Ethiopia 1999
Whew! What a hell of a country, it is extremely hard to know where to start to tell the story but here goes...
Ethiopia, with 13 months of sunshine so says this tourist Dept. advertisement found in an old mud pub. It actually means with their calender there is actually 13 months in a year, but yes it's pretty hot, dusty, old, poor and very eroded. The good news is that it may be one of the most interestingly different countries in the world today due to it's lack of western trappings.
Flying into Addis Ababa (New Flower) although behind the scenes is probably indicative of the condition of the rest of the country, the main streets are like anywhere else, well Eastern Europe anyway. They have this hideous eight lane road in the centre of the city which is very well kept and is apparently used to parade their lovely array of Soviet arms. Not much happening in that department anymore however, although Eritrea loves to have a go at big brother when ever they can.More on that later, in the meantime meet "New Mick" as we called him as he showed us the first seven days of wandering nowhere in particular. He has been around this area however and showed our Mick the Ethiopian way. After seven days he took off.
We headed out east to a festival at St Gabriel (Orthodox Christian country this is) after Xmas day festivities in Addis. Our first taste of the attention we were to get which became over bearing, in fact almost unbearable as we went on. These kids playing traditional music, sounded great but like all the kids (probably trained by all the aid agencies) yelled "you you you", "pen pen" or "give me money" etc. Camping in the wild or "free camping" as Economic like to call it, meant a hoard of fascinated people in our face ALL the time. Opinions ranged from "well they haven't got TV have they" to "nothing else to do". Why do they like to sit right by our fire chewing then spitting out sugar cane all over the place.
Back to Addis again (it became a regular thing) then heading north, not all roads have usable bridges, come to think of it not many roads you could call roads actually, only 5000kms of sealed roads here but then only 50,000 vehicles compared with Britain say, who is a quarter the size and has over a million km of roads and 20,000,000 vehicles. Both countries have 55,000,000 inhabitants. Anyway here we ford a river and have a much needed wash as well while this bloke with the gun, oh that's right, everyone carries a gun, even the kids, and they are good AK47's and the like, not all loaded though not that we checked it out too closely. Yes this bloke was watching the girls and perhaps the boys but then there is always someone watching you in this country. One of many dreamy campsites followed many dirty dusty roads (sorry, goat tracks)
Now Lisa, who is not really camp mother, was suitably dunked in the river which no doubt carried some disease and was suitably escorted back to camp by the hoards. OK Nicky's knickers hanging in the truck as we take off to and through one of many basic dusty basic villages on what was to be 42 days of a gruesome stressful challenging expedition through, up, and around the worlds' third poorest country. Thanks to thirty years of a stupid civil war supported and financed by the Soviets and with Cuban troop help, no one took away the damaged tanks and artillery which is rusting by the side of the roads in many areas.
We boys did love seeing and climbing over the rusting armoured cars and tanks though and Andy's hobby was armourments so he had a field day as we headed forever north. Remember that Addis Ababa was really the only civilized western sort of looking place in the country. The rest of the country's towns and villages had only mud roads and mostly mud huts and yes! pubs. Remember this is a Christian country so drinking was part of it unlike the Moslem countries where they try to frown upon it. Here Darren is absorbed in a book whilst perched on top of "The Truck" whilst dramatic scenery leading through mountains and valleys passes him by. In fairness he did lead a team on a seven day hike in rain and snow through the Simian mountains just to show off his army background and to piss a few novice trampers off. Which we think he did but all good fun.
Does this sign mean "Stop" get your aids here! or does it mean "Stop" English reading people spreading it around. As one report recently suggested that if Aids comes from monkeys then what were American gays doing having sex with them. never mind, here we are in Debark another one of those wonderful Ethiopian Las Vegas style villages 'not'. Grabbing a couple of guides (see the truck shot justify rear) and thirty k's up a goat track and we are at the base camp in the mountains home of the Gelabo baboons, Simian foxes and the Ibex (antelope) not that you get to see the foxes. Here is the team ready for their seven day trek whilst the rest of us would carry on and they would nine days later meet us in Lalabela.
Well the Baboons were great and easy to film. They looked like a lion version of a baboon with their great amount of hair down their shoulders just like a lion. Also note the red diamond shaped skin on their chest. Very grand and unique to the Simian Mountains of northern Ethiopia. Leaving the Simians after a good drenching from the storm, down back to Debark as Rob makes the big mistake of thinking he can cycle on these roads through these mountains, fat chance, after thirty kms and the bolts having loosened it was decided that even mountain bikes couldn't do it, god knows the truck broke enough springs and blew many tyres so what chance was there for a slick American road bike. Great experience though.
Onward through yet more dramatic scenery. Many large African birds like this hornbill. Into Axum, a famous ancient city they say, well not even interesting enough to film so onto Adigrat which was interesting if only because of the preparations for the imminent war with Eritrea. This poor bloke in the doorway didn't have much to do with it unless he was a spy? This old guy fighting this kid was not nice to see. Only 20kms from the Eritrean border....
ETV (Ethiopian Television) thought we were good for some propaganda as we were the only travellers to visit what was to be a city that was two weeks later bombed by the Eritreans. Some army guys chatting over the road from this army truck, and two vets with crutches hopping along. Time to move on after eating some of that rubber underlay and glue which is called Injura which is actually this great flat bread with different spicy sauces and Tibs which is a plate of fatty chewy goat or whatever.
Talking of a buildup for war, well we certainly saw it as we headed south from Adigrat. Damn nice new artillery covered up in tarps, along with the usual tanks and oh this cargo of possible ammo, didn't quite make the corner. Another day over and as usual camping out in the wild. The next morning seeing the clouds below us certainly brought home how high up we were.
Ethiopia must take the cake when it comes to soil erosion and this mountain is a good example. One of the worlds oldest civilizations' has been cutting down forests to create farm land and to use the wood for houses and firewood since man knew how to make fire so no wonder, they now grow eucalyptus trees from Australia to rebuild the land and gain some more firewood. There is the odd iron clad architectural delight however. Here they come again, more kids yelling at us. Mick is filling in time by showing the kids how to roll a smoke, yes we are the mobile education dept.
Another village on state highway No.1 and here is a shot of the royal wave of Queen Mary. Probably over 50 million people have experienced this famous wave as Mary is forever showing much affection for the locals. Yes this really is an engineering works but you can see that, and Mary meets a local kid to show her around the market.
Some of these places look as though they will fall down or dissolve when the rains come but somehow they seem to hold, it's just a good thing we're not trying to get through here in the rainy season. Now some villages are lucky to have their very own corrugated iron cones and call them "The Piazza". Here is Norman cooking his favourite breakfast, pancakes. Good idea really as we either had too many eggs for pancakes or not enough for frying unless your into 1.45 eggs per person.
It appears that Lalabela is the religious capital of Ethiopia so you would think it would be quite a place. Well it wasn't except that as we were packing up to leave our campsite which was a disused municipal collection of buildings and grounds, the festival which had actually been celebrated all weekend, was making its way up the road, and very colourful it was too. The high priests and the burning of perhaps, incense and some ritual where they rattle bells at each other from on the hill to the other guys on the other side of the road. All very colourful!
Staying at one of four lakes south of Addis, the only one without belhazia in the water was very pleasant for a swim and observing the beautiful coloured birds and the ever present kids mucking around the waters edge. Next day and our own breed of monkeys swing away from the top rail of the truck. We think they ate too much injura that day.
Rob meets up with a kid called Desalegnee in the town of Jinka as we head south west to the Omo region. The need was to stock up before we leave civilization mind you it felt as though we had justify it when we justify Addis. The towns' water supply via a fenced well. A birthday for young Paul, so the girls, led by Mary, gave him the morning wake up he wasn't expecting.
Cannot remember which lake this is but it was recommended to us as a place to see crocodiles and perhaps Hippos. Well yet again the advise was wrong, perhaps they were out there but we were not game to hire these unsafe log canoes/rafts/floating something for some outrageous price only to fall over and be eaten up so instead we took in the sites of men catching very large fish and then cut them up under the watchful eyes of the local vultures. Classic middle class farm housing. Passed many hundreds of these in the more fertile regions and note the tilling of the fields done the same way the Irish did it up till only twenty years ago. Camped out in what was the real beginnings of nowhere as if other places we camped were not in the middle of nowhere except this was getting even more interesting. Not many white people travel through these parts, if any, going by the way this great looking guy was running his hands through Robs hair.
I for one really never thought there were people living like they always did, untouched by the west, but sure enough here they were, the Hammer people of South West Ethiopia. Beautiful women with great looking jewelry and an interesting shiny dish worn on their forehead. Things were getting really rural now. There were no roads, just a sand track as we tried to take them through to Kenya and bypass the otherwise boring route through Moyale over to the east.
Oh Problem! These are the Omo peoples where no roads and no Coke signs are seen and where it appears you can get through if you can shoot the border guards before they shoot you. Even bribery didn't help so having travelled through hell but having seen the most interesting people anywhere, it was time we headed back hundreds of kms to take the real border crossing.
This looks more normal. Huge horns on the cattle are a familiar site throughout Ethiopia, perhaps its for protection or perhaps they can't afford to have them cut off. Shame about the quality of beef that comes off these great beasts, it's all in the cut and possibly the stressful way the cattle are killed, who knows? Entering a very fertile region as we head east then south and the housing changes to even being more aerated and real roads still with overloaded vans and trucks then into the sunset as we head south to Kenya......It will take an even greater adventure to find a more diverse and interesting place than Ethiopia.