WEATHER: Raining and overcast 17C
HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Waking up in a double bed
BUMMER OF THE DAY: It’s raining – but it’s a travel day
BUYS OF THE DAY: Finding a corner market for the first time and buying a lollipop for 5c
WORD OF THE DAY: Yaneneh – You are mine (for a boy) Yanenesh (for a girl)
Travel day today with a few stops. We have 265km to travel, which doesn’t sound much and even though we are back on tarmac roads again, we are back to tackling more than just locals walking the roads, we were back to trucks, donkeys, cars and the usual cattle but not as much as the ‘countryside’.
On the road at 8am and we had stopped at 8.20am, car no.2 having given up the ghost again for the second time. She just wasn’t going to start again this time. So Minaloo, quick on his feet again, made an executive decision within 5 minutes flat that car 2 people were shuffled into the other 3 cars and we left Johnny and Minaloo with the broken beast to sort out what their game plan was going to be and hopefully join us again sometime soon. We had to travel out of number order today as well. Car no. 3 was still blowing smoke, so they went first, Car no.1 didn’t have a spare tire (this was used yesterday) so they had to go second and then us in the still 100% awesome car went last to pick up any pieces should they happen.
We are back to pastoral countryside. A lot of the false banana plantations and corn fields. I mentioned to Lemma that I liked corn, so when we saw some guys cooking the cobs on the side of the road, we pulled up and Lemma bought a cooked cob for me and it was delicious. It cost us .11c and we went halves literally he snapped it in half, the cob was massive and it tasted just like pooped corn. All that was missing was a movie and a drink. I asked if anyone else wanted to try some to which there was a resounding no, maybe they were worried on the hygienic preparation of the cobs. The kids hands were actually filthy, but hey when in Ethiopia you gotta give it a go right! Foot note – I didn’t get sick. Lemma did another corn stop later in the morning for home. Corn in Addis is expensive, so he was under instructions from home to bring back some corn. He bought 15 cobs from a seller beside the road.
After a drinks stop at 11am and a check on where Minaloo and Johnny were at, we were back on the road again to a gravesite that was 3000 years old. The graves were marked with waka’s that have stood the test of time. It was also traditional back then if you were coming to visit a grave that you bring a stone with you to lay on the ground. So after so much time, the grave site is now covered in all sizes of stones that we had to walk over to have a look at. It was pretty amazing that they had been preserved for so long. There was a school right next to where we parked, so we got a chance to look at their school books that they had and they seemed pretty proud that we liked the work that they had done. As we drove off we had about 25 children running after the car yelling out goodbye and you you you you you. Lemma was concerned that one of the stones from the tires would kick up and hot one of the kids, but it didn’t, which he was happy about.
Lunch was in a small town called Delatal. Typical larger town, lots of traffic, restaurants and shops. After lunch as we awaited the progress of where Minaloo and Johnny were, we went for a small walk and found a corner store that sold biscuits, drinks etc. This was the first supermarket (termed loosely) that I have seen all trip. So I bought a bottle of coke and these nut schnack things that we had eaten in Turmi along with a lollipop all for the grand price of 2.30AUD. I’m telling you Ethiopia is so so so cheap!!! So with Minaloo and car no.2 still a fair way behind us, we packed into the 3 cars and headed for our final destination for the night in Wonshow. Minaloo said the property we are staying at tonight is possible the nicest in all of Ethiopia and the President himself has stayed here. That’s like the Bill Gates claim to fame in Eldoret in Kenya! It must be good if HE stayed here.
The accommodation was self-standing chalets, where 4 people would go into each one. I got paired up with the ducks, which was a little bit if a bummer, as we were hoping I could share with Josephine and Massimo, but as Lemma was only the messenger, we decided to not make a big deal of it. The chalets were massive! They had a large living room as you entered the double sized doors and with a large bathroom to the left a bedroom next to that and to the right a second bedroom. This would do quite nicely for the night thank-you very much. They were traditional huts, just made bigger than the real deal and they were pretty amazing.
After getting to our rooms, I was getting ready for the walk when I heard something smack up against the Duck’s window and I heard one of them scream. So I went to check it out and this stupid bird kept looking at itself in the reflection of the window and then fly into it. It certainly wasn’t scared of us and we got to get some great photos of it as it sat out on the ledge of the window and continued to fly into the window. We ended up shutting the shutters, so that he couldn’t see himself. Dumb bird. So after a short turn around, we met with our guide who was going to take us for a walk around his village and at the end back at the hotel watch the local hyena’s get feed. Yes I also thought that hyenas would be the last animals that you would find here, but there you have it, and they get fed every evening. Not sure on the responsible aspect of feeding the wild animals…… The village is located on some hills, so we had some up and down walking to get us around. It is spread out over a large area, so it isn’t the villages like the ones that we saw in the south. We went in to one of the huts to see how a family lives and like the Dorze, their cattle sleep inside the huts with them to keep the animals out of the cold and to also help with their body heat to keep the hut warm on colder nights. Pretty smart idea if you can handle the small of the cows…. So walking, talking to children and just soaking up the late afternoon activities of village life got us back to the hotel at 5.30pm with chairs all lined up for us to sit and watch the hyena’s come in for the feed. We saw 3 of them in total, and I have to say they didn’t look as manky as the ones that I saw in the Serengeti. They were and are still the ugliest animal on this planet (besides the Wildebeest) and the main guy had to fight with the vultures that swooped in to try and get some food as well. There would have been around 15 vultures and we got to see these massive birds in flight as they would drop from the trees above the hyena to try and get their share. A lot of them were patiently waiting till the hyena finished for them to then feed on what he left behind.
I was on Struggle Street at this point of the afternoon, so I skipped the coffee ceremony that was getting set up and headed back to my chalet / hut to get a late afternoon sleep before dinner. I was SO tired. Dinner was amazing. It was also the most expensive thing that I paid for all trip at a grand price of 10AUD for a buffet that had a little bit of Ethiopian food and also some Italian food (the owners are Italian) it made a nice difference to get some lasagna and potato bake with a fresh green salad. It was delicious. We also heard at dinner that Minaloo and Johnny would be at the hotel at 8.30pm. The buggers, what a day they have had and to be driving in the dark would not be ideal either. The huts that were in no.2 had their bags in there, so they couldn’t change till they arrived, but in the scheme of things I think that was a pretty moot concern anyway.
Early to bed. We have a massive driving day tomorrow to get us back to where it all started – Addis Ababa.
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