my new word for today, although I don’t know when I will be able to use it again, because it means a building whose floor and roof are attached to the rock strata, but whose walls are free from the surrounding rock. In this sense, Bet Abba Libanos is supposed to resemble some of the buildings in Petra (Jordan), but having never been there, I can’t say whether this is so or not. Although it looked quite large on the outside, its interior was in fact quite tiny. We were told that the church had been built in a single night by King Lalibela’s wife, Meskel Kebra, with the help of some very construction-oriented angels.
Our inspection of the churches was now complete - we had seen every rock-hewn church in the town of Lalibela - and as we had a couple of hours free before dinner, I took the opportunity to grab a quick nap (the mule trek must have made me more tired than I realised in my exhilaration!). Dinner this evening was identical to today’s lunch, which was identical to yesterday’s dinner - injera. Anyone who cannot handle injera would probably be quite hungry in Ethiopia!

Day 4 - Lalibela, Ethiopia

Wed, 4 Jun 2008 13:27:28 +1000

Like yesterday, my alarm was set for 5:30 am, and like yesterday it performed perfectly. A dark room in a hotel on a mountain top in Gonder is a great place to wake up to a new day, with the sounds of overnight raindrops dripping from the trees outside, birds chirping, dogs (hundreds of them) barking across the distant valley, roosters crowing, and the sound of a faint, distant call to prayer from a mosque, all in the pre-dawn dark gloom. The air was fresh and moist, tainted only by the aromatic smoke from burning wood in some nearby houses where timber was the basic fuel for both heating and cooking.
We had breakfast in the hotel, which comprised some excellent eggs and also some toast, the latter appearing as soon as we sat down - which was quite an achievement as its solid, dry, rock-like hardness and fossilised texture suggested it had been several years in preparation. A quick trip by minibus took us to the airport, where the one and a half hours stipulated check-in period seemed a bit generous given that only nine passengers were checking in for our flight. Still, it gave us the chance to savour a couple of superb macchiatos in the airport cafe overlooking the runway. Sadly, there were no planes to see, although we did get a great view of a farmer chasing his two cows off the taxiing area.
The flight to Lalibela was one sector of a daily “milk-run” Ethiopian Airlines service from Addis Ababa to Bahar Dar to Gonder to Lalibela to Axum. Our flight sector from Gonder to Lalibela was 35 minutes in the same Fokker F-50 that we had flown in a couple of days earlier into Bahar Dar. Our destination, Lalibela Airport, is situated at about 1850 metres altitude, but the town of Lalibela, which is 23 kilometres away, is situated much higher at 2630 metres. We completed the 800 metre climb in a minibus, taking about 45 minutes to complete the spectacular drive up the edge of canyons, along ridges, through villages and farmland.
Even a drive along the highway can become a social occasion in Ethiopia. The driver of our minibus obviously knew the driver of another minibus, and so while overtaking the other minibus, he decided to catch up on news and conduct a merry conversation for a minute or so, shouting across to the bus we were overtaking while driving on the wrong side of the road at the same speed.
We arrived in Lalibela at about 11 am, and went first to our hotel to drop our luggage. Our hotel (the Tukul Village Hotel) was quite a new one, built just two years ago in the style of several interconnected round two-storey ‘tukuls’ (or traditional huts). Our room was light, spacious and clean, and had a lovely view across the River Jordan towards the central part of the town. Despite its basic facilities, it was probably the nicest hotel we had yet experienced.
The main attraction that had brought Andy and me to Lalibela was the town’s medieval rock-hewn churches. Lalibela was originally known as Roha, and under that name, the town was the capital city of the Zagwe Dynasty in the 12th and 13th centuries. It was during this period that the rock-hewn churches were built, as the city was a major centre of Christian influence at the time. King Lalibela (after whom the town/city was re-named in the late-1100s) apparently fled or was exiled to Jerusalem at one time in fear of his half-brother. When he returned, he vowed to build a new holy city - a new Jerusalem - and several of the place names reflect this, such as the River Jordan and Calvary (Golgotha).
Although Andy and I were both itching to start exploring, it was not really practical to do so as all the churches closed for a two hour lunch break between midday and 2:00 pm. So we took an enforced rest until midday, when we walked to the nearby Jerusalem Guest House to have lunch in its restaurant, known as Bethlehem Hall. Andrew chose beef goulash, but I was more attracted to the Chicken Hawaii as I was interested to see how this dish would be interpreted in the mountains of Ethiopia. As it turned out, it comprised some vegetables (minced green cabbage, minced white cabbage and finely sliced, fried miniature potatoes) with minced chicken served with a lump of finely chunked papaya. I don’t think you would find anything similar in Hawaii, but it was an enjoyable lunch, accompanied by a CD playing local music (that sounded suspiciously reggae), and topped off with a cup of local coffee at the end.
We had made arrangements to leave the hotel and begin sightseeing at 2:30 pm. At 2:00 pm, an intense storm erupted and a torrential downpour of rain began which did not diminish until about 4:15 pm. Fortunately, our destination was what is known as the north-western group of rock hewn churches which were quite dry inside, even if getting from one to another involved a potential drenching.
Lalibela’s rock-hewn churches date from the mid-1100s to the early 1200s. They were created by excavating downwards into the red volcanic tuff rock, leaving just the walls and roofs carved as a solid piece of remaining rock. Unlike the famous temples at Petra in Jordan, Lalibela’s rock hewn churches are not just a facade with a cave excavated behind it, but they are carved in such a way that all four walls are free from the surrounding rock. You can get some idea of the concept by looking at the photo at the top of this page, which shows Bet Giyorgis (St George’s Church), the last one we visited this afternoon.
We began at the largest of the rock hewn churches, the Bet Medhane Alem (Church of the Saviour of the World). The style of the building resembled a Greek temple to some degree because it was surrounded by stone pillars, some of them still original and others reconstructed by the Italians in 1954. The interior of the church was massive (literally, given its means of construction!), measuring 33.5 metres by 23.5 metres, with a height of 11.5 metres. Unfortunately, today was this part of Lalibela’s rostered day to have no electricity (these rostered days seem to be chasing us through Ethiopia), and thus the interior of the church was so dark that a torch was needed. While we were there, a priest obligingly showed us the famous Lalibela Cross which has been stolen by an art dealer back in 1997, but which was subsequently recovered.
After visiting a couple of small chapels carved into the side of the cliff, we visited the Bet Maryan (St Mary’s Church). The interior of this church was especially dark, so much so that even the torch had trouble picking up any details in the amazing array of old, unrestored frescoes on the walls, most dating from the early 1200s. Because of the priceless nature of the frescoes, flash photography was not allowed, so we left feeling that although we had been in the building, we had seen very little of the treasures it contained.
Our last stop in the north-western group of churches was Bet Golgotha (Calvary Church), which contained some of the earliest surviving examples of Ethiopian Christian art. The interior walls featured life-sized carvings of seven saints, guarding a small room which had an arched recess at one end symbolising the Tomb of Christ. Beside the Tomb of Christ was a curtain and a slab of stone said to contain the grave of King Lalibela. Given the importance of this church, it is said (apocryphally I would strongly suggest) that a visit here assures one’s place in heaven. The priest in this church showed us a blackened metal cross and a prayer stick, both said to have belonged to King Lalibela himself.
Having seen most of the churches in the north-western group, and making the most of the weather that was now clearning, we walked through a beautiful part of the town with traditional buildings that could have been a rural village rather than part of this town of 10,000 people. Our destination was an isolated rock-hewn church that is said to be Lalibela’s masterpiece, the exquisite Bet Giyorgis (St George’s Church). Unlike the churches in the north-western group, which have been covered with a grotesque modern awning by UNESCO to protect them from the ravages of the rains (and to present almost insurmountable challenges to photographers!), Bet Giyorgis stands in all its glory just as it was when it was built in the last decade of the 1100s. The church stands 15 metres high and is in the shape of a simple Greek cross. The church is reached by walking down a narrow sloping carved canyon in the rocks which takes visitors into the excavated courtyard that surrounds the church itself. The sides of the excavated courtyard contain the mummified remains of corpses of people who had migrated to Lalibela in order to die there. Unlike the churches in the north-western group, Bet Giyorgis was comparatively light inside, natural light entering through three windows (representing the Holy Trinity) on each of the four arms of the cross, making a total of 12 windows representing the twelve Apostles. The elegant simplicity of the church and its perfect proportions were a joy to experience; it was a very special place to have the privilege of visiting.
For dinner this evening, we dined at our hotel (once again, dinner was included in the price). It was an interesting experience, like all our experiences in Ethiopia. The ‘dining room’ was a large, circular, open-plan, grass-roofed hut that doubled as the hotel’s reception area, book store and office. Just to put this in perspective, the book store had a total stock of 4 copies of one book. Being the only guests in the hotel at the moment, we definitely did not feel cramped! Dinner comprised bread and injera with an assortment of dishes including green cabbage, white cabbage, lentils, spicy beans, and diced beef. We received excellent personal attention from the very gracious and talkative manager, who was a gem and could not do enough to meet our needs, even to the point of warning us that tomorrow will be this area’s rostered ‘no-electricity’ day from 6:00 am until 10:00 pm. He has also organised some mules to take us into the mountains tomorrow, weather permitting, to see some isolated churches and some spectacular scenery. I really hope that the rain, which has started falling again, clears up before the morning.

Day 3 - Gonder, Ethiopia

Tue, 3 Jun 2008 17:20:02 +1000

My alarm rang right on schedule at 5:30 am. I must have been in a deep REM cycle of sleep, because I remember being very frustrated that I would never hear the reaction of my fellow school principals to the video I was showing them (on my laptop, in my dream) about Barack Obama and George Bush. Showing the video had been an exasperating experience in itself as there had been a glitch in copying the file to my laptop, but I had to put all that behind me as Ethiopia beckoned with the promise of much bigger and certainly more significant glitches. The American presidential race would just have to take a back seat for me. Actually, like all outside news events, it was taking a back seat anyway - Andrew and I have have not had access to any news from the outside world for several days now, nor does it seem likely that we will be catching up with world events for quite some time to come.
After a cold shower (there being no hot water), we had breakfast and then headed out to catch our minibus for the three hour drive from Bahar Dar to Gonder. This trip presented a good chance to see some countryside when compared with the wimpish option of flying (Bahar Dar to Gondar is a 17 minute flight in a Fokker F-50!). It was raining as we left Bahar Dar, and it remained overcast for much of the drive, although the rain did stop soon after leaving Bahar Dar, and the sky gradually brightened as we approached Gonder. The drive was a great experience, being on a smooth road (and therefore, by necessity it seems, driven at death-defying breakneck speed). The road just north of Bahar Dar was smooth and straight, although the wreckage of a considerable number of tanks and armoured personnel carriers beside the road was a little off-putting until they became so commonplace that they ceased to be noticeable.
With the beginning of the onset of the rains, there was lots of activity in the fields, with many farmers were engaged in ploughing fields using cattle to pull the ploughs. In general, the countryside was green and verdant, even though the rains had not yet really begun in earnest. As usual on Ethiopia’s roads, lines of people could be seen walking beside the roadway, many carrying goods on their heads, especially large bundles of fuelwood. The disturbing environmental cost of the fuelwood was evident on many sections of the drive, however, where grotesquely distorted remains of trees could be seen, seeming to survive - barely - despite the repeated savage butchering of their branches for fuelwood. About mid-way on the journey, the road began a twisting climb up into the volcanic mountains, evidence of ancient volcanic activity being seen in several steeply-sided volcanic plugs and necks from ancient eruptions. The climb was necessary to bring us to Gonder, which lies at an altitude of 2210 metres.
Gonder is a very pretty city, set on steeply-sided hillsides with a population of 160,000 people. The city is sometimes referred to as “Ethiopia’s Camelot” because of the abundance of grand 17th century castles found here. During the 17th century, the town marked the intersection of three major caravan routes, and in 1636 Emperor Fasiladis declared the city to be the capital of his empire. When he died in 1667, the city already had a population of 65,000 people, and most of the palaces in the city date from around that era.
Other later phases in the city’s history have affected its appearance too. Gonder’s town centre is characterised by a beautiful collection of art deco buildings constructed by the Italians during their occupation in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Most of them are painted in a distinctive yellow colour, highlighted by various hues of blue and green.
Upon reaching Gonder, our first stop was the Hotel Goha, where we deposited our luggage. The rooms in the Goha Hotel had an identical design to those in the Hotel Tana in Bahar Dar where we had stayed the previous night. Like the earlier hotel, the rooms in the Hotel Goha looked great at first sight, but were considerably less impressive on closer examination - no hot water like the previous night, but here there was no electricity whatsoever as well (until they turned on a generator in the evening gloom at 7:00 pm that night).
Having arrived in time to do some sightseeing before lunch, Andrew and I headed to the Royal Enclosure, a vast 70,000 square metre complex of 17th century palaces built on a hill overlooking the centre of Gonder. The Royal Enclosure can be seen towering over the city centre in the image above-right (like all images throughout this Travel Diary, it can be enlarged by clicking). It is hard to do justice here to the diverse array of buildings within the walls of the compound, each with its own tales of intrigue, assassinations, desecration, restoration, and various architectural oddities. The image at the top of this page shows the largest and oldest of the palaces, the 32 metre tall Fasiladas’ Palace. Yet it is only one of several castles, set amidst various other structures. Having walked through the palaces this morning, I can understand why Gonder is likened to Camelot. Quite simply, it is not what most people would expect to find in a medium-sized Ethiopian town!
Having spent as much of the morning as we could in the Royal Enclosure, our next stop was lunch. We found a small restaurant directly across the road from the entrance to the Royal Compound, and it certainly scored points for original decor, with pheasants and ducks walking around our feet while we ate. Andy and I both followed yesterday’s lunch experience by ordering various combinations of injera once again.
After lunch, we went first to Fasilada’s Bath. Built in the mid-1600s as an open-air royal swimming pool, this spot gets a very positive review in Lonely Planet’s Ethiopia Guidebook, but I am struggling to understand why. It is a large, dry rectangular pit in the ground with a building at one end; the building is described as ‘charming’ by Lonely Planet, but how anyone could know what it looks like through the tangle of scaffolding being used for its restoration, I don’t know. The most interesting aspect of the complex (for me) was a series of snake-like tree roots entangling some of the side walls in a manner reminiscent of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. The site’s escort guide, on the other hand, was much more excited by taking us to the periphery of the site to show us Zobel’s Mausoleum. Zobel was one of the emperor’s horses, and when it died, the emperor ordered that a dome-roofed mausoleum be built to house the horse’s body. It is now in a sorry state of repair, with a collapsed roof and crumbling walls - not that it would have been all that impressive when it was first built either. Feeling somewhat underwhelmed that I was standing looking at a small, unimpressive, crumbling mausoleum for a dead horse, I tried to feign interest by asking “when they buried the horse, did they bury it standing up or lying down?”. It seemed like a good question to me (given my largely uninspired state of mind), but the withering look from the local guide as he answered me (“lying down of course”) told me that my efforts to show interest had fallen a tad short of requirements.
It didn’t matter though, as the afternoon got much more interesting after the let-down of Zobel’s Mausoleum. We took half an hour out to have a coffee and a mango juice at a small cafe overlooking Gonder’s main art deco square, and then went to the Debre Berhan Selassie Church. Built in the 17th century, this unassuming building houses a wonderful collection of original, unrestored frescoes that richly illustrates biblical history, Christian teaching, church history and teachings in brightly coloured paintings covering the walls of the building. Unfortunately, Gonder was experiencing its regular scheduled one-day-in-four without electricity today, so we had to view the frescoes by means of the tiny trickle of daylight that could filter in through the doors. But wonderful as the walls were, it was the ceiling that was simply mesmerising. The ceiling had images of 104 archangels, each reminiscent of a Mona Lisa in naive style with that oh-so-similar quizzical smile. The assembly of archangels soaring over the coloured frescoes was almost hypnotic, despite the dark gloom, and despite no flash photography being allowed (hence the poor picture quality here - sorry!).
Andrew and I were interested to get a taste of everyday life in Gonder, so we went off to the large market near the centre of town. We were not disappointed. The market was a vibrant and colourful scene of frenetic activity. As one point of background information, Gondar’s population comprises 80% Christian (75% Ethiopian Orthodox, 4% Protestant and 1% Catholic), 20% Muslim and a minute percentage of Jewish people. However, almost all the trading in the market is done by Muslims. There were many highlights of our walk through the market - the men using sewing machines beside the street to make clothes, the aromatic fragrances of the spices, the loud noise of the blacksmiths, the rich colours of the textiles, the sounds, the smells, the sights - so much to take in that it was almost a sensual overload. Perhaps my favourite section was the chicken sellers, who were sitting proudly on top of the cages where the poultry (alive, of course) was stored, pleading with me to take their photographs so they could hold up and show off their new cellphone, or their new umbrella, or whatever.
Our final stop was the Ethiopian Airlines office to reconfirm our flights for tomorrow to Lalibela. This took longer than expected as our records seemed to have dropped out of the computer system! After about 20 minutes, our records were finally found, and although our flights were shown as ‘confirmed’ in the system as on our tickets, there was no corresponding record of our names on the list of passengers for the flight itself - nor could anyone get our names to show on this ‘important’ list. As the airline representative said, “this is most unusual”. However, he was a model of patience and helpfulness, and in the end, he made completely new reservations for us at no cost to ensure everything would be okay for the rest of our journey.
We returned to the hotel at a little before 5 o’clock, under the growing accumulation of thick dark grey clouds that promised rain for the local farmers, but a cool and damp evening for the travellers. We had dinner in our hotel (because it was included in the cost), Andy having a meat salad followed by fish and vegetables, and me having tomato soup followed by “papper stake”, both of us finishing with half a papaya for dessert.

Day 2 - Bahar Dar, Ethiopia

Mon, 2 Jun 2008 03:42:36 +1000

Today has been a long day, but a deeply satisfying one. We woke early at 5 am to have an early breakfast (at 5:30 am) in order to leave the hotel at 6 am to catch our 7:30 am flight to Bahar Dar, a one hour flight (to avoid a rough 8 hour drive) north-west of Addis Ababa.
We almost didn’t make it. When we tried to check-in, we were told that we didn’t have a confirmed booking (even though the e-ticket receipt clearly said ‘confirmed’). We sorted that out, and then they said only Andrew had a booking and I did not. We sorted that out, and then they said we were checking in so late we would miss the flight (it was 6:50 am, although we had started the process at 6:30 am!). That seemed absurd, until it was pointed out that the flight has been rescheduled to depart at 7:10 am and boarding had already begun at 6:25 am - quite a generous amount of time to board a 50-seat Fokker F-50, I think. Anyway, in the end , they accepted our luggage and told us to hurry, which we did, being ushered through the security check ahead of the line of other passengers, onto the bus and out to the plane. There was no allocated seating, so we took the last two seats available, and sat for 10 minutes until the plane powered up to depart. Remarkably, and impressively given the rush, our luggage arrived at Bahar Dar with us 55 minutes later - maybe that was the reason for the ten minute wait on the tarmac???
Bahar Dar is situated at an elevation of 1800 metres, which is high, but nonetheless lower than Addis Ababa which is at 2400 metres altitude. That - plus the fact that Bahar Dar is only 11 degrees north of the equator - accounted for the considerably warmer weather we experienced today after the unexpectedly cold weather in Addis Ababa. Today’s weather was sunny in the morning with clouds building up in the afternoon, but we managed to miss the isolated showers we saw off in the distance in various directions.
Bahar Dar is a beautiful town of 170,00 people with wide, shady streets. The name ‘Bahar Dar’ means beside the sea, a reference to its location beside Lake Tana, a stunningly beautiful 3500 square kilometre expanse of water in a collapsed volcanic caldera that is also the source of the Blue Nile River. There are 37 islands in the lake, 20 of which have Christian monasteries dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries.
Our first stop was the Hotel Tana to drop off our bags. The hotel had a beautiful location overlooking the lake, but its rooms were much more basic than they first appeared, having minimal lighting, no hot water, highly suspect plumbing to the toilet, crackling and sparking power points and, much less surprisingly, no internet.
After leaving our bags at the hotel, our first destination was one of the monasteries on the lake. The one selected was the Ura Kidane Meret Monastery on Zege Peninsula, and to get there, a boat trip of an hour or so was required. As is often the case, getting there was half the fun, as the boat puttered its way across the smooth waters of the lake, past papyrus boats with fishermen and between low-flying flocks of pelicans.
Once we reached Zege Peninsula, a 20 minute hike was needed through the monkey and ant-infested forest, and past a village to reach the monastery itself. But it was certainly worth it. Like most of the lake’s monasteries, the Ura Kidane Meret was round in shape (representing the world), and divided into three concentric circles (representing the trinity). In the centre was the Holy of Holies, which was not accessible to anyone but the priests. The outer ring was a shady area for praying and meditation, while the inner ring was where services are held. The priests officiate on the western side, the men gather on the northern side, the women gather on the southern side, and the eastern side is used for the overflow of men and women (who remain separate nonetheless).
The high walls separating the inner ring from the monastery’s central Holy of Holies are collectively known as its ‘maqdas’. At the Ura Kidane Meret. hundreds of bright frescoes have been painted on the maqdas to illustrate various biblical scenes and stories, together with some events which relate to early Ethiopian martyrs and some uniquely apocryphal events (see top photo). The paintings are very beautiful and fresh, as some of the lower ones that had become worn were repainted in the 19th century. The main reason that the monasteries have these wonderful paintings is for use as a teaching device during pre-literate times. With its high roofs, the building was cool and contemplative, the silence broken only by the periodic overhead roar of Ethiopian Air Force MiG-23 fighter jets which were doing practice runs over the lake.
We returned to Bahar Dar the same way that we came, via a one hour boat trip. It was lunch time, so we went to a small local restaurant to enjoy Ethiopia’s national dish, “injera”. Injera tastes better than it looks. The basis of injera is a large, flat, mid-to-dark grey pancake made from Ethiopia’s staple cereal crop, tef. The injera has a slightly bitter, sour taste, and thus goes very well with spicy food that is placed in an assortment on top of the injera. It is eaten with the fingers by tearing off pieces of the injera and wrapping up small pieces of the meat or vegetables that have been served on top of it. Injera looks like a cross between a sheet of dirty latex rubber and a dirty discarded kitchen wash cloth, but Andy and I really enjoyed the one that we shared between us.
After lunch we set off for a very bumpy 45 minute (32 kilometre) minibus drive to Tis Isat, otherwise known as the Blue Nile Falls. The countryside we drove through was quintessential Ethiopia, with savanna vegetation, herds of cattle being tended by young boys, lines of people wrapped in blankets and carrying walking sticks walking single file along the side of the road (always the men leading and the women following), and small villages with a mix of traditional conical wooden huts and more modern rectangular huts, interestingly usually built with quick-growing, cultivated Australian eucalypt trees. The countryside was green and prosperous, and certainly portrayed very little of the depressing stereotypes we often read in articles about Africa.
Right beside the Falls is a large hydro-electric power plant that now takes 80% of the flow of the Nile River. As our visit coincided with the end of the dry season, the volume of water passing over the waterfall was a thus small fraction of what it once had been, but it was a very impressive sight nonetheless. The falls were once 400 metres wide; I think they were about 4 metres wide today. At least the height (37 metres) hadn’t changed!
To get to the falls, we got out of the minibus a couple of kilometres of the falls and hiked. First we descended down a steep track and crossed a beautiful stone bridge built in the 17th century by the Portuguese. A climb up the hill on the other side took us through a pretty little village where there was a buzz of building and other activity, before we trekked up and over a hill to the falls themselves. The water in the Blue Nile was anything but blue - it was a bright reddish brown that told a sad story of severe soil erosion somewhere upstream following recent rainfall. With the wet season about to hit Ethiopia, it signalled a serious problem that ought to be addressed as a matter of some urgency.
As the dark grey afternoon clouds built up, signifying the hoped-for imminent arrival of the rains, we returned to Bahar Dar by minibus. We made one last stop for the day, this being Bezawit Hill, the summit of which accommodates the palace of the former emperor Haile Selassie. Haile Selassie ruled Ethiopia from 1930 to 1974, and he had at one time wanted to make Bahar Dar the country’s capital. Today the palace is closed to visitors, and even local people speculate about what is inside. The nearby hill gave a grand view over Lake Tana, the Nile River, and the surrounding countryside, including an interesting, well-ordered, large zone of government-built housing for dispossessed employees.
We returned to the hotel in time to see a beautiful sunset across the lake before enjoying a pleasant dinner in the evening breeze of the hotel’s dining room. Since dinner, Andy and I have been reviewing our photos of the day, writing our diaries, and trying to eliminate swarms of mosquitoes from our room - quite an impressive job of multi-tasking :-)

Day 1 - Arrival in Addis Ababa

Sun, 1 Jun 2008 20:09:02 +1000

The great journey has begun. We landed in Addis Ababa at 5:15 am this morning to a city still largely in darkness - after all, who would choose to be awake at such an hour on a cool (13 degrees) Sunday morning? And yet even the act of stepping outside the large, modern airport terminal was somewhat thrilling, experiencing for the first time the exhilaration of inhaling the bracing cool air scented with the aroma of burning timber.
Our hotel in Addis Ababa is the Ghion Hotel, a somewhat run-down but nonetheless elegant tourist hotel close to the centre of the city. As people who know me are aware, location is everything to me when choosing accommodation.
The flight from Hong Kong with Ethiopian Airlines had lasted 12 hours, including the one and a half stopover in Bangkok. The old Boeing 767 was somewhat run-down (good preparation for the Ghion Hotel!), but the flight was comfortable and punctual, and the food was good. It was a bit like stepping back into the early 1980s as far as in-flight entertainment was concerned, although the happy difference now is that iPods exist.
I designed our first day in Ethiopia to be fairly restful. Andy and I had a shower and caught up on sleep during the morning, and then met with a gentleman called Habtamu at midday. Habtamu is a local man I contacted via the internet, and he has been extremely helpful in making some of the local arrangements we needed.
Despite the presence of dark, gathering storm clouds, Andy and I decided to go for a walk and soak up some of the city’s atmosphere. Addis Ababa is a huge, sprawling city, but the area near the hotel looked quite interesting from what we could see through the windows of our vehicle during the pre-dawn drive from the airport. The walk began in the park just downhill from the hotel, where lots (I didn’t count how many) of wedding parties were celebrating. Sunday seems to be the popular wedding day in Addis Ababa, and the colourful “Sunday-best” attire was a sight to behold.
From the park, we ventured a little further to Meskal Square, which is somewhat soul-less expanse of paving that is obviously designed to provide a parade ground for military and public processions. The road through Meskal Square has 16 lanes (8 each way), and to the side of the square is an open space that today was being used for a display on national greatness to coincide with the millennium - in Ethiopia’s traditional calendar, THIS is the year 2000! At a more human scale, and in some ways more interesting, was the intense game of soccer being played on the hard tarmac surface by an enthusiastic group of boys (see photo above).
The dark clouds visible in the photo opened up with a torrential downpour of rain a few minutes after the photo was taken, however, sending Andrew and me to a café attached to a petrol station for a light (and belated) lunch of honey cake and coffee (for me) and chocolate cake and Coke (for Andrew). It soon became obvious that the rain was not going to ease off quickly, so with some reluctance we headed back to the shelter of the hotel until the rain eased off.
It took a couple of hours before the rain did stop, so at 4:30 pm we headed off for an hour an a half’s walk along the sodden streets. This walk gave us an even better insight into the city, although the broken footpaths did present quite an obstacle with all the deep puddles that had accumulated during the rain storm.
So far, we have only experienced a very brief first taste of Ethiopia’s largest city. Nonetheless, we finished our first day very happy in the confidence that we will see much more when we return in a week from now - tomorrow morning we head off into Ethiopia’s deep north.