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facilities
Entry 31 of 79 | show all | print this entry |
The Royal Enclosure was tranquil and impressive, a series of 17th- and 18th-century palaces. Six successive kings each built their palace next to the previous one. Now semi-ruined, the most recent damage being the result of British bombing during World War II (when the Italians were here).
Down the road to Fasilidas' Bath. Apparently people used to go to the palace and say "Fasilades, where are the facilities?" and he would go "Yeah, funny," until he eventually got tired of it and built this bath at the north edge of town, and then whenever they said, "Fasilades, where are the facilities?" he would reply, "Two kilometres north of here, take a hike." That's one version; as usual, difficult to confirm.
In the absence of a guide, and to our great disappointment, Bob and I failed to locate the chicken run or the horse's mausoleum, said to be in the vicinity.
Then, apart from carelessly losing my Tilley hat, the latter half of the day was devoted to my efforts to organize a Simien Mountains trek. There are touts all around the central piazza who say they have someone waiting to start at the same time as you, and they are meeting at location X at time Y. Then they scramble around trying to line up this other person who doesn't yet actually exist. I don't think they can ever be sure whether they are cooperating or competing with each other.
On the advice of someone who sometimes called himself something like Hermon, I went to the Belegez Pension at 2 pm. There was nobody there, but a few minutes later I was called to the phone. It was Freddy from Birmingham who was coming right over. Shortly after that Hermon showed up, but to my surprise he didn't know Freddy. A bit later we connected with Christian from Stuttgart. The three of us decided to go to Debark near the park entrance the next day, and organize from there. At 5 we got together at a pastry shop to meet a Swiss guy who turned out to be imaginary.
By this time the other two had become persuaded that it was better to pay a higher fee to organize from here today, as it would resolve issues surrounding transport and mules. So we quickly hired Hermon, whose fee had somehow gone from 1500 to 1600 birr each all inclusive over the course of the afternoon. To the supermarket where we learned that all inclusive didn't cover such discretionary items as food.
One of the other touts returned and wanted a tip for introducing us to each other. Christian looked at him and said, "I've never seen you before." I couldn't remember him either until he mentioned that he had shown me a map earlier in the day. He was one of half a dozen who had steered us around. As he went off, he warned, "You will have a problem." Hermon told us that he (Hermon) had spent two months in prison as a result of a dispute with this chap.
Latest Comments (2)
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Tilley (reply)
Sep 21, 2006 02:23 EST by karanshark
I've still got the Tilley hat the I picked up on a trail in Malaysia that I had when you met me in Laos - you told me it has a lifetime guarantee, though I'm not sure if that's true! If you can't get a replacement, give me a poste restante address and I'll send it over. I don't use it anyway.
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hatless (reply)
Sep 20, 2006 01:40 EST by fran.oh
oh no! you lost your beloved Tilley hat! what happened??
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