Ethiopia - a land of extremes

Wednesday 26th November - Saturday 5th December 2009
Days 150 - 160

Our bodies took a pounding in Ethiopia. About halfway through the trip Layla was as ill as Ive seen her - fever, chest infection, stomach problem whilst I was eating for two in the shape of tape worm.

Ethiopia itself was fascinating. A land of extremes. We started in Addis Ababa, flying in from Kigali. Ethiopian Airways are hilarious. Like a public bus they just seem to decide to make random stop offs to pick up more people. We stopped in Entebbe, Uganda as the plane wasn't full.

Our two day introduction to Addis Ababa was certainly an eye opener - a vast, sprawling city situated at altitude with a thick smog lying above it like a sandwich spread. There was more homelessness, disease, disability and desperation than I have seen in Africa so far. In the morning we were walking knee-deep through the homelessness, people sheltering under blankets protecting them from the baking sun and by the afternoon we were sipping a macchiato in the beautiful gardens of the University. Remember what I said - Extremes!

From Adis (as his mates call him) we took a 12 hour coach journey to the historical town of Gonder - gateway to the stunning Simien Mountains. Whilst internal flights were cheap, travelling overland on our 'Young Man' branded coach complete with bullet sized hole in windscreen and the tagline 'German Technology; Chinese Price'. Add to this the sheer speed the coach driver decided to travel at and you could understand our anxiety. Especially as we had a front row seat directly behind lunatic driver.

The scenic countryside of Ethiopia soon took our attention away from sheer fear as we twisted up and around huge mountains dipping down into deep valleys with views stretching green threw to the horizon.

Back again to shear panic again as we started to see burned out vehicles at the side of the road. And then in the road. A couple that flipped on their roof followed by the inevitable. A shiny bust up 4x4 completely blocking our path.

 Another thing we noticed was the sheer volume of people in this country-roaming the streets, out in the fields, watching the world go by. What was most evident was that even in the most remote location an incident or accident will draw a crowd. People seem to come out of the woodwork from absolutely nowhere.

Needless to say this road accident created a huge crowd. Some rough looking village folk. And the kids. The kids looked wild.

After a while the kids got bored with the vehicle more interested with the farangi (white folk) on the coach. Within 15 minutes we had a crowd of 20 kids staring up at us, as the only westerners on the coach, and there they stayed until eventually the vehicle was towed out of our path.

Gonder was grand containing a royal enclosure complete with castle that dominated the town. We spent a day looking around before heading to the Simien Mountains where we completed a three day trek which was fantastic apart from we both came down with an illness that knocked us sidewards. The major issue was energy levels and add to this an unpredictable backside we weren't in the best shape for a mountain climb.

The worst of it came at our camp where the toilet was a hole in the ground situated 100 metres down a steep embankment.  The amount of times Layla and I made that journey was ridiculous through night and day sometimes handing the baton (toilet roll) over at the halfway point of the hill.

Once again the sheer volume of people became apparent as way up in the remote Simien Mountains we unzipped our tent to be faced with around 15 village folk sat at our entrance starring into our tent.

Next up Lalibela. Ethiopia just seemed to visually get better and better. The town's centrepiece was a series of churches carved down out of the rock dating back to the 12th century when King Lalibela returned from a 25 year stay in Jeruselum intent on creating Ethiopia's equivalent.

It was hard to get your head around how magical this place was. Aside from the churches there was a nice friendly vibe, a real community spirit, beautiful steep cobbled street, arts and crafts, great coffee, beer and honey wine. We were also lucky enough to be there on Market day which was crazy chaos but unforgetable. Do you get the feeling we liked this place?