HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: The fanciest hotel of the whole trip
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Can’t think of a single thing
WORD OF THE DAY: Nile crocodiles
DISTANCE TRAVELLED: 115KM
We woke this morning to the sound of like 300 birds outside. It is a nice noise to wake up to with them all chirp chirp chirping away. I had a great night’s sleep finally as I think my cough has finally started to leave. We only have 115KM to travel today, so we could take our time this morning. It was a beautiful setting for breakfast. They had us set up on the second story of the open air restaurant and we had a great view of the Awash River and with the waterfalls a stone’s throw away it was a very relaxing breakfast.
After breakfast we took the 5 minute walk to the Awash River Falls from the top and then descended around 30 steps to get us to the base of the falls. They were pretty impressive, the second largest falls in Ethiopia after the Blue Nile falls just outside of Bahir Dar. This was their lowest flow, in the rainy season Zeme says there are no gaps along the rock face it is just full of raging water. We spent around 45 minutes down at the base when I walked up to the water’s edge to dip in a toe to test the water and Z said to be careful of the crocodiles, ha yeah right, so I dipped in my toe to the sound of a splash from across the other side of the river and from where we were I could see 3 flaming crocodiles!!! He wasn’t kidding! We would have been maybe 50m away from 3 crocodiles sunning themselves on the rocks and were oblivious to them for over 45 minutes!!!!! Thank goodness they weren’t hungry!!!! Needless to say I didn’t want to stick around too much longer after that as my survival to not get eaten by a crocodile manifested in my mind!
We left the lodge at 10am and as we past the ranger’s station a ranger came out and asked if he could get a lift to the main gate. Zeme said no problems, but we were going to have a drive around the park to see if we could see any animals before heading back to the mainland and to Nazret for the night. He was fine with this and it worked out to our advantage as he helped us spot gazelles, kudu and names a few birds we wouldn’t have known about. At one stage we could see some gazelles and kudu’s behind some bushes, so he let is out of the car, well Z, I stayed in the car, and they walked up as far as they could to get some pictures of them before they freaked out. Where in the world can you get out of your car in a National Park to get some photos of animals? I guess a park that doesn’t have lions or elephants or any other life threatening animals, but it was pretty cool and something that we wouldn’t have done on our own. The highlight of the animals we saw would have to be the infamous Dic Dic that takes me straight back to my African Intrepid trip and my cooking team that was named after this cute African animal that looks like a mini version of Bambi! We also saw some Oryx, a Bustard, an Eagle, the Kudu’s and the Gazelle’s.
Awash National Park is one of the National Parks of Ethiopia. Its southern boundary runs along the Awash River, and covers at least 756 square kilometers of acacia woodland and grassland. The Addis Ababa - Dire Dawa highway passes through this park, separating the Illala Saha Plains to the south from the Kudu Valley to the north. In the south of the park the Awash River Gorge has amazing waterfalls. In the upper Kudu Valley at Filwoha are hot springs amid groves of palm trees. The Awash National Park was established in 1966, although the act authorizing its existence was not completely passed for another three years. Wildlife in this park include the East African Oryx, Soemmerring's Gazelle, Dik-Dik, the lesser and greater Kudus, and Warthogs. Anubis baboons and Hamadryas baboons are present, as well as over 350 species of native birds. Previously there were packs of the African Wild Dog, Lycaon pictus, but this species may now be locally extirpated.
I have always said that Ethiopia is a ‘twitches’ paradise and with over four hundred species of birds are recorded for the park it is a heaven for bird watches. They range from the great ostrich, frequently and easily observed, and the less common Secretary Bird and Abyssinian Ground Hornbill, to the flashes of brilliant pink which are the Carmine Bee-eaters, and the Abyssinian Roller with turquoise and purple, wings. And between these two extremes, birds of the riverine forest, Coucal, Turaco, Go-away Birds; birds of prey; and birds of the savannah.
We spent just over an hour in the park and then headed back to the main gate and the main road that takes you back to Addis Ababa if followed all the way. The ranger asked if he could be dropped into the next town which was only a 15 minute drive and it was literally on our way so when we dropped him off we also gave him a tip to thank him for his time and information while we were in the park.
Back on the road again and back to truck city as they haul their rigs into Addis Ababa. The road was not as windy and hilly as what we have experienced in the last week but the scenery is dry dry dry and dusty dusty dusty. Even though the roads weren’t that taxing, passing the trucks, and there were a lot of them was very tiring and I wasn’t even driving.
We arrived into Nazret at 12.30pm and after a stop at the ATM we drove the length of the main street to do the hotel reccy and as we turned around to head back to one of the hotels we saw a hotel that had just opened! Well my thinking was if it just opened everything would be brand new and you couldn’t go wrong. And how right we were. After Z ran in to check all the details he came back out and reported that there were only suites left for a rate of 73AUD for the night! We’ll take it. So after I registered at reception we were escorted to the 6th floor and what would be out room for the night. Well when that door to the suite opened we couldn’t believe our eyes. The suite was a suite in every sense of the word. It had a sitting room with a TV, a chaise lounge and chairs, the bedroom with a massive king sized bed with another TV and then a small sitting room with chairs and a table on the other side. The bathroom was bigger than the bungalow we stayed in last night and also housed a double Jacuzzi in there with a radio, flashing lights and the whole works. This would be a Hilton standard easily and we were going to make the most of this Lap of Luxury. As the hotel was new, they only had Wi-Fi on the ground floor as they were still working on the room access, but hey that was a small price to pay for what we had. They even had Australian plug sockets which was interesting.
Adama or better known as Nazret or Nazreth, is a city in central Ethiopia and the previous capital of the Oromia Region with an elevation of 1712 meters and located 99 km southeast of Addis Ababa. The city sits between the base of an escarpment to the west, and the Great Rift Valley to the east.
Adama is a busy transportation center. The city is situated along the road that connects Addis Ababa with Dire Dawa. A large number of trucks use this same route to travel to and from the seaports of Djibouti and Asseb (though the latter is not currently used by Ethiopia, following the Eritrean-Ethiopian War). Additionally, the Addis Ababa-Djibouti railroad runs through Adama.
Following World War II, Emperor Haile Selassie renamed the town after Biblical Nazareth, and this name was used for the remainder of the twentieth century. In 2000, the city officially reverted to its original Oromo language name, Adama, though "Nazareth" is still widely used.
Lunch and dinner at the hotel was delicious and came with a 5 star price tag, but in western terms was still cheap as chips and then we retired to make the most of the room for the rest of the afternoon and evening. Amongst other things I managed to pump out 3 blogs and we just relaxed and watched some TV which we hadn’t seen in over a week. It was a nice way to spend our time and such an extreme from last night’s rustic bush experience to the Lap of Luxury we found ourselves in tonight. We deserved a little pampering and this was the cherry on top of the cake let me tell you.
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