Monthly Archives: March 2018

Ethiopia Part VI: Lalibela and its Churches built by Angels

29 Thursday Mar 2018

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At St George’s Church – the most famous Lalibela site

Our rest day in Mekele was pretty epic for me.  I luxuriated in our semi-suite, taking the longest of hot showers, sleeping in, writing from our couch, getting a massage and a haircut!  It was a glorious day of what I like to refer to as re-humanization, and I didn’t even feel bad about not having left the hotel once during the day.  Mike went out for a wander around the city and did manage to convince me to head out that evening promising me he’d found a really good pizza joint.  He was not wrong.

Lalibela and its plethora of UNESCO world heritage sites were our next destination of choice and we initially thought we were going to be able to fly there until we realized that any flight from Mekele to Lalibela stopped over in Addis for the night first.  So, we reluctantly booked a shared car with ETT Travel for $30 each for the 9-hour drive over very hilly and sometime rough roads and terrain.  In the am when we left, we discovered that our co-passengers had re-booked for the following day and we ended up getting a car to ourselves.  I happily laid out in the back seat and spent much of the drive nose deep in my kindle.  Knowing how to spend long hours in vehicles without getting antsy was getting to be a vital talent on this trip.

We made a stop for lunch at a very non-descript hotel along the way and I tried, unsuccessfully to connect to Wi-Fi and get some messages from friends.  I swore I would never complain about the speed of Wi-Fi in the States ever again!  This lunch also afforded me yet another example of pure, willful arrogance on the part of an Ethiopian.  Our waitress, when giving us the Wi-Fi password told us that it was all lower case hotal”whateverthenameofthehotelwas”.  When I inquired, due to the strange spelling, whether she meant “hotel” rather than “hotal?” – she confidently asserted it was the latter.  Upon unsuccessfully connecting using “hotal”, but successfully connecting with “hotel” – I let her know, for the benefit of future guests who asked, that it was, indeed, “hotel” and not “hotal” that worked as the correct password.  I was trying to be helpful.  Instead, she got super argumentative and insisted that it was “hotal” – essentially calling my poor, unbiased, unthinking iPhone a liar.

I give up.  Ethiopians cannot, under any circumstances, stand corrected about anything – chicken bone or Wi-Fi password – it matters not.

Men chanting and singing during a church ceremony in Lalibela

By the time the car had started climbing up and up to the altitude of Lalibela (8,202 feet), the heavens had opened and a downpour turned the roads to a muddy torrent.  It gave the winding roads an ever more otherworldly feel since we had so rarely encountered rain on this voyage of discovery.  Once arrived, we had the car drop us at the generically named hotel Lalibela where we were happy to find a very reasonably priced ($20) room available and not so happy to feel the brisk chill in the air.

Deciding to walk into town to find dinner, we soon discovered that Lalibela itself is extremely steep and we certainly walked off our tired car-bound butts as we found ourselves making our way through the southern church complex to our chosen restaurant.

Against my better judgment, I decided I was going to try and order steak one more time, convincing myself, momentarily, that if I just explained in enough detail how not to overcook the meat, that maybe, just maybe I wouldn’t be forced to chew on shoe leather for dinner.

I was mistaken.  And paid for it.

Witnessing an infant baptism ceremony

Mike and I got into a sibling-like quarrel over dinner and he left early taking a tuk tuk back to the room without me.  I found myself in quite the foulest of moods after my disappointing meal, and the realization that I was already over-churched by this country and I wasn’t all that excited about what awaited me the next day.  I kept reminding myself that the guidebooks all claimed that Lalibela was the one place in the country that was “unmissable”.

We would see.

I took the 3rd tuk tuk I found back to the hotel, having just turned and walked away from the first two who tried to quote me a rate that was 3 times the going rate for a 10 minute journey – despite their post-quote protestations that since I’d found them out, they’d be more than happy to take me for the fair price I wanted.  How would they ever learn not to cheat the Faranji if they didn’t lose business as a consequence?

Mike and I didn’t settle our squabble till the morning, but doing so over fried eggs and decent coffee certainly helped.  We set off to the Northern complex of churches and spent the first frustrating 20 minutes trying to find a good English speaking guide.

Walkways between the churches of the northern cluster with our guide

Several claimed to speak English but couldn’t coherently answer any questions.  Some just wanted way too much money.  Finally, we settled on a guy called Mike, ignoring the fact that we only had an hour left before they closed for lunch and he wandered off for fifteen minutes saying he needed five minutes to bid goodbye to his previous group.

I took a deep breath.  It was becoming clear to me that my impatience and tolerance for the hassles of independent travel were growing.  I had one week to go before I’d be on a plane to London.  I tried to keep that in mind and stay present.

When Mike got back he immediately launched into a verbal description of the churches here in Lalibela which were built between the 7th and 13th centuries, and how each complex had been carved out of essentially one large rock.  King Lalibela’s intention with building these churches was to recreate Jerusalem.   Thinking that was, indeed, quite an impressive engineering feat, I wasn’t prepared for his straight faced explanation that the churches, therefore, had been built by the angels and not people.

Amazing architecture – must have been built by Angels

I guffawed into automatic laughter – only to see Mike reprimanding me with his ever-uber-polite face as he nodded in agreement with our guides’ utterly preposterous nonsense.  His look silenced me as I uneasily squished the slew of mockery that wanted to burst out of me and be unleashed on the head of this guide whom I was paying to teach me historically sound facts – not fill my brain with hair-brained ridiculous notions steeped in myth and blind faith.

Sigh.

Steep winding staircases

It didn’t end there.  In roaming around the first set of churches I had to listen to our guide explain:

  1. How I wasn’t going to be allowed entry into the Church of Golgotha because Jesus had told Mary Magdalene not to touch him after he was resurrected, supposedly because she might have been menstruating. Cue my epic eye-roll.
  2. Why science is wrong. Yes- you read that right.  He wanted to have a discussion about how science had lead people astray and that faith in Jesus and the Orthodox church was the only path to enlightenment.
  3. Why a pool of putrid green bacteria-laden filthy water had miraculous properties that cured infertility if the woman agreed to being lowered into it, naked. Of course I wanted to know WHO and HOW she was lowered naked…but I was again, shushed by you-know-who.  (Mike – if you’re reading this, know that I love you.)
  4. How there must be something fundamentally wrong with me if I had chosen not to have babies and how I absolutely should still try to find a husband who could give me some as that was the purpose of a woman.

The green “fertility-cure” pool

I tried to focus on the architecture of these quite magnificent ancient buildings instead, also trying not to think about the all-too-familiar filthy carpet that hadn’t been changed in several decades that we were forced to walk upon shoe-less.

Toward the end of our morning tour, we were told that we would be “lucky enough” to witness a live church ceremony taking place as part of the festivities of Lent.  We entered a church that was jam-packed with old and young tiny turbaned men all draped in massive lengths of white cotton happily clanging away on their little crosses with bells on them as they took it in turns to sing (I use this term very loosely as it connotes with it the sense that there might be melody or musicality of some sort accompanying said “singing”.  In actuality, the sound this group made was reminiscent of a group of urology patients who were simultaneously and unceremoniously having their catheters removed against their will and without the assistance of anesthesia or pain meds.)

St. Georges from the side

The cacophony these discordant laments produced was extremely uncomfortable for me to listen to.  Now, I came across a variety of tourists over the course of our two-day stay in Lalibela who remarked that they enjoyed these dirge-like choruses (Dirge, not to be confused with Derg which was the name given to the ruling communist party in Ethiopia from 1975 for 13 years which resulted in the “Red Terror” and the genocide of over 750,000 citizens.  Mike kept warning me not to say “Dirge” out loud as I might offend people, until I pointed out that the words Derg and Dirge only sound alike and don’t mean the same.)  I can’t say I was one of them.  I had to get away as quickly as possible.

Additionally, I had to get away when I learned how women are not allowed to participate in the actual church ceremonies.

Ugh.

I include a video here so that you can judge for yourselves.  And, as a nice comparative, I also include a tiny excerpt from the choral singing of the York Minster that I visited a few weeks later in the UK – you can be the judge of which style of worship is more musical.

As a comparison, here is a short excerpt from a choir singing during mass at York’s Minster.

Mike and I made our way back to our hotel via St. George’s church – the most famous of the Lalibela landmarks.  I had this notion that perhaps, in the last few moments before closing for lunch, we might find it devoid of crowds and therefore more photo worthy.

I was right – and we happily spent a solid 20 minutes taking an array of pictures of the very thing that adorns countless travel magazines and brochures beckoning folks to experience Ethiopia.

After much needed fruit smoothies and a quick rest, we returned to the Southern circuit of churches, stopping momentarily to take in the museum at the site’s entrance.  There were no signs or explanations, unfortunately, in English – so we spent most of the time there trying to make sense of the numerous pictorial depictions of torture (we were later informed these paintings all signified the 7 deaths by torture and subsequent miraculous return to life of St. George) that involved all manner of horrific ways that humans can produce pain and death in another human.

The afternoon’s complex of churches was actually very interesting – and made further enjoyable by the fact that they are all connected via subterranean dark tunnels that the guide assured us were symbols of the “passages of hell.”  I wondered if, perhaps they just made it easier to get from one underground church to another without needing to climb up and around, but I had learned to keep my mouth shut by this point.

Entering one of the passageways between churches

It is quite difficult for me to comprehend the massive commitment of time, labor and resources that must have gone in to create this many churches and to have made so many, underground, so close to one another and carved out of solid pieces of rock.  It is quite a wonder and a marvel to see.

I hope that the tone of my post doesn’t fail to express how impressive the site itself is.  It certainly earns its reputation as the 8th wonder of the world.  It was beautiful and certainly a historian or archaeologist’s dream to visit.  I simply found I was unable to connect to the place on an emotional level.  I think you need to be a person of faith for that.  And I’m not.

That evening, Mike and I ventured out to the “best restaurant in Ethiopia” and found a restaurant that had an incredible view, and a pretty decent menu.  A storm was brewing and we enjoyed watching the thunderclouds gather and listened to the rumbles as we ate.

Views as the thunderclouds gathered at Mountain View Restaurant

As we walked back up a set of hills in order to find a tuk tuk back to our accommodation, we were passed by a group of kids around 5 or 6 years of age who asked us where we were from.  Upon hearing our response, they all chanted “We Hate Trump!”

We feel you, I thought.  Even here, in the remote holy city of Lalibela, tiny humans knew all about the International disgrace that our President has brought upon our nation.  For that I continue to lament.

On arrival, we got into a discussion with the guy at the front desk about our travel options for getting to our next stop – Bahir Dar.  It turned out that we would pay about $50 USD each for the 6-7 hour drive.  However, he pointed out that there were two flights per week that only cost $40 USD, and it just so happened that there was a flight that next morning.  After a brief chat about the pros and cons of leaving Lalibela sooner than originally planned (we were considering another 2-3 day trek amongst the surrounding villages) Mike and I decided to book 2 seats on the flight leaving the next morning.

Boarding our little plane for the short 40 minute flight from Lalibela to Bahir Dar

I was happy that we were going to essentially end our Northern Historical tour of Ethiopia in a city that we had reluctantly excluded from the start of our journey because of the driving distance from Bahir Dar to Gonder, our first stop.  Adding this city to the end of our clockwise journey solved that problem and eliminated the need to make that connection overland since we’d simply be flying back to Addis in a few days in any case.

My next post will be from this lakeside, palm-fringed tourist destination.

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Ethiopia Part V: Journey to the Center of the Earth – The Danakil Depression

12 Monday Mar 2018

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Camel train in the Danakil

Our four day/three-night trip to one of the most inhospitable areas of the globe was very weird.   And not necessarily for the reasons that I was expecting.

I was expecting it to be really hot and dusty.  I was expecting to see weird rock formations, bubbling pools of sulphuric acid and geysers.  I was expecting to sleep out rough under the stars and smell really bad by the end of the trip.  I was expecting long hours of driving in the car observing tiny villages of the Afar people who somehow manage to live a nomadic existence drifting from place to place in this arid, harsh, landscape.

Cool Rock formations in the Danakil

But those weren’t really the weirder aspects of the trip for me.

The weirdest part of the trip was the large group that we were traveling in – and the group dynamics that arose as a result.  It impacted my impression of almost every activity we participated in – and made a jaunt into the rock pools to see multi-colored geological phenomenon feel more like a trip to the mall in Shanghai than an expedition to one of the lowest points on the planet.

Our group consisted of about 40 persons, of which about 30 were a large group of Chinese tourists, who seemed to all know one another, though I never actually ascertained for sure whether or not this was true.

Quatchi poses on the salt flats

Mike walks through the salt lakes

I would like to think of myself as a very open and unbiased person.  I certainly do not consider myself to be racist.  I do not wish to offend any of my readers by stating this – so I will reserve my observations to be solely about the individual group of people that I spent this time in the Ethiopian desert with.  But I came to truly dislike the behaviors of these individuals, and it proved difficult by the end to separate my feelings about the Danakil and the sites we were witnessing with my feelings at how this group would act in the space.

First, other than the lovely two individuals from Shanghai that Mike and I shared our 4X4 with – the group of Chinese pretty much kept to themselves and didn’t engage in conversation with any of us “outsiders”.  They were obsessed with taking selfies and spent hours and hours getting the perfect photos of themselves at each and every site of interest.  Boyfriends would patiently acquiesce to their woman’s request for hundreds of pictures at different angles, with and without sunglasses, with and without certain expressions, standing facing to the right or to the left, with and without a flash, and any and all possible variations in between.

Since we had armed security with us (there is a real threat of Eritrean terrorism as the Danakil is very close to the border that is still disputed, and tourists have been targets in the past) – some of the Chinese would “borrow” their guns and spend hours taking photos holding the guns in a mind numbing array of different poses and set ups.

Chillin’ on the roof of our 4×4 with Mike

I found it both entertaining and nauseating to watch.

Then came the photo editing and the obligatory “whitening” of pictures by the women who are obsessed with being as pale as humanly possible – to the point where some of the girls looked like ghosts – and would not consider spending any time out in this inhospitable environment without perfect makeup which including lots of whitening foundation and powder.  To avoid the horrific possibility of sun ever touching their skin – they would all be dressed in multiple layers including down vests – even when the temperature hovered around 40 degrees centigrade.

Many of their group smoked and they never failed to drop their cigarette butts wherever it suited them.  On our hike to the summit of the Erta Ale volcano – which happened in the dark, late evening in the eeriest and most atmospheric of times – the Chinese group were selfish enough to be BLASTING music from their phones as loud as possible spoiling any of the 40 or so of us hiking from the possibility of enjoying a quiet moment of peace while hiking the mountain.

Sunset at the Salt Lakes

Aside from the fascinating human observation opportunities this provided – the geography of the region we were visiting was quite vivid – I still think it paled slightly in comparison to Yellowstone, Death Valley, and the Bolivian Salar de Uyuni,  though it was interestingly a cool combination of all 3.

I enjoyed the chance to walk through the salt laden lakes and see my feet crunching on the beautiful crystallized salt as the sun was setting on our first evening.  That kind of vast emptiness has a haunting quality unique unto itself.  Seeing our 8 4×4’s driving side by side on this highway-less terrain was crazy and quite unnerving whenever our driver pointed out that he wasn’t quite sure of the direction we were supposed to be heading in (with an endless horizon, it is super easy to get turned around and navigation skills are crucial.)

Folks in our group pose for pics

Our car was the lucky one to get stuck in the salt mud and had to get help as our spinning tires were just sinking us ever further into the mire.  Eventually, the large group of arguing Ethiopian guides and drivers figured out how to secure a wench to the back of our car and pulled it free – leaving it to us to scream at the Chinese group taking photos that they might wanna take 30 or so steps back to avoid getting their heads knocked clean off if anything were to go wrong and the cable snapped during the dangerous operation.

My vision of sleeping in a desert wilderness sans tent with just the stars for light was not to be.  The camp in Hamedela was slapped right next to a Potash factory that had massive artificial spotlights that kept the entire camp illuminated throughout the night, much to my disappointment.  The guides set out our hammock-like “cots” in rows, somehow wrongly believing that we must all want to sleep in tight proximity with one another rather than to spread out and experience the wilderness.

Getting stuck

Food was served en masse and it was a free for all and you had to take what you could or end up hungry – especially since there were no chances to obtain snacks and we’d sometimes go six or seven hours between meals.

Our guides left much to be desired also and I found myself completely switched off most of the time they were talking anyways.  The first one barely spoke English, though I really loved his reference to how the following day we would be driving 15 minutes between one site and the next “water bubbly.”   Everything we stopped to see we did as a large group which gave one the feeling of being part of a herd of cattle.  During our time at the geysers, rock pools, and multi-colored acidic rock – we were often led walking directly over the highly toxic and dangerous ground and I got yelled at for taking a safer more indirect route – by the guards with the guns!  I couldn’t believe that they would let tourists trample all over this fragile and geologically thin/exposed/volcanic and potentially explosive/corrosive ground without regard to its preservation or to our safety.

It was infuriating, even though the natural wonders themselves were incredible.

Our camp beds

In the middle of Day two, we visited a working salt mine that was complete with hundreds of workers hacking away at the ground to produce rectangular shapes of rock salt that they would then affix to hundreds of camels who would carry it over hundreds of miles to and from market.  It really was quite a sight to see and it looked like incredibly arduous work done over long stretches of time in the blaring sun and heat.

Ironically, everywhere we went, we would see salt in its many forms, but there was never salt served with our meals.  I’d point this out – but I think as I mentioned before – irony and sarcasm is somewhat lost on Africans.

Remains of a not so lucky donkey that drank salt water

We had a very long drive to our mid-way point on day two – which was going to take us back on the road to Mekele to a town that was on the way to our destination for day three – the Erta Ale Volcano where we might hopefully see molten red lava at night while we camped on its summit.

Though our itinerary stated we’d be camping for 3 nights – we apparently were going to be staying on mattresses in three rooms in a private house that had been arranged for us in the small town of Abala.  When our car arrived, our guide explained that there really wasn’t room for us in the assigned rooms and that we could either sleep on the floor of our hosts’ living room – or we could drive back to Mekele for the night and they would cover the cost of a hotel room.  It was altogether very confusing – it appeared that they’d overbooked the place by several individuals, and the idea of sharing one bathroom and one shower with 39 individuals was not in the least appealing.

Multi colored pools on day 2

Colorful volcanic rock

Mini Geyser

Mike suggested that perhaps they might cover the cost of a room in a local hotel in town – and we were happy when they agreed to this suggestion.  Strangely, our two car companions opted to stay with the group while Mike and I got our own room about half a kilometer up the road with our own private shower.  We high-fived; feeling that we had definitely scored.

It rained that night for the second time during our whole trip and Mike and I made our way back to our room after a rather yummy fasting meal with the soft patter of raindrops and the exhortations of kids begging for candy all the way to our room where we thankfully fell asleep, grateful for our luxurious privacy.

Highway to nowhere

One of the other main issues on this trip that spoiled my enjoyment of it was the lack of hygiene and basic sanitation.  On our first and last camps – despite the fact that hundreds of tourists stay here every single week during the visiting season – there were no pit toilets or facilities of any kind.  Not being given any sort of instruction – folks would just take a shit anywhere they took a fancy, very often just strewing their toilet paper along with it.  It was absolutely disgusting.  Peeing in the bush is one thing – but having human excrement building up over years and years right next to where Afar villages were trying to live life and raise their herds of animals is unacceptably gross.   Not only that, but no water was provided for us to wash our hands prior to mealtimes.  Luckily, we had a very kind and thoughtful driver who would bring us a gerry can and soap for our car when Mike and I would insist on washing our hands.

On the third day we drove over seven long hours to reach the volcano.  Much of this was over very rocky and non-paved terrain that was as good an African massage as any we’d experienced on this trip.  We spent long hours waiting for everything that day – to leave Abala in the am, to get lunch, to leave on the climb for the summit.  Then, as we were climbing to the summit of Erta Ale along with many many other groups of a similar size to ours, all of a sudden they decided to march us at such a pace that it was impossible to pee or rest along the way.  It took all of four hours to get to the summit and we were only given 3-5 minutes breaks ever hour and a half.  It was crazy to be herded at that kind of pace when we had been waiting and waiting all day long.  I didn’t understand the reason for it – but I can only assume that ETT is given a certain “window” in which to climb and have a time for “viewing” of the lava before they have to clear out and make room for other groups.

Camels at the salt digging site

With this herd mentality and the blaring of music along the way, I can’t say I enjoyed this mountain experience since it was anything but.  In addition, there was trash all along the way – thousands of discarded plastic bottles along with toilet paper and cigarette butts lining the path all the way to the summit.  Which, unfortunately, was obscured with high winds and steam – so you could see a really eerie red glow – but not any lava.

We were finally getting into our sleeping bags around midnight, and were expected to get up to have another viewing opportunity at 4:30am.  Clearly this segment of the trip was badly organized as I need more sleep than that to function properly – not to mention it was 11 kms each way to ascend and descend.  I skipped the ass-raping crack of dawn call and tried to get another hour of sleep before we were forced to march down the mountain single file following our brave gun-toting military scouts.

Bleh.

Red glow from Erta Ale

I could easily have skipped this part of the trip.  Seeing the lava would have been just amazing – but I felt like I was hiking a large garbage dump on a poorly organized multi-school trip where you had an uncomfortable sleepless night and had to take a shit where thousands had before you, out in the open for all to see in a massive area covered in human excrement for the past 17 years.

By the time we arrived back in Mekele, I was falling down from exhaustion and beyond ready for a shower, a decent meal, and clean sheets.  I was also waiting to hear from a friend in Accra who was potentially going to be available for me to hang out with for my last week in Africa.  After the Danakil, I really had seen all I wanted to see in Ethiopia and I was so done with the people here and their attitudes (as I described in my first article about this country).  Unfortunately, my friend was not going to be able to have me visit – so Mike joined me as I drank 3 Gin and Tonics before we ordered a rather delicious pizza and righteously passed out.

The next day was going to be a day of rest, no doubt about it!

Ethiopia Part IV: Tigray – where Churches are the Cherry not the Cake

08 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by in Africa, Ethiopia

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Views over Tigray

We had only driven out of Axum for about 90 minutes – I was laying spread out across one of the bench seats, taking advantage of our massive luxurious van for just the two of us – when Mike told me to get up and look out of the window.  This is what I saw.

Scenery right out of Axum

The geography in this area of Ethiopia is astounding.  A huge pink and orange rock escarpment with towering sandstone cliffs and mountains that are reminiscent of Utah, Arizona’s Monument Valley, North Western Australia and Namibia to mention a few similar places.  This is all just wonderful – BUT!  They sold me this trip to see CHURCHES??????!!!!

It blows my mind that the tour company who markets this particular route only focuses on the historic churches that we would get to see.  No mention is made of the views, or the trekking opportunities.  All that was said was that a few of the churches on day two required a little bit of clambering to get to.  This was a huge understatement, both in scope and in practical terms.

Mike ascending the vertical wall at Debre Damo

I had agreed to make our first stop the monastery of Debre Damo – which only allowed for male visitors.  In fact, the monks only allowed male cows, chickens, donkeys and any other livestock they needed for their purposes to be provided for their day to day needs.  I’m guessing female cows would be just too much of a powerful temptation for them, living all alone at the top of a monolithic mountain?

The fun part of visiting this monastery is that it involved a near vertical 15 m rock climb where the priest assists the person climbing via a rope around the waist.  Mike is a little afraid of heights, so I was super proud of him for wanting to give this a go.  Plus, I wanted everything documented on camera in case something funny or super embarrassing happened to him on the way up or down.

Fortunately for me, I got both.

Enjoy this wonderful video footage of Mike being aided down the rock, and toward the end, not even being allowed to place his feet to steady himself: https://youtu.be/xWNVzRtlYG8

After a nice lunch, our next stop was located at the end of another stunning drive through the magnificent countryside, and according to the guidebook, one of the most scenic roads in the country.  There was a complex of 3 churches called the Teka Tesray cluster, but we’d been advised to just visit the most beautiful – Medhane Alem.  As we approached the trailhead (because, yes, you have to hike to each of these churches as they’ve been built literally into the rock/mountain) we were swarmed by a bunch of kids wanting to make some quick birr to show us the way.  We chose one competent looking enough chap and we made our way through the late afternoon sun up the steep sandstone cliffs to the church – which was about 30 minutes away.

Beautiful Medhane Alem

What made this particular location a little unique was that we were surrounded by a beautiful variety of cacti, eucalyptus trees, and green, rolling hills.  It reminded me of a fragrant late afternoon in Tuscany – except without the olive trees.  We entered the gated entrance with its standard issue crowd of elderly shawled folk who seemed to “live” at the church and beg for money.  We were told to remove our shoes and make our way through the dirty and rocky garden area leading to the white rock-hewn church – and I just couldn’t understand why they didn’t just let us remove our shoes at the doorway – thereby ensuring we didn’t bring the dirt and dust inside the church with us.  I asked this of our guide and was informed that the rocky path was already “holy land” which appeared to be more important than whether or not it was clean.

Artwork inside Medhane Alem

The inside of this 6th century church was very cool and carved out in one giant piece, consisting of 4 inter connected rooms containing mosaics, remnants of religious artwork depicting the angels and the apostles, and of course, the holy of holies that contained a replica of the Ark of the Covenant, in line with Ethiopian Orthodox teachings.

As usual, the outside and surrounding scenery was more fascinating to me than the inside of the church, where it was hard for me to not be preoccupied with how old the carpet was and how many thousands of dirty feet had walked here since it was last replaced.

Having said that, the feat of work this represented and the age of the church itself was pretty staggering.  I think when you’re dealing with architecture this ancient, it is really hard for a layman to determine the actual talent that may or may not be involved in its creation, based purely on its age.

As with many of these very very old churches – the guides often claimed that the only explanation for their creation at a time when technology was so limited was that they were made with the assistance of the angels.  These explanations are given entirely with a straight face, I might add.

Making our way back to the van as the sun was setting was rather magical and I managed to get some nice sunset shots.  Why is it we never tire of a beautiful sunset?

Pretty sunset as we descend from Medhane Alem

That night we stayed in a small town called Hawzen.  It took visiting four hotels before Mike and I found one with an available room that had hot water in the bathroom – the Habesha Hotel.  We soon headed out in search of a restaurant our driver had recommended, and when we did finally find it – it turned out it was only serving fasting food.  It’s funny to me how excited the restaurant staff are to tell us that their menu doesn’t contain any dairy, meat or animal fat of any kind – but it’s clearly because they don’t realize that hearing such news is an instant disappointment for me.

I settled on ordering some vegetable soup and beer.  And eating some rice off of Mike’s plate, of course.

Our second day in Tigray was definitely the highlight.  This is in spite of the horrendous hassle we had to overcome in locating a scout for each of the two churches we hiked to – you can read about the first instant in my former post here.  Despite this, it was easily my favorite day of the entire trip – perhaps since the scenery, degree of difficulty, and the steep ledges we had to scramble over to reach these churches built on top of mountains was altogether unexpected.

Stunning landscapes and beauty of Ethiopia

Our first visit was to a church called Abuna Yemal, which, funnily enough – was featured in a BBC article about the priest having what was claimed the “most difficult commute in the world.”  The route was a tough scramble, possibly a technical enough route that a harness and rope would be called for were it in the States – but I certainly enjoyed the adrenaline rush that came from trying to find foot and hand holds (and doing so in the midst of yelling at the bunch of super annoying men, dressed in SUITS I might add, to shut the hell up as they threw out constant muttered directives of how and where I should climb, assuming I was a complete idiot who’d never scrambled before.)

Me, ascending sans rope to the Rock Hewn church of Abuna Yemal

I was, however, filled with more than adrenaline when one of these douche bags (who expect tips even though you never asked for help, in fact, when you had actively told them to go away multiple times) actually down climbed right over the top of me and stood on my hand.  I screamed at him, in a terrified rage, for committing the ultimate rock climbing faux pas – though I’m not sure he really gave a shit.

It did end up being totally worth it – and the views from the teeny tiny ledge that led to the church were stupendous.  Hopefully you can get some idea from these pictures.

Sitting on a ledge near the church

Again, the church was a nice cherry to find at the top of this climb, but the journey was reward enough in itself.

This first church was about 3 hours return, and it was well past lunchtime by the time we got back to the van.  I cursed not having known about the number of hours we’d be hiking today, and I cursed our guides/drivers for not telling us to pack a lunch with us to help fuel us for the afternoon’s venture out to Maryam Kokor – which was going to take us another 3 arduous hours to climb and return from.  Luckily, Mike had some chocolate in his pack and Sneetchi gave us some bananas…so we managed fairly well despite our outputs.  It’s just that this was clearly not the first time this company had brought tourists to these places – so why can’t they advise this ahead of time?  SMH.

Not so happy priest at Abuna Yemal with ancient text inscribed on goat skin

The approach to Maryam Kokor was very different, as was our lovely and QUIET scout whom our driver had been kind enough to arrange for us to have after the nightmare we’d experienced at Abuna Yemal.  There were sections of tunnel-like through paths of rocks with giant sandstone walls rising up either side of us.  Then there were sections where we had to clamber on hands and feet on well-trodden and eroded “steps” up the pink cliffs.

Views were out of this world and I include some pictures here.

There were two small churches to visit at the top of the mountain, and the first had separate entrances for men and women.  It looked rather like Medhane Alem inside, though the artwork was far better preserved.  The second much smaller church had just one room with a mural going in a circle across all four walls – but we had to navigate a narrow ledge where the wind threatened to pick us up and throw us up and over the edge where we’d fall several thousand feet to the valley below.  I include some pictures and videos of this exhilarating hike here.

Hanging out on ledges

I felt extremely satisfied and physically spent by the time we made it back to the van.  Here is a link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EGFHA4FemY  Not just that – I was rather hungry, but we opted to grab avocado smoothies and make our way to Mekele since it was already 4:30pm in the afternoon – and we would be leaving for our 4 day/3-night trip to the Danakil Depression the very next day – and probably at early o’clock.

Maryam Kokor

We visited our tour agency on arrival in Mekele to pay for our trip – but alas, the credit card machine wasn’t working (shocking, I know.)  So Sneetchi dropped us at a nice hotel (which was a little expensive, but well worth the little bit of luxury we felt we deserved) where we got a SEMI-SUITE, which was essentially a room with an adjoining living area.  More importantly, the restaurant served burgers and fries which we joyfully washed down with large beers and toasted our incredible two day adventure visiting historical churches…I mean, trekking through some of the best scenery I’ve experienced yet on the Dark Continent.

Ethiopia Part III: Visiting the Ancient Axumite Kingdom

04 Sunday Mar 2018

Posted by in Africa, Ethiopia

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The most “Totes Adorbs” sheep you’ve ever seen napping anywhere

The night in Debark turned out rather badly.  Though I was pretty much recovered from the shit-barfs, my cough was back with a vengeance and I awoke around midnight to feeling utterly parched, with a hacking cough.  I looked over and saw that my water bottle was empty – so I got up to refill it and was going to steripen it and drink a whole liter ( I was very dehydrated from the prior day’s exertions) – when I discovered, to my horror, that there was no water coming out of the tap.  I looked over at Mike’s stuff – he was out of water too.  None of us had refilled prior to going out the night before and we’d only drank beer with dinner.

Long winding roads to Axum

I tried to go back to sleep, but found that I wasn’t able to and started getting a headache from the dehydration.  Around 630 am, I decided that maybe someone might be up downstairs and could point me towards a functioning tap.  I dressed and walked down the four flights of stairs only to find that it seemed like the whole hotel and/or block had the water turned off.  I begged for hot water from the kitchen, since they were undoubtedly going to make an entire cauldron of coffee for the buffet breakfast that was due to be ready by 7.  No one understood me.  I went out into the street and walked along for a few blocks when I saw a security guard dozing in a garden of a building that appeared to have a hose attached to a tap.  I walked over and showed him my empty bottles and he kindly turned the tap and miraculously – water came out!

As I hurried back to our room to treat the water so we could drink – I was stopped by a man in the lobby who told me that Tadele (our asshole tour operator) had told him to come and get Mike and me to go to the bus station.  I thanked him, but explained that we were planning to eat first and head over to the station around 8 o’ clock.  That’s when he said we would need to leave by 7:15 because sometimes the bus showed up at 07:30 am – early from Gonder.

A random dude puts our luggage on the roof of the bus

Frustrated and panicked, I rushed up the stairs, woke Michael up and told him we had 15 minutes to get up, pack and be heading to the station.  It was not the morning I had envisioned but we made it to the station by 0730 and anxiously waited for the bus to arrive, where presumably, someone was sitting in our seat from Gonder to ensure someone else didn’t take it.  It’s a strange system.

New Church of St. Mary of Zion, Axum

Our guide who’d brought us disappeared and the minutes ticked on by with no sign of him or the bus.  Eventually, around 0815, I went and found someone who spoke English and he told me that the bus from Gonder usually showed up around 9am, or later.

All that rushing for no reason.

Additionally – the “guide” eventually showed back up and I asked him why he’d told us to come for 0730?  He repeated that sometimes the bus showed up that early.  Then I asked whether he knew the guy who was actually on the bus reserving our seats.  Turns out that he did.  I asked whether he had that guy’s cell phone number?  He said he did.  So, logically, I asked him “Why on earth didn’t you just tell the guy to give you a call when the bus was 15 minutes away from Debark?”

He stared at me, and then responded “Thank you.  That is a very good idea.”

I’m still not sure if he was being genuine or if he was the first African I’d met who understood the concept of sarcasm.

NOT happy on this bus ride

In any case, the bus eventually showed up on the street at around 9:15am and there was total pandemonium.  Some guy grabbed our suitcases and hauled them up to the roof, and then started demanding money.  People were yelling and squeezing to get on board which had standing room only.  Our guide literally pushed us on board where we played squeezing musical chairs to get into our seats for the journey.

Finally, we were on our way.  Despite the fact that the journey first to Shire was only 180 kms or 100 miles, it took over 9 hours to arrive.  The bus literally struggled to keep moving forward on the bending mountainous roads we covered.  It was incredibly hot, and since Ethiopians just hate direct sunlight or a breeze, most of the windows either stayed shut, or if by the grace of God they were open, the curtain was pulled all the way across preventing precious fresh air from getting in.  It was an exhausting and claustrophobic journey – and we were lucky enough to be seated!  Many people stood this entire way.

Legends abound in Axum

We stopped a couple of times to pee in the bush, but I definitely arrived in Shire dehydrated and tired.  Mike had the smart idea to gather all the faranji folks from the bus (there were about 7 of us) and we each paid for 2 seats on a minibus for the final hours’ drive to Axum and subsequently, we were able to leave straight away.  The room and open windows in the van were an incredible relief – even more so to the few passengers who’d begun their journey that morning at 5am from Gonder!

We finally arrived at our chosen hotel for the night – aptly and generically named Africa Hotel.  Mike and I wandered off to an international hotel for dinner and ordered some delicious tomato soup and then we shared a burger (my appetite had still not fully returned.)

Mike checks out the funeral procession

Group of churchgoing white-robed ladies

We chose to rest the following day as we were both spent from the Simiens and what was an even more arduous day of sitting on the bus the day before.  I did laundry and tried to edit photos – though I was having some major technology issues that was taking hours to work around and in the end I gave up and went for a walk and had beers with Mike at a lovely little restaurant he’d found called Kuda Juice and Burger that had this delightful outdoor green space.  I felt a little better after having a good cry with Mike (I don’t quite remember what was upsetting me at the time) – he is certainly a good listener and I appreciate him for that very much.

It was time to pack and head out again – this time we would be traveling through the region known as Tigray which had some famous 5th and 6th century rock-hewn churches to visit and would be a nice way to kill time as we made our way to Mekele from where we would join a tour with Ethio Travel Tours to the Danakil Depression.

The agency we booked with was located in our hotel and we were given the choice of a one day drive-thru to Mekele visiting a couple of churches, or a two-day private tour where we could visit four or five churches.  Not being an avid history aficionado, and certainly not someone to whom visiting churches, however historical, is that appealing –  I told Mike I wasn’t really bothered about which tour we did and could do whatever he felt made the most sense.  Mike opted for the two-day tour as it would include a visit to Debre Damo – a monastery atop a mountain that was only accessible by men and involved a 15 meter climb with rope and a priest helping to haul you up the vertical cliff.  He liked the idea of the challenge since he has a fear of heights.  I wanted to support him in that brave quest.

Stelae Field in Axum

The next morning we met our driver who said his name was “Sneetchie” – I have no idea if I’ve spelled his name correctly or not.  He was 22 years old and played some awesome music for us in the minivan that we had all to ourselves.  We arranged first of all to visit some of the historic sites of Axum including the Stelae field (which date from 300 to 500 A.D) which most likely served as funeral monuments and pre-date the arrival of Christianity to Ethiopia (Ethiopia was the second country after Armenia to implement the practice of Christianity) The tallest one still standing is 24 meters, and the Great Stele probably fell down during construction – was 33 meters in length.  When Italy occupied Ethiopia under Mussolini’s regime in 1937 – the five broken pieces were taken by truck and ship to Rome as ‘war booty’ and put back together, not getting repatriated back until 1947!

The five-piece stelae that was returned to Ethiopia in 1947

These Stelae marked the center of what at the time was one of the most powerful kingdoms in the world – the Royal Kingdom of Axum, and they are still quite an impressive sight.  There are tunnels and burial sites that you can walk through – and though they were once filled with incredible treasures – they have since all been looted and robbed.

Some of the Stelae had modern reinforcements now

One of the burial sites

We spent a few hours walking around and then when it was time to leave – we couldn’t seem to locate our private van anywhere.  Worse yet, Axum has some of the pushiest cab/tuk-tuk drivers anywhere and we were asked every two minutes whether we needed a taxi.  Getting hungry, I started eating a dry sweet roll I’d bought earlier that morning and some guy walked over and told me to stop eating in public because other people were fasting that day.  I told him that I wasn’t fasting or a Christian.   So, not a very comfortable place to sit around waiting.  Though we did get to watch and photograph these gorgeously cute sheep who were napping on each other on the side of the road.

After wandering around a while longer, we came across a funeral procession and a few of the modern churches that were dotted around the Stelae field and the Queen of Sheba’s baths (though they looked like disintegrating rock walls to me.)  The official Ark of the Covenant was supposedly also housed in some museum in Axum – but our guidebooks stated that there was no credible evidence that it was actually here – so my Indiana Jones’ notions were crushed.

Eventually, Sneetchie showed up and we headed in the direction of Tigray.

Ethiopia Part II: No Pain, No Gain in the Simiens

02 Friday Mar 2018

Posted by in Africa, Ethiopia

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The beautiful Simien Mountains

Our flight and arrival in Addis went without a hitch and the visa process was pretty straightforward also.  We chose to stay the night at Lobelia Hotel as it was close to the airport and we’d have to leave at an ungodly hour to catch our domestic flight in the morning to Gonder – where we would begin our Historical Northern Tour of Ethiopia.

After checking in and getting some soup for our tummies, I was ready for an early night when I noticed that the hotel had a sauna and a steam room! I later discovered that this is a trend in moderate to nicer hotels in Ethiopia – and it was one I took advantage of at any given opportunity.  This was my first and it helped with my cough immensely.  In the end, I had that cough for about six weeks on and off…it has finally cleared up, as of about a week ago.  I can’t tell you how relieved I am not to have to take antibiotics and be able to sleep through the night without waking Mike up with a coughing fit.

The next morning began rather badly.  As we arrived at the domestic terminal, Mike put his iPhone in another person’s “security box” as his had already gone through and he’d just that moment realized it was still in his pocket as he needed to pass through the body scanner.  Once through, he waited for it to “reappear” on the other side.

It never did.

I was, meanwhile, trying to check both our bags onto the flight and save time.  When Mike wasn’t showing up I went back to find him distressed and searching for his phone.  I cursed myself for not having been there at that moment, as doubtless someone had grabbed it and it might have been possible to spot them if it was done soon enough.  Security was useless, assuring us that they would check the CCTV cameras etc.  I kept asking “how on earth is that going to help?  You won’t know the identity of the person who you see took the phone!”  Besides, I’m pretty sure that it was a member of the x-ray machine team that took it.  We put a message on his phone to indicate it was lost and to contact my number, but unfortunately, Mike hadn’t connected it to the wifi of the domestic terminal yet – so whomever had taken it, wouldn’t see the message.  Moreover, a stolen iPhone might as well be a stolen brick – without the password, there’s no way to get into it.

What a waste.  It was Mike’s baby too – so I felt super bad for him.

Shopping in Gonder

Our flight was only about 45 minutes and we landed in Gonder, taking a hotel shuttle to the AG – chosen because it had my initials!  Mike then discovered that his camera viewing screen was broken and his day had just gotten worse, poor guy.  The hotel was actually quite nice and we soon passed out since we’d barely slept the night before.

Gonder and the day and a half we spent there turned out to be rather arduous.  Other than being the former capital of the country and full of amazing history such as the palace of Emperor Fasilades who founded the city in 1636 – it is already at an elevation of 2133 m and being quite hilly, was a physical test just to walk around and get errands ran before starting our 4 day trek to the Simien mountains.

We had to find a tour company that we could trust and was leaving in the next day or two (NOT an easy task), buy warm jackets as the temperatures at night would be below freezing, find warm hats/gloves, buy some Acetazolamide (altitude medication), buy hiking boots, buy more malaria pills for me as I was almost out, get SIM cards for our phones, and other odds and ends.  It ended up taking us almost all of our free time to accomplish these tasks, and at almost one hour prior to closing – we finally got in a cab to go visit the Royal Palace – feeling it would be too awful to not visit this UNESCO world heritage site before leaving in the am for Debark.

The Royal Palace was quite impressive, especially the castle that was actually intact.  Since we were so late, we failed to find a guide, and had to satisfy our historical curiosities by reading about each building on Lonely Planet – promising ourselves we would do more earnest research later.  Getting back to our room, we had to pack our overnight bags and combine what we were leaving into my suitcase and try to get an early night.

Fasilada’s Palace, Gonder

The next morning, we were picked up nice and early and informed that we would be getting a private tour as the Korean couple they had paired us with had never actually trekked before and our tour operator was concerned that we would leave them in the dust.  Poor Mike just looked at me and I told him that I was sorry he’d had no one else to talk to for the next 3 nights.

On arrival at park headquarters, however, we came across a lovely Polish girl, Kamila, who was looking to hire a scout and share transportation with someone to the trailhead and back from Chennek.  I told her that I’d be happy to let her share our scout and transport – but she’d have to arrange it with Tedele – our “charming” tour operator.  In the end, she paid him $50 for transport and the use of our scout – and as it turned out, she ended up having the exact same trip that we did, except for the fact that she’d brought her own tent.  We didn’t mind, per se, but she sure lucked out with getting fed at every meal – our cooks even baked her a cake on the last day of the hike for her birthday!  I was glad that Mike would have someone new to talk to – and goodness, did they ever hit it off!  They talked a lot on the trail, which was fine with me, because as many of you know, hiking in the mountains is about the only time that I’m relatively quiet – it’s my form of church.

Our first sighting of a group of Gelada monkeys – walking from Buyit Ras to Sankaber

That day the hike was short and relatively easy, though the temperatures were much higher than I had expected.  Since they were only going to feed us plain bread and bananas for lunch, I asked to stop at the Simien Lodge where I managed to finagle some ham and cheese for our rolls – which made them greatly improved.

That evening, we set up tents and got on a few layers before heading out to a viewing point to watch the sunset.  Everything about camp reminded me of Kilimanjaro – especially the little bowl of hot water they’d put out to do washing before dinner.  Already, many of the hikers at camp were feeling sick and had symptoms of AMS.  Thankfully I felt ok – at least, I did at that moment.

Dinner was very abundant, and just like on Kili, they had already fed us with popcorn and cookies so I wasn’t exactly hungry, but that didn’t stop me from pigging out.  It was lovely and warm in the cook tent, especially when they lit a nice wooden fire which we sat around with tea after dinner.

Start of Day 2 – heading to Geech

I was feeling a bit too full but fine right after dinner and was soon snugly wrapped up in my sleeping bag within a sleeping bag.  I found that I just couldn’t get comfortable and my stomach was rumbling a bit, but I put it down to having overeaten.  Around 11:30 at night, I suddenly felt bile rise in my mouth and I knew I had seconds before I was going to barf over everything in the tent, including Mike.  In those few seconds, I managed to locate my headlamp, unzip my sleeping bags, unzip the tent and stick my head out far enough that when the contents of my stomach emptied out, it was just inches from the tarp under our tent.  Feeling somewhat relieved, I crawled back inside, thinking that I would immediately feel better and be able to fall asleep.

Not so.

I started feeling nauseous and the pain in my stomach was only getting worse.  The hours crawled by slowly and I was soon writhing in agony.  Soon enough, I realized I needed the bathroom and I struggled to walk down to the outhouse because I was also starting to feel feverish and weak.  I won’t go into too much detail about what happened next – but my travel partner Mike the next day best described it as my body mandating a total body evacuation.  I sipped some water on return to my tent, believing that by now, at 3am, the worst had to be over.

I was wrong.  The next thing that happened was one of the most embarrassing and dehumanizing moments of my life.  I shat my pants, and I realized that I was too sick to be able to walk back to the outhouse without help.  I lay there crying and woke up Mike telling him what had happened through gulped tears.  God bless him, he got up and helped me walk back down the hill to the nasty nasty hole in the ground that was the outhouse.

I’m not sure how I still had that much still left inside me, and furthermore I don’t know from where I found the strength to also change my clothes while having to balance on alternating feet in my shoes.  But Mike stayed the whole time and got me some mango juice to sip on once we were back in the tent.

It was 5am and feeling horrifically weak and sorry for myself, I managed to fall asleep.

After only a few hours’ of rest, it was time for us to awaken and head out for our 5-6 hour hike to the next camp.  I didn’t think I’d be able to make it – I felt so lousy.  Problem was, Mike was insisting on accompanying me if I decided to head back to Debark and wait my illness out.   I kept telling him that I wanted him to go on and enjoy the trip without me.  He refused.

Riding the horse after being sick all night

So, – I made a decision to try and walk for the first 90 minutes at which point our guide, Gashaw, informed me that we would be crossing the main road, and if I was still too sick to continue, I would be able to arrange transport from there.

And so, in pain, nauseated and very weak – I started to put one foot in front of the other.  It was pretty bad and required all my concentration.  After the first hour, the pain eased a little bit, and in another 30 mins I found out why – my period had just started.  Oh great – exactly what I needed on top of my nasty bug, I had horrible cramps that I’d mistaken for aftermath of the night before.

At least I was feeling a little stronger, but that didn’t stop me from taking advantage of an offer of a horse ride the rest of the way to camp when we came across a boy with a horse offering rides to presumably feeble tourists who didn’t want to go uphill.  Though it really went against the grain for me to “give up” like that – I reasoned that if I took it easier that day, I just might have the strength to finish the rest of the hike that was two more days and lots more elevation gain – up to Mt Bwahit which was at 4437 M.

Our beautiful campsite at Geech

The views on arrival at our campsite that afternoon were so welcome.  It was a beautiful high altitude plain of grass, open and flat but surrounded by cliffs in all directions.   Thought it was only 4pm, I was feeling utterly spent and happily crawled into my sleeping bag and slept for three hours before I was told dinner was ready.  I also learned that the others had gone on a short hike from camp to watch the sunset and had been stampeded by a larger group of gorgeous gelada monkeys (granted we had seen them several times during the day – but this was a very up, close and personal encounter) as they tried to get past the humans to the cliffs where they would rest for the night inside caves.  I was glad I had chosen to rest and regain strength, but disappointed not to have witnessed this spectacle first hand.

Luckily, Mike was able to capture the event on video and I include it here for your viewing pleasure.

That night in Geech was particularly cold.  I got up around 10pm to take a pee, and for the second night, I noticed our 64-year old scout – a delightfully cheerful though non-English speaking man – sitting out in the open air wearing nothing more than his shirt, thin jacket and a tarp for warmth.  I literally feared for his life and was so worried that I ended up taking the extra jacket that I’d bought in Gonder and went over to where he was keeping watch and offered it to him.  At first he motioned with his hand, “Anita…no, no, it ok!” but then I forcibly unwrapped him from his tarp and put his arms inside the jacket, the hood up over his head and zipped him all the way up.  To my delight, it fit him perfectly (it is very disturbing that the men I come into contact with here seem to all have a body shape and size that would mean I could share my wardrobe with them!)  From that point on, he wore my jacket most of the day, removing it only in the heat of midday – and even then, leaving the detachable hood on his head like the coolest dude ever.  I loved Nursie…he said almost nothing, but was always smiling, saying my name, and saying “Good, good Anita! Strong!”

I gave him the jacket to keep on the last day of the trip.

Nursie – our fearless but chilled scout who kept watch over us

The altitude and remnants of my illness had destroyed my appetite and I forced myself to have a little soup and bread most nights, got porridge in me for the morning and snacked lightly during the day.   As such, I found myself having lost much of the weight I’d gained during my time in West Africa – so being sick and this high up did have some positive consequences.

The third day’s hike was pretty tough – about 8 hours of walking, and I was proud that I managed it – despite still vacating most of what I was eating along the way.  One time I went to pee and found that I peed out of my butt instead without warning.  I felt bad because one is supposed to dig a deep hole to avoid the almost extinct Ethiopian wolves from accidentally ingesting your feces and suffering fatal consequences.  Incidentally, the beetroots I’d managed to eat the night before had turned my product a violent pink color.  I looked for a giant rock to, at the very least, cover up the evidence that I’d failed to “leave no trace”, only to accidentally drop it from a height that caused everything to spatter raspberry colored shit over the entire surrounding area, including my shoes and trekking poles.  I had to use up some of my precious drinking water to rectify the situation, and be on my way – now precariously behind the rest of the group and getting slower as the afternoon wore on.

Looking back, it is still quite a funny story – and I am so proud of myself for not giving up and for pressing on.

More Geladas

As a sidenote to all this talk of excrement (my apologies, dear readers) – the scenery we were passing through was pretty immense and spectacular, despite the fact that it was rather brown given the time of year and it being the dry season.  Much of the wide expanse of ridges below us reminded me of a lighter colored south rim of the Grand Canyon.  Once we’d made it to Imet Gogo – all the suffering was made worthwhile by the incredible views we got to enjoy from this high point.  Unfortunately, this is the typical turnaround point for all the folks who choose to do the 2 night/3 day itinerary.  I found, however, that it was the scenery and the ability to walk along a long ridgeline the rest of the afternoon before descending to Chennek and our 3rd camp night – to be the highlight of the whole trek.

On the descent to Chennek, Mike and I spotted our one far away Ibex, which made us happy – though we were hoping to spot more the next day.  On arrival at camp, we were happy to note that there was a cold water well with a pump where we could take an ice-cold bucket shower.  We took it in turns to pump water for one another, hastily, as the sun was setting and it would soon be cold both by water and air temperature.

3rd day on the way to Chennek

At Imet Gogo

I took another early night as I was very spent, forcing myself to eat a little food.  The group had quite a rowdy dance/singalong by the fire that night, and I tried so hard to enjoy it for as long as I could, then grabbing my hot water bottle and bidding all a good night.

Singalong around the campfire

The next day was an optional day hike to the summit of Bwahit – the second highest mountain in Ethiopia.  Though I had told myself I didn’t really have to summit – I don’t easily give up, and despite having another bout of diarrhea, I proudly made the summit – albeit much more slowly than the rest of the team.  I felt an amazing sense of accomplishment, especially after noting several of the members of other groups on the mountain turning around, tired or deterred by the extreme altitude.

I made it!

Celebrating the summit of Mt. Bwahit

After some celebratory summit shots, I was happy to point my feet downhill for the last time.  We loaded back into 4 x 4’s and were treated to a nice sunny field picnic lunch on the way back where Kamila was presented with a birthday cake made for her by our cook, Messy.

I was relieved when we got to Debark, and though very pissed off at having another drama just getting our bags back (which I talked about in the last article) – was so happy to finally find ourselves in a room at the Hotel Sona resting a bit before going out for dinner.  Unfortunately, the room we found (that Kamila shared since it was a family room with four beds and adjoining rooms) was on the 4th floor of the hotel that didn’t have an elevator – so you can imagine how it felt going up and down those stairs with luggage after the day we’d had.  To add insult to injury, the water was shut off for a few hours but we finally were able to take a restorative lukewarm shower.

Men getting it on, I mean “dancing”, on the dancefloor in Debark

We had agreed to meet up with Messy and Gashaw for dinner, and they took us to a bar where we started with beer.  Everyone was up and dancing (shoulder dancing, that is – my first introduction into this uniqe and rather strange custom of dance that doesn’t include much in the way of hip or lower body movement.)   Funny thing is – it took 30 minutes after we’d ordered food for the waiter to come over and tell us that they were out of food!

Turns out this was the last night before lent and 55 days of fasting for Ethiopians.  So finding food was going to be difficult.  We finally left and went to another bar where more guys were dancing (only with other guys and in an alarmingly intense manner) and I was able to order some injera with veggies and minced meat.  I ate a little and then made my apologies and headed back to our hotel.

It was only a few blocks, but I still managed to get harassed multiple times on the way back.  I was so not in the mood and needed my bed.

What a memory-filled trek it had been.  Proud and happy that I finished what I had started.  It really reminded me how much physical suffering is and can be mind-over-matter.  I pushed myself, hard.  And I had made it!