Had a long discussion the morning of our trek as to whether to go or not, as we had received a lot of messages from worried relatives and friends regarding coronavirus and whether we would get stuck in Ethiopia for weeks/months if borders closed/flights got cancelled.
We basically discovered that our insurance company wouldn’t talk to us as they are prioritising people whose flight is in the next 3 days or has been cancelled, the British embassy didn’t say much and all the flights were full for the next 2 days anyway, and the first available cost £2500 each! So we decided to crack on with the trek.
And glad we did! We got picked up after breakfast and driven to Derbak, the base of the Simien Mountains national park and enjoyed a lovely nap in the car.
We picked up the driver and two cooks after stopping in a cafe for a juice. I made the adventurous decision to try an avocado juice. Jay said over his dead body was he going to try it. It is not something I will be ordering again! I was given a spoon not a straw to drink it, and it was a bit like eating baby food. It was slightly better with lots of like squeezed in it though. We then started our drive to the simien mountains. We were dropped off at the side of the road with our guide, Amare, and scout, Bisou (who was carrying a AK47 and wearing only jelly shoes for trekking) and started our trek to the campsite.
The mountains were incredible – sharp drops over hundreds of metres and then loads of trees clinging to the shady sides. We had been dropped off at 2800m and had to walk to 3250m where our campsite was. The altitude was a bit tricky, mainly when we were walking up hill. It was also very hot – 25 degrees and dusty. We got filthy and sweaty extremely quickly!
We managed to see some Gelada baboons which were very cute – super fluffy and sweetly grooming each other, with a few babies on backs.
We also saw lots of thick billed ravens – enormous black birds with (unsurprisingly) massively thick bills. Then when we were walking through a more tree filled area our guide spotted a cliff springer – a sort of antelope type creature. They were bravely springing along dangerously close to the edge. A little later we saw a menelik bushback, another antelopy creature, named after king menelik.
We arrived at the campsite after around 3.5 hours (we had a healthily long lunch break – our guide had a little nap against a tree) and arrived to find a little table had been set out for us with table cloth, tea, coffee, popcorn and biscuits. It was so great to sit down and have a drink and snack! We then went for a nap, but I couldn’t sleep.
Then got up for dinner which was plentiful to say the least! We are with our guide, who served us food and ignored our protests at the volume of food he was giving us! We had a vegetable soup for starters, then pasta, and 3 vegetable dishes, then fried bananas for desert followed by pineapple in syrup! All along side a little candle in a doctored plastic water bottle. It was very cute. We then had a cup of ginger tea and headed to bed.
We got settled in our tent after a visit to the long drop (which was a pretty long walk) and tried to go to sleep. Jay was out like a light but I did not sleep at all until 6am – I think it was the altitude. The stars were amazing through, super bright and we could see the Milky Way.
Next day I woke after half an hour’s sleep feeling pretty rough. Jay has slept the whole night (bastard!) and was horrified to hear I hadn’t slept at all really. I had some breakfast (baguette with chocolate spread) followed by omelette and then we set off on our trek.
We were due to climb from 3250m up to 3600m.
We wandered along more stunning cliff drops, saw more baboons and cliff springers and birds. Then we had a very steep trek up a forested section – we were panting so hard and had to stop a few times just to breathe! However, Amare (guide) didn’t seem to break a sweat! I was pleased to hear the scout was a little breathless though. Amare told us he had been a guide for 6 years, and had grown up in/near the simiens at 3750m altitude! He wants to start his own trekking company.
We then had a lunch stop next to a river we could swim in. Despite being roasting in the day time, it is freezing at night and so the temperature of the water was icy! We did manage to have a good wash though, and I went in up to my waist. Jay decided not to join me after discovering how cold it was! I tried to have a little nap on my bag after lunch but I wasn’t very good at it. It was rather uncomfortable! We then had to move to the other side of the river as there were a lot of feisty baboons above us, and apparently sometimes they throw rocks at people. Out of harms way, we had our lunch – vegetable sandwich and fruit for desert.
We hen carried on trekking and ended up walking through lots of volcanic rock sections – blue, red and purple gravel lined the paths. It was quite pretty. We then started to see a lot of trees that looked like pineapples. They are apparently called lobella trees, live for 18-20 years and only flower once in a lifetime. People used to build houses out of them using the tough, light trunks but now everything in the mountains are protected. They made a noise like water when the wind blew through them.
We were approaching camp when Jay had to stop. He looked a bit grey and was very out of breath. A few moments of having his head between his knees and some water and he looked a lot better. We then carried on to the campsite and arrived around 3pm. It was an incredibly hard trek – hot, high altitude, lots of steep up hill and I had had no sleep.
After our obligatory popcorn and tea I went to the tent and had a much needed nap for 2 hours, it was bliss!
Just before going for a nap, we saw the camp cat bolt into the roof. I have never seen a cat run so fast! I assumed it had seen a mouse, but it turned out it had seen a simien wolf. The wolf actually turned out to have a broken leg, and was pretty far away, so I think the cat was quite safe!
After a fantastic nap we had another amazing dinner of lots of different vegetable dishes (orthodox Ethiopians are fasting at the moment, which means vegan only meals (plus fish!) and only eating 2 meals a day after 3pm) and a bottle of Ethiopian wine! We then retired to bed, and I had a hay fever/sleeping pill to ensure I slept, given the difficult day we had planned the following day. I felt slightly sheepish drinking wine and taking a sleeping pill at altitude – hardly following the advice I give patients every day!
However, I had no signs of altitude sickness and slept like a baby.
Anna’s adventures 