Woke up refreshed and a lot happier than the day before after a good sleep! Amare our guide told us this would be the toughest day, with a lot of up and down, including a 450m hike through a forest up to 4070m – the highest point on our trek. Jay was quite nervous about it, but I reckoned it would be ok. I thought we were probably at least average fitness, had done the previous days in reasonable times, and a hike that was too hard for everyone would not be a good business move!
We set off through yellow tufty grass and lobelia trees after breakfast (omelettes, pancakes and bread) and saw a lot of gelada baboons. They apparently have strong short fingers for hanging on to the edge of cliffs and also for foraging for roots and grass. They also seemed to groom each other a lot! We then saw a large male get chased by some smaller baboons – they chased him right out of the area with a lot of screaming. Not sure what that was about. Probably a woman…
We saw more volcanic rocks in pretty colours – looked like the Indian Holi festival and some more birds and pineapple shaped trees. Finally we came to the start of the forest which was the beginning of our steep climb. It was not actually as bad as I had thought – we did have a rest every 15 minutes though. But I think that was good – no fainting from me or Jay! We then arrived on top of a cliff with an amazing view down many hundred metres, and more baboons. Jay suddenly felt enormously hungry so we stopped early for dinner and had a little nap in the sun. We had been given vegetable sandwiches (again) and a mango. Unfortunately we had no cutlery to eat the mango with so had to eat it like an orange. I looked ‘positively vampiric’ (Jay’s words, not mine) due to all the fibres stuck in my teeth! I then had a hard time getting them out – who knew dental floss was an essential day sac ingredient?!
Then we got on our way to the highest bit of the hike – 4070 m above sea level with views over so many simien mountains below us. Cliff drops of 1200m are not uncommon, we also saw a 530m high waterfall with barely any water in it (dry season). There were dried up river beds at the bottom and in some places we couldn’t even see the bottom it was so far down (and I didn’t want to fall off the cliff).
After a long time admiring the view, we set about on our way. The next bit was going down at least 450m and it was incredibly steep! Jay and Amare leapt along like mountain goats but I had to go more slowly – I felt my knees may betray me! Opposite the mountain we were coming down was an equally steep mountain covered in little houses and bits of farming land. They were pretty far away from everything. Whilst it was hard coming down, at least we weren’t huffing and puffing. We eventually got to the bottom and then had a comparatively short walk up hill (again) to our campsite at 3600m or so.
We eventually arrived at 4pm, at least half an hour earlier than Amare had predicted! We had a little celebratory high five! Then we had the obligatory coffee, tea, biscuits and popcorn (I ate soooo much!) before going to the stream to have a little wash. The stream was a bit of a disappointment – I had imagined a fresh, clean flowing wide stream like the day before but it was tiny, barely running and full of rubbish.
We eventually went up stream a little and found a tiny bit of clean water. We had an extremely precarious wash in the freezing water – we nearly fell in several times and there was a lot of clinging on to the tree above to prevent this! However, we managed to scrub a lot of the dirt off us and I think we smelt a bit better. The dust literally gets everywhere, through my leggings, up my nose, and my t-shirt was gross. Sweat and dust do not make a happy pairing. Feeling fresh (ish) we made our way back to camp and I got my socks mucky again in the dust. We then had dinner after a short nap in a large round hut with some other tourists. Two Belgian girls had been sent home a month early from their physio elective and had squeezed in a short trek before going back. They were going to walk from 3600m-4400m in 3 hours the next day! Rather them than me!
We were once again fed until we popped with soup, pasta, little rice balls, vegetables etc and then, much to Jay’s delight, pineapple in juice. The scouts made a fire (in the hut!) and we sat around it with our hot drinks – thyme tea for me. It had a very nice atmosphere but we (the tourists) were rather struggling with streaming eyes! No one else seemed to have this problem! After a while we could bare the smoke no more and we went off to bed for the last time in our tent.
I didn’t sleep so well again, not sure why but woke up for a later breakfast and a short walk to try to see some walia ibexes (the only endemic creature we had not seen). We had a walk up from the campsite and eventually saw a couple on a rock up above us.
We had had various chats with Amare about rural culture over the last few days and I was interested as to how different it was from city/Addis culture. Amare said that in rural areas people often have arranged marriages and no one gets divorced (In like in Europe and Addis!) because they have ‘one chance in a lifetime’. He also felt that the community spirit was broken in Addis and no one knew their neighbours (not what I’ve experienced!). It was particularly interesting talking to him about the Derg, the communist dictatorship from 1974-1991. He seemed to be saying that in the rural areas Mengistu (communist dictator) was liked to an extent, and that he saw all Ethiopians as the same regardless of tribe. What I had heard from other sources (Catherine hamlin’s autobiography about setting up the fistula hospital and the red terror museum dedicated to those who died at the hands of the Derg) was that ignoring people’s tribes was resented by many, especially those not in the Amhara tribe (ruling minority). However, I had heard that he was fairly reasonable to the rural people, and there was forced ruralisation if he city dwellers, so I guess those that had done better under him would have a slightly more tolerant view.
Had a total nightmare tipping at the end of the trek. Our email from the company said we should give a lump sum for all parties to share, with another tip exclusively for our guide. But we kind of got our arms twisted into tipping everyone separately, which amounted to a lot more and we didn’t really know how much to give! Ethiopia doesn’t really have a tipping culture and we were told our staff on the trek would not expect it, but would be happy if we gave them something if service was exceptional. That was categorically not true!
We somehow offended our driver by giving him a small tip (in line with trek organiser’s guidelines!) – he drove off angrily and didn’t take it! We shall be writing to the company explaining they need to have a better policy!
Stopped in Debak for lunch and went to a fairly rubbish restaurant attached to a hotel. They appeared to have nothing on the menu, and the waiter seemed to think asking for the bill was unexpected. We then continued our drive to Gondor and got dropped off at the same hotel we had been in the night before the trek.
Had the most amazing shower and scrubbed all the dirt off myself. It took a long time! We then had a potter through Gondor to a restaurant but were too tired to actually explore or visit any churches or buildings. Went to a lovely restaurant for dinner that did Ethiopian food and Tej, honey wine. It was great! Jay had a bit of my injera and surprised himself – he liked it! He had had some on the trek and had not been keen, but I think it was over fermented.
Anna’s adventures 