First Africa Adventure

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After a nice farewell in Singapore with Nandi seeing me off and Halle picking me up with her mother and sister to see me off, my evening flight started off well. Headed to Bangkok where we picked up more passengers and then headed on to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where I met Samantha. From there our tour guide picked us up and we headed for Debrecen libanos. The drive was about two hours. Along the way it was interesting to see the cities and towns. Many houses are built with small tree trunks and then mud/clay. Many women were carrying her bags on their backs, many donkeys also carrying heavy loads. There were many farms with sheep, horse carriages, sheep, and cows. Many being bearded along the roads or country side. When we finally reached Debrecen libanos, another "local guide" jumped into the car with us to help with directions. We first went to the Christian monastery where we had another guide there show us around the museum with the various processions items (chair, robes, umbrellas, old bibles written in the old language and gifts from the royals for each). They are currently on their fifth processor. The church is an orthodox Christian church of very traditional beliefs. Women still wear clothes on their heads when visiting the church, they have the men and women on different sides of the church for services, and believe that women can be priests.

We then had our driver and local guide bring us up the mountain to see the cave where pray originally was held by one man every day. Was said he would go pray alone there standing only on his left leg. We we're let inside the cave where they collect the water that drips of the limestone as holy water. They use this to wash and cleanse themselves. As we were walking up there was actually a lady washing in it and screening. We were told they it was the devil screaming as they was the devil out of the women.

After our hike, we went looking for the baboons. It is said that this Ethiopian tone has the highest population of primate groups. We ended up seeing four different families of baboons as we walked along the valley ridge and we're able to get white close to the groups. Along the ridge was also an old bridge about 400 years old from the Portuguese.

Once we had some amazing shots of the baboons, we went for lunch. We choose to have the local fasting meal which was quite good. They'd brought out different vegetables: Dahl, lentil beans, potatoes with curry, beat root, cabbage, spinach, and beans. They also had bread mad from fruit that is used to dip into each. Was very good. From lunch, we left the local guide and our driver began the long drive to Sodere where we will spend the night at Sodere Resort.

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