Replaced by robots + genetically-enhanced monkeys
Trip Start
Apr 08, 2003
1
5
14
Trip End
Aug 2003
Addis Ababa,
Ethiopia
Wednesday, April 30, 2003
So, to start at the beginning...
We left Addis Ababa early on the morning of the 11th. In the Toyota Landcruiser was Alicia and Arnold, an American couple driving from England to Cape Town, Mark, an Australian travel photographer living in Kuwait and myself.
We headed south out of the capital, aiming for Arba Minch that day.
The drive was long and interesting. Two things struck me. Firstly the negative attitude of the people towards us. As we passed person after person after person turned and just held their hand out towards us. When we stopped the car would be mobbed, mainly by normal people just trying to get money.
Our reception in Shashamene was less than pleasant. As we turned south-west towards Sodo I kept thinking "I have to go back there - what the hell have I got myself into? These people are going to take me apart when I turn up there alone".
Everywhere we went people shouted at us: "You, you, you" or "Faranji, faranji, faranji"
(corruption of "Frank" which dates back to the Crusades and was spread around the area as a term for Westerners by Arab traders).
We passed through Sodo which was a famine area in 1984. Here the second thing struck me. We passed village after village where piles of white sacks full of grain and printed with "USAWheat" or "Gift of the EU" were being passed out to milling, surly crowds of people. Yet the fields around them were teeming with ripe bananas, false bananas, sugarcane, corn, barley, cotton, papaya, and so on.
Whether its to make up for a short fall last season I don't know but it seemed kind of strange. I know Mark was very cynical about the whole thing.
If there is a problem in the south - its one of overpopulation. There is people everywhere. You can't even stop the car to go to the toilet without it being mobbed. All the young Ethiopians I talked to later despaired about it. Ethiopias population has doubled in 15 years or so and this is one of the major strains on the country. In one young guy, Kassahun, I talked to summed it up well: "People need to learn to have 2 babies, not 8. Otherwise our country is going to die."
We reached Arba Minch as the sun was falling and I was pretty heavy thinking about what I'd seen that day. We camped at a government hotel with a spectacular view over two lakes and it was nice to switch off my head and share a couple of bottles of cheap wine with my new friends.
It was also my first opportunity at using my new, 1 man tent. I drifted off in its tight confines, leaving the door open and only having the mesh screen up to guard against mosquitos.
Sometime in the morning I stirred. I glanced out and maybe 10m away a shape moved, silhouetted by the hotel driveway lights. It move silently up to the car where it sniffed around the dirty plates before moving on. In my dazed state it took me a few seconds to realise it was a cerval cat (picture a domestic tabby x4 in size and x10 in meanness) or a jackal.
I hunkered down in my sleeping bag trying to ignore it. About 30 minutes later something, I assume my nocturnal friend, came up and started nudging my tent. I jumped up shouting and heard something move away quickly through the long grasss.
Too terrified and hyped to sleep, I lay there and waited. Maybe an hour later all hell broke loose and two shapes tore past my tent, one small - possibly a domestic cat, the other the cerval cat. They disappeared into the brush behind the hotel and soon after a long wailing scream drifted across the campsite for a few minutes as the prey was slowly dispatched.
I was glad when morning broke and we swapped stories about the night's events. After breakfast we headed up into the hills around Arba Minch to a village called Chencha which is the home of the Dorze people.
The scenery changed quickly from tropical lowland to misty mountain forest and sweeping inclined grasslands.
"Its so much like Guatamala or Colombia," commented Alicia as we navigated the twisting mud tracks.
It was market day in Chencha and the people were nicer than we'd experience so far. A mob followed Alicia (strange farangi woman) and Mark (a camera with a giant lens over both shoulders) but didn't seem to interested in me which was nice as I could navigate much easier and look at things without being bombarded by questions and sales pitches.
From the Dorze village we descended back to town and into Nechissar National Park.
We drove to a camping area near a police substation passing a stream of locals on the road, all turning to us with the ubiquitous hand out.
Again I was preoccupied by this negative gimme-gimme attitude towards foreigners as we pitched camp overlooking the twin lakes surrounding Arba Minch.
In the distance I saw for the first time something which is common in Africa, an electrical storm in the distance but which stays on the horizon, whipping up and ionizing the air but not reaching you. It was pretty spectacular watching the forks streaking down over the mountains marking the far border of the park.
The park scouts helped us set up camp.
"This is a little tent," said one to me.
"Yeah, nice and small."
"Do you have a weapon? A gun or a knife?"
"Why?"
"Oh, only hyaenas..."
That little dialogue made me nervous as hell. Ironically, Mark, who is pretty calm and collected, was infected by my jitters and didn't sleep that night either.
Of course when a pack of Hyaenas is cackling away about 30m from where you're lying, its pretty hard to sleep. They sound like the animal incarnation of an evil clown killer. And from the valley below the unique, low rumbling call of a lion rose up.
For the second morning in a row I was glad when the sun rose.
We were treated to rain, low and thick and cloying. We left the camp and found the main road blocked by a local car which had run out of oil. They'd been there since the afternoon the day before and weren't going anywhere soon.
We took a smaller, subsidiary path and the famous Omo earth turned from smooth, dark tracks to viscous, black muck which sucked the car into ruts which appeared from nowhere. And this was only after an hour of rain.
We'd seen no animals bar a couple of baboons hunkering down under a tree out of the cold.
Dejected we turned back. The local were still stuck. There was only one path left, up the hill away from our camp. Having no other choice we took it.
The car navigated the mud with difficulty. Later Arnold said it was some of the worst road he'd seen in the whole of Africa.
The rain began to clear and we moved onto the main road. Soon we saw a gazelle in the distance, then a few more, then herds of zebra, a couple of hartebeest (like a cross between a cow and a horse), dik diks, baboons, ground hornbills, bustards and of course, like everywhere in Ethiopia, emaciated cows and cocky goats.
Blasting off photos and leaving the car to get a few meters from the zebra, we had a great time after such a disappointing start.
We entered some swamp on the out skirts of the park for lunch and amid the biting tsetse flies (no sleeping sickness in that area luckily) we stopped. While we were cooking a lone figure emerged out of the bush, a Kalishnikov over one shoulder and a long knife tucked into his belt.
He came over, sat down about 2m from the car and just watched us. He made me distinctly nervous and I lost my appetite and put my energy into helping Arnold change a tyre with a slow puncture in it instead.
After an hour or so we were ready to leave. As we backed out our friend stood up, waved, and disappeared back into the undergrowth. We'd probably made his week.
That night we camped out overlooking Lake Chayo. It was an incredible spot and we watched the sunset while finishing off some whiskey I had from Britain and eating sardines.
After removing the ticks which were feeding like mad on me I retired to bed. I had a secret weapon though. After two nights of almost no sleep I was exhausted. Alicia gave me an anti-histhamene which completely knocked me out. Had a great 8 hours kip.
The next morning we returned to Arba Minch and got a crappy hotel. We ate, washed clothes, enjoyed a cold shower and spent the afternoon lazing at the bar drinking US40cent beers. Mark, Alicia and Arnold said their goodbyes. They'd been travelling for a while and had got pretty tight.
Mark left very early the next morning and the rest of us left south for Konso.
A little out of Arba Minch the asphalt stopped and the mud track began.
We arrived in Konso a few hours later and Alicia and Arnold dropped me off at the main hotel at the town square (where the 2 dirt tracks which make up Konso cross each other). After a pepsi stop we said our goodbyes and the guys continued south towards Kenya.
They've got a great website which you can check out with a much more detailed series of impressions from the areas we visited and some photos. The site is:
http://www.aandagotoafrica.com
and the bit where I was with them is:
http://www.aandagotoafrica.com/html/ethiopiajournal3.html .
Konso is the nucleus for several villages around the area belonging to a unique ethnic and cultural group.
After leaving my stuff at the hotel I made my way up to the tourist office. There I met an old guide with a walking stick named Dinote. He usually charges loads to guide people into the Omo Valley but there's very few tourists here at the moment and I think boredom more than anything prompted him to show me round the villages for 3 days for free. I did give him $10US before I left as a gift though.
The Konso villages are fortified stone enclosures with tight streets between each family compound. At each crossroad is a large hut, raised off the ground, where the village's young males sleep while they are unmarried.
Dinote explained the culture of the region which was pretty fascinating. We also went to a local drinking den and I tried tej which is a honey mead with a kick. We also visited his home and I sat down with the male members of the village and drunk tchaka, their local beer, out of hollowed out gourds.
Unfortunately I didn't know that the beer is only half beer and is topped up with local water.
And the water there is very unclean. I was sick by the morning.
In one of my wanderings one of the local urchins came up to me and handed me a necklace made out of shells.
"Buy this mister!"
"Sorry, not really my thing. What is made out of?"
Where would they get shells from this far inland??
"Insects."
"Insects?"
"Yes, mister. Insects."
I suddenly realised that the shells were the same colour as the giant cockroaches that came streaming out of the squat toilet towards my torchlight when I went for a crap the night before.
"You know what, kid? If you want a good laugh give this to the next faranji woman you see and once she's holding it, tell her what it is. Ok?"
"Ok, mister!"
My final day in Konso was market day. Rainy season had started but it was clear that afternoon. I spent a few hours walking around talking to people, drinking tej and tchaka (this was when I discovered that this was what was making me sick), and entertaining the local kids by taking off my hat and showing them my hair or my watch.
I decided to leave the next day. I had initially planned to head even further south to a town called Jinka but gave up on that. My bad guts and the rain turning the roads into vile mush had convinced me to head back.
As I will explain more in the next post, the buses in Ethiopia all leave at the same time, 6am, from everywhere. So where in Turkey I could travel 24 hours straight to get across the country, changing buses at different towns and never having more than an hour or so of down time, here you get one 2 hour bus and have to wait until the next day to continue.
I headed to Arba Minch and we had only one flat tyre which was good. Mark had told me a few horror stories so I was prepared for the worst.
After resting up in Arba Minch I felt better but still had the runs. Unfortunately the hotel I was at has more customers paying by the hour than by the night. So they lock the bloody toilets at night so the dodgey bastards can't use them after their time with one of the bar girls. Fair enough - but no good for a faranji in dire need of the loo.
I chucked back a couple of immodiums and lay back in stomach churning misery.
As I lay there I kept hearing a scuffling sound.
I shone my torch over the room a few times and didn't find anything. Still the sound came.
I sat up and turned on the light. There trying to dig its way into my backpack was a huge red cockroach.
Jumping up and grabbing the nearest blunt object handy (War and Peace) I started bashing the crap out of it. I flicked its corpse onto the floor and it promptly got up and scuttled under the bed.
It had feigned death! The bastard!!
I swapped my book for my sandal, thinking Tolstoy wouldn't approve of my use of his masterpiece for such ruthless violence.
It was a waiting game and after a few minutes my enemy made a run for the door. I leaped across the room and crushed it into a chitinous goo. My neighbours, sitting on their porch drinking, looked at me oddly as half naked I emerged from my room whooping in victory and sweeping various insect parts out into the mud.
I had planned to head to Shashamene from Arba Minch and then to Dinsho to go hiking in the mountains of Bale National Park but realised I needed to get myself sorted out health wise before doing so.
The next morning I got a bus to a nice little lake town near Shashamene called Awasa. I humped my gear 3km into town, initially going the wrong way thanks to Lonely Planet's map of the place being completely and utterly wrong.
The hotel there was paradise after the south. A room with a bathroom (western toilet) and hot shower (I'd had 2 cold ones in about 10 days) was US$2.50. I started a course of antibiotics I had with me (thanks Dai!!) and by the next afternoon I was back on form.
I chilled around town, enjoying the sight of colobous monkeys playing in the trees around the lake and huge, fantastically groutesque storks soaring over head. Everytime I saw one I smiled thinking of Gormenghast and finally understanding Peake's continued use of comparing one of his characters to a stork.
I got my supplies for trekking in Bale and headed to Shashamene the next morning. That's when I did my short post last week.
From Shashmene it was a 6am start and 6 hour slog up into the mountains on dirt tracks overlooking some breathtaking scenery. I couldn't help but think how bad these roads would be after some rain. Little did I know I was going to find out in a week.
Dinsho is a nice little town nestled at around 3000m from sea level. It has no electricity and is basically shacks on the sides of the main road.
It was market day when I arrived and villagers on horseback and foot were drifting in from the surrounding villages. It had a real central asian feel and a much stronger Islamic influence than in the mainly Protestant deep south. It was the first time in Ethiopia I had seen Arab scarves and veiled women.
A guide met me at the bus stop and initially I was wary of him. You give no quarter to anyone here near buses except the bus drivers and helpers. Otherwise you'll have someone trying to extort money out of you and though you just walk away without giving any, its still unpleasant and avoided by a bit of hardnose pushiness and agression.
I realised he was ok after my seatmate on the bus vouched for him and we walked up to the Park HQ.
I nearly died.
The altitude was intense and after a 10 minute walk up a gentle hill with my backpack, I slumped against the lodge door and a sucked in air like a drowning man.
My guide, Danel, assured me I'd adapt in a couple of days and we got down to organising the trek.
It was expensive, mainly because I was alone. If I'd managed to met a couple of other faranjis I could of split the costs. Doesn't matter though because it was worth every cent.
The Park HQ, Dinsho Lodge, is fantastic. Nestled in the mountains it was refurbished by a Norweigan company after one of their employee accidently burned it down. Its like something you'd find in Switzerland, not the Horn of Africa.
Big, spacious, airy with lots of dorm rooms, comfy couches, a fireplace, satellite TV (for when the Lodge generator kicks in at 6pm), beer, a spa pool. The only bad thing is the cold showers - ok in the lowlands but at 3000m a bit chilly.
When you walk outside its not unusual to see bushbuck and great ugly warthogs grazing nearby. I had to navigate the group of Poomba's cousins on the way to shower on my first night.
And the incredible thing is that I was the only person staying there. Out of 32 beds. Such a shame but great for me.
That night I tried to watch the news with the park ranger, Mr Abdullah but found it too depressing and after 2 minutes went into my room to read. I'd rediscovered after 2 weeks of no news that ignorance is bliss. After seeing khaki clad American soldiers kicking in doors and shooting their M4s I realised that reading books written a century ago and having my own experience here and now was much preferable than taking on the world's problems.
One thing from reading War and Peace which has freaked me out though is how similar Napolean's rhetoric and political tactics leading up to the invasion of Russia almost 200 years ago and George Bush and his mates' is now.
We left the lodge at about 11am. Our team consisted of myself, Danel and a scout from the Park HQ (compulsory). The scout was a tall, wiry, tacit bloke named Abday with grey scattered in his short curly hair and an ancient Lee Enfield of one shoulder. We also had two horses, Adi (White) and Bokra (brown).
I later renamed Bokra to "Old Farty" because I've never seen a living creature pass so much wind.
One night over the camp fire Danel explained the she had been biten on the anus and vagina by a hyaena (Hyaena's have the strongest jaw of any land mammal and can bite through steel plates).
The wound had healed but a little tear was left, explaining the farting.
Suddenly it wasn't so funny anymore.
We walked for 6 days, camping for 5 nights.
The park was fantastic. Each day's scenary was unique and stunning, be it scree plains at the foot of the mountains, heavily wooded gorges, moonscape foothills or steppe-like bowls between jagged escarpments.
By the end of the 3rd day we'd climbed from 3000m to over 4000m. I'd adapted quickly to the breathing part of the altitude but struggled with altitude headaches. I just had to drink lots of water and pee out the fluid pressing on the brain.
But it was never unbearable and didn't diminish the uplifting feeling of walking in a place so detached from the world. You're closer to God up there than Man.
Except for the Cow People. The Cow People are nomadic herders who spend months at a time in the mountains with their herds. They come down to the lowlands in rainy season so there weren't many around during my week.
It was surreal to be walking along and come across a wooden pallisaded cave mouth, fronted by tattered white flags, flapping languidly in the breeze, while mist and rain swirled around you. The flags were to scare away baboons while the Cow People were absent. Real Conan the Barbarian ambience.
It rained every day to different extents. The short rainy season had started, late, when I was in Konso and was now in full flow. I didn't begrudge it though. Bale is one of the regions that has been effected by the drought. We walked past dozens of cow and horse carcasses which were testement to this.
Where everything was green now and streams were bubbling with clear water, Danel told me that 2 weeks before he'd passed this way and everything was dead, brown and desolate.
Makes you realise how powerful and capricious nature is.
The first night we camped and used a little nook in a small escarpment to dry out and make strong, sweet black tea - the staple of trekking.
We spotted a jackal just before going to bed. He was sitting watching us about 15m away and slunk away guiltily when we lit him up with our spotlights.
The next morning we spotted our first Ethiopian Wolf.
The Ethiopian wolf is endemic to Ethiopia and is very rare. There's less than 1000 left and they are spread between Simien and Bale National Parks. The main threats to their survival are the Cow People and rabies and other diseases from the Cow People's dogs.
Sightings of other wildlife was disappointing on the whole trek, only a couple of klipspringers, warthogs and millions of rats. But the wolves were fantastic.
Danel said that some tourists go 4 or 5 days without seeing any but we saw 3 on our 2nd day, a pack of 5 on the 3rd morning, a pack of 4 on the 4th morning and followed a female for half an hour on the 4th afternoon.
I got a couple of photos but they will probably be a blurry landscape with a red-brown spot on the horizon.
The second night we slept in a Cow People cave which was cool. The third night was camped beside a beautiful lake named Gabregurache.
By this stage I'd got used to my claustrophobic tent and the animal noises around. I knew what call was an owl, a ground rail, a francolian, a buzzard, a wolf, the horses eating, chewing, burping, farting, urinating, crapping, getting up, getting down, snorting and snoring. Sleep became no problem and combined with the physical exertion I slept like a baby for the rest of the trek.
The fourth night we camped in a Cow People hut at the bottom of a stark valley. Here I picked up some new friends.
I woke in the morning to feverish itching on my legs. I'd been bitten to death by fleas. They were by now well established in and on my person and gear. I had no choice but to lump it.
We spent the last night camped under a rock overhang overlooking a river. We'd avoided the Cow People huts nearby because they'd been slaughtering some of their livestock. Hyaenas would be about and Danel wanted to keep the horses (and us hopefully) safe so we backtracked until we found a good spot.
That evening it was cloudburst and we had an exciting 30 minutes digging trenches and building stone dykes to stop the water flooding down from above into out campsite.
Crisis averted and as the clouds cleared and the stars began shining their secrets I sat back with a cup of araki (local grain spirit) and regreted how I had to return to civilisation. Life is simple up there, you wake up, eat, walk, stop, eat, warm yourself by the fire, sleep. I remembered about how Tolstoy gave up his wealth and title and went and lived and worked as a farmer in the Russian steppe and envied him.
The next afternoon back in Dinsho. I had a long, cold shower and went into town to meet Danel. I needed to get my boots fixed - I'd opened up the instep on both. We gave them to the shoe guy and went and got something to eat.
He invited me to go and chew chat with his friends.
I should explain what chat is: the drug of choice in Ethiopia, and throughout this part of the world, Africa and Arabia, is chat. A lot of muslims eat it as in different interpretations of Islam its not regarded as a drug and therefore not forbidden (not in Saudi though - they're shit out of luck).
Chat is branches of soft green leaves. Its not prohibited it at all and when a bus stops somewhere people come on selling it along with nuts and tissues.
As a drug it is a mild stimulant, much like Cocoa leaves I imagine. Its cheap, less than US$1 for enough to get you wasted and everyone here does it. Its not unusual to be talking to someone and the verdant stink of crushed vegetation to come from their mouths and green-stained gums.
I'd avoided it until now but decided to try it to see what the big deal is about.
We went to his friend's house and sat round on cushions on the floor and chewed and drunk sweet tea.
The leaves taste horrible. I had to add lots of sugar. You pick a few and ball them up at the side of your mouth and slowly chew like a cow.
After a couple of hours you get talkative and slightly tingly. If you think I talk rubbish when I drink, you should of seen me on this. I don't think those guys ever want to talk to another crazy farangi.
We went through bundles of the stuff and after a while I went back to the Lodge. The stimulant effect and 4 or 5 cups of tea meant that I didn't sleep a wink. It was great opportunity to listen to music though so it wasn't wasted.
I dragged myself down to the bus stop in the morning and Danel and his mates saw me off.
The bus ride to Addis was supposed to be 7 hours tops but the rain over the past week had devastated the roads.
After 3 hours of crawling up and down the mountains we came to a stretch with 2 buses stopped in front of us.
The first was stuck and was wallowing around pointlessly in the mud. The second bus tried to sneak past but slid and after almost hitting the first bus, nearly rolled into a nearby ditch. It stopped, jack-knifed.
People were pushing, pulling, revving, filling holes with stones for about an hour before our bus driver got impatient.
He took a nice long, run up and blasted through the ruts. The back wobbled and slid but he held it and pushed out past the two stranded vehicles.
Cheering and jeering at the unfortunates left behind we ran and got onto our ride as the bus guy was desperately beating back freeloaders.
We continued the crawl west to Shashamene then north to Addis Ababa and arrived at 8pm, 12 hours after leaving Dinsho.
I got back to the Taitu and had a long hot shower, stunned at the amount of dirt that came off me. It was strange being back in the big city.
This morning I was out and about. I bought bug spray and anti-histhamenes to clear out the unwelcome colony of fleas currently squatting on my persona, got a couple of new books for the next leg and had a great meal of something besides pasta or injera for the first time in 3 weeks.
I noticed immediately the security here being tighter than before. The guards at the gates of the hotel now have hand-held metal detectors (and I think I'm the only western foreigner staying here so its not like its defending against xenophobes or something). The bank I go to to change travellers cheques round the corner had 3 guards instead of the usual one and one was armed with a Kalishnikov. They even patted me down and searched me bag when I went in. And at the post office they confiscated my walkman (but left my pocket knife!) before letting me in (don't worry - I got it back).
There's no tourists either. After being dropped off in Konso, the only westerner I talked to was a Norweigan guy working for a NGO in Arba Minch who gave me a lift into town. I was surprised but not that surprised for the south but back here I expected more. I've only seen one guy who breezed into the internet cafe then headed back out.
But, hey, I alway said I liked going places where there are no tourists! I got my wish.
Well, that's about it for now I think. I'm spending another day in Addis tomorrow before catching a train to Dire Dawe in the east on friday afternoon. Its on the original line built by the French in the late 1800s and takes 16 hours. I could go quicker by bus but I'm still a romantic at heart so I'm going for the nostalgic option.
My main goal in the East is Harar, an ancient Muslim city. But I'll let you know all about it from there (they probably have the internet) or when I get back in a week to 10 days time.
One last note: I think I mentioned it in my post from Shashamene but should highlight it again.
Since leaving the car and travelling by bus the attitude towards me by people has changed dramatically. There is still the harrasment for money and attempted scams but they're so transparent and I'm used to them. The true people here are easy to see and to know and I have a lot of respect for them.
I've met some really great people and have enjoyed the Ethiopian friendliness and hospitality immensely.
And I've even learned just to laugh when people shout "You, you, you" and "Faranji, faranji, faranji". It took a while to realise there was no malice in it, just their way which is different from that of a lad from little old New Zealand.
Until my next post, take care.
PS: My hushmail account in still inaccesible here. Grant is keeping it going for me though (cheers mate!) so I'll get to my emails eventually. If something is important I have been able to get into my nik@cdsm.co.uk account.
At some stage I'll set up a hotmail account or something.
Also...
Myles, Nick and Tiana: Sorry I haven't updated you guys yet. Had your addresses wrong in my address book.
