Jinka
Trip Start
Nov 15, 2006
1
179
228
Trip End
Jul 15, 2008
Jinka,
Ethiopia
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Jinka, Ethiopia
This morning we drove from Arba Minch to Jinka. It was a long hard drive and by the time we pull into town all the good hotels are full. We finally get rooms at the Oma Hotel for 40 Birr per night with shared squat toilets out back and no water so no shower. In fact there hasn't been municipal water in the town for months. Matt learned from some local girls that there is some dispute between the town and the district government which has resulted in the water being turned off. All the water has to be brought in by 5 gallon plastic containers. After stowing our packs away, the four of us cross the road to a Tourist Hotel where the rich people are staying with their tour groups. It is actually only a bit less dirty and primitive then the Omo, but that makes the difference so it is a good place to meet people. There we meet John and Becky whose last employment was teaching English in Dalian, China
29-01
. They plan to return to China in a few weeks to teach English in the south. They aren't staying at this hotel either, but in another place like the Omo. They have been wandering around Eastern Africa for several months traveling by public transport and hitch hiking. They recently came up by land from Kenya. So we sit around drinking St. George beer and swapping travel tales until the lights go out in the town around 10 PM. Villim is the only one of the bunch, including us, who actually is employed. He works for KLM and saves up his vacation time so he can use the one cheap flight a year he gets to spend a month or so in some strange place. In this way he has nearly covered the globe and has an encyclopedic knowledge of tourist routes and destinations. He has this habit of stroking his nose with his thumb and forefinger as if he was wiping something away that might be dangling from his nostrils, but there is nothing there. This makes you wonder if maybe his signaling that there is something dangling from yours, so you start doing the same thing. John and Beck are thirty-somethings who met in Australia and have been bumming around the world working when they have to and not when they can. They appear totally unconcerned by their difficult mode of travel in Africa which seems to have been in cramped buses or the backs trucks. Matt has made the trip from Cape Town to Addis by land and so has ridden in a few trucks also, including one from Marsabit in Kenya to Moyale at the Ethiopian border
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. He had an uncomfortable ride on top of a load of bottled Coke suffering alternately the rain and dust. We are happy we've decided to fly to Nairobi.January 30, 2008
Jinka, Ethiopia
This morning we drive out to see the Mursey tribe. These are the women with plates in their lips. This is what draws the tourist to this isolated part of the country. It costs 120 birr each to get into their restricted area plus we had to pay for an armed escort to go with us, which cost 60 birr for the whole vehicle. You don't actually go to a real village and see them in their natural setting; they meet us at the road side. The women throng the tourists each one demanding to have her photo taken at 2 birr a shot and 3 birr if she carries a baby. They grab and pull on you. The whole thing is very disturbing; it's a grotesque freak show. Our armed escort earned his money by bringing some order, but in less than 15 minutes we had enough and were ready to leave. We were advised it is best to get out to the Mursey early in the morning, because by afternoon the men have taken the money their women made and gotten drunk on local homebrew. So if you think you are helping the women by paying for their photos, you can forget that. So it was a two hour trip out to see the Mursey for 15 minutes and two hours back to Jinka for the afternoon.
We had the afternoon free and finally found the best injera we've had so far in Ethiopia. Apparently the trick is to ask for fasting injera. Ethiopian Christians have two fasting days each week, Wednesday and Friday, during which they eat no meat. To compensate they make the best injera with piles of spicy vegetables and lentils in a circle on the injera. After the meal we climbed up to a museum overlooking the city. It was built by an NGO and called the South Omo Cultural Museum (admission 20 birr). It is a long walk up, but worth it.
We are staying another night in the Oma Hotel so we go two days without a bath. But we spend the evening again at the Tourist Hotel drinking beer with our travel companions Matt and Villim as well as John and Beck who still have not left town or gone to see the Mursey. After hearing our experience there they decide not to go see the lip plate ladies.
