Simien Sunrises and Sunsets

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This blog entry will probably not be at a caliber I’m really comfortable with, but it has come down to an average blog or no blog at all! I returned from Gondar yesterday evening, grabbed a hot shower, headed out to see an Ethiopian/French fusion jazz band at Alizé just off Ring Road, and then dragged my sluggish self to work early this morning where I was informed that I would be going to the field this Sunday for a week “whether I liked it or not.” That’s one thing about language barriers… sometimes jokes made in a second language don’t really come off as being particularly funny. But I suppose I had it coming having taken 6 days off work to go camping. Actually, if it weren’t for the fact that I had planned to travel to Lalibela with a few friends next weekend, I would have had no feeling of negativity towards this field trip whatsoever - quite the opposite actually. While on site, I will be getting the incredible opportunity to meet with a number of program beneficiaries, to learn about the daily challenges that they face in the rural regions of Ethiopia, and to observe how our organization has helped them to cope with and/or resolve these issues.

THE SIMIEN MOUNTAINS
Often when you have a blind meeting set up with somebody, you arrive at the chosen destination and it is quite difficult to figure out who exactly it is there that you are to be meeting. This was NOT the case on Thursday at 5am at Mesqel Square when I was looking for a tall Swedish guy, a member of our Simien trekking group, on a bus to Gondar. Eric, who had come to Ethiopia to visit the girl who put the trekking group together, and I spent a good portion of the next 12hours on the road getting to know each other, watching an Ethiopian romance on a 12inch screen at the front of the bus, and passing in and out of sleep. We both had to admit that the movie was actually oddly interesting and that we were grateful for having the luxury of in-bus entertainment at all as opposed to the usual repetitiveness of ‘people-watching’ on public transport.

We arrived in Gondar around 5:30pm where we met with his friend Kristin, mentioned above, who took Florian and I to the Taytu Pension so we could drop our bags in a room before heading out to the Golden Gate Restaurant (so named for the gold-carpeted steps that lead up to the restaurant which is positioned on an overpass). Despite the fact that I had introduced Eric to the traditional fasting dish, Bayaynatu, at lunchtime - which was actually pretty good considering we were on the roadside in the middle of nowhere - we were all hungry by dinnertime. We satisfied our hunger and then went back to our respective places of rest where the power, in true Ethiopian form, was out. I read by candlelight until about 9:30pm at which point I decided that the outage was a blessing in disguise, forcing me to get a good night’s rest before taking to the mountains the morning.

We met up with two other trekkers, Andy and Martin, at the Quara hotel on Friday morning. We had breakfast - though when I say we, I should clarify that I ate like a pig while the boys drank coffees - on the hotel’s rooftop patio which has a great view of Gondar’s Piazza. After breakfast we found Kristin and Eric ready and waiting by the minibus with Alex, the awesome guy that organized the trek for us. (Side note: if you are planning a Simien trek, check Alex’s reviews out on TripAdvisor and then send him a message [e-mail] - after that he will take care of everything!) We piled into the minibus with all of our gear, plus all of the equipment that was provided, PLUS one guide, Tadete, one cook, one assistant cook, one well-armed Scout and a mule handler. The latter two actually joined us in Debark which is at about the half-way mark in the 3-4 hour drive from Gondar to the park entrance where we stopped to pick up our entrance passes, and munch on our packed lunches.

The drive into the park was incredibly scenic but just a teaser of what was in store for us in the depths of the Mountains. The Simien Mountains, built up to over 4000 meters above sea level (masl) at the highest peaks by layers upon layers of lava and then shaped by millions of years of erosion, stretch beyond the horizon. Another fortunate result of the way in which these mountains were formed, is that the soil is a rainbow of colours including yellow, orange, purple, brown, black, and red. After a brief 2hour trek to the first site, we got to appreciate the extraordinary vastness of this unique environment just as the sun was ducking behind the Mountains’ jagged edges. The crew had tea, coffee, and snacks ready and waiting for us when we arrived. While we relaxed, they got a delicious dinner of lentil soup, cooked spinach and rice, and spaghetti followed by fresh pineapple for desert ready. No, I do not plan on telling you what I had to eat for every meal, but I will say that the cooks made sure we had plenty of energy to expend!

While a few members of the group turned in early, the rest of us walked a ways up a nearby hill to take in the incredible night sky… and to talk about alien invasions. That part I did not appreciate so much as I faced the prospect of sleeping in a tent alone in the middle of the Simien Mountains with all sorts of baboons and wild cats lurking about in the dark. And I REALLY didn’t appreciate it when I woke up at 3:30am, cursing the teas I had enjoyed earlier in the evening, desperately needing to use “the facilities.” I didn’t make it all the way to the toilets which were about a 3min walk from my tent; instead, after a brief moment of sheer terror when my headlamp caught the shimmer of a bird’s eye in a bush along the path, I opted to take advantage of the tall grass that surrounded me.

Andy and I, soon to be followed by the others, were up at 6:30am to watch the sun spill into the deep valley beneath the plateau upon which our tents were set up. We trekked for about 6 hours on Saturday from Sankaber to Gich, pausing at the Jimbar Waterfall (which I can only imagine would be quite spectacular during rainy season, cascading over a 500ft cliff), enjoying lunch by a river, and passing through Gich Village. Our guide told us that the majority of the population in the Simiens is Muslim and that there has recently been a significant migration of the Simien people into Sudan where the growing economy affords them more opportunities and they may be in the company of a larger Muslim population as opposed to the Orthodox Christian population which constitutes a clear majority in Ethiopia.

Standing in the middle of this small hillside village, we also discovered that our 6-foot-something muscular scout with a rifle had something of a soft-spot for little kids… or so it seemed at the time…

By 3:30pm we were at the next site - and we were dirty! Putting sunscreen on every 45minuts to shield yourself from the sun beating, unimpeded, down on you ALL day is wise, but causes you to develop a sort of thick paste on every exposed surface of your body. That, combined with the blowing Simien dust that we had been eating all day, made a lovely brown layer of colour over each of us. In the company of a Swede and another ginger as well as two Germans and an American, none of whom were remotely dark-skinned either, we joked that we had all “gotten some good colour” that day. While I am not at all opposed to lounging about in my own filth for days on end, I was tempted by the opportunity to have a cold shower on the Roof of Africa. Tadete pointed me in the direction of the shower and well, you can see in the picture exactly what I saw: a metal hut with no door standing next to a wooden shelter where a group of young boys were listening to a football match on a radio. As I approached, I decided that I would just ignore the little boys and hope that none of them knew the game, peak-a-boo. I also discovered that there was in fact a piece of sheet metal inside the shack which could be propped up with a large stone to serve as a door. Challenges aside, this ice-cold shower with the African sun streaming through the cracks in the walls was one of the best showers I have ever had in my life. Unfortunately, as soon as I had turned the water off, the little boys, now just on the other side of the sheet metal started asking me for just about everything I owned: my shirt, my soap, my towel etc… I had some fun with my response to this and then went to air-dry and take a nap under a twisty tree.

It was a darn good thing I took that nap, let me tell you.

Before dinner we climbed up to a lookout point to watch the sun set. Much to my surprise, my basic little mobile phone got a solid signal at the top of this hill deep in Simien National Park, so I was able to call home to wish my dad a happy birthday. It’s just too bad that HE WASN’T HOME!! Geeze!! How often do you get the chance to talk to your daughter on your birthday while she is standing on top of an African mountain?!?!?!

For the record, I am just kidding and love you very much, Dad. It was at least pretty cool to get to chat, even if just for a minute, with Mum.

Anyways, back to the story. So we had dinner, hot drinks around the fire, and then hit the tents around 9:30pm like the super-cool people that we are. I can think of only one other night about 5years ago that I was THIS uncomfortable and that night I was sleeping on a metal-framed cot with no mattress and no blanket at a friend’s student house in St. Catherines, Ontario. Despite the fact that I was wearing many layers and had two sleeping bag liners wrapped tight around me in the military-style sleeping bag that Alex provided each of us with, I spent the next 7 hours in and out of a restless sleep, shaking. It was about 2degrees outside that night; I discovered in the morning that I had not been the only one who had chattered the night away.

We all shook off the sleep deprivation induced grump impressively well and got ready for the toughest day of the trek. We kicked off the morning with a 1.5hour uphill climb to the peak of Mt. Gich, just shy of 4000masl. By this point we had seen hundreds of Gelada Baboons in the dried fields. The adult baboons, which have clear and vibrant upside-down red hearts on their chests, would come fairly close to us and strike a pose; the younger ones wailed any time we came near and then took of to go play-fight on the edge of a different cliff. We were all pretty relieved to have made it to the top - much to our guide’s amusement. He asked if any of us had looked into the itinerary with much detail and knew where we were eating lunch that day. He then pointed to a towering pile of rocks in the distance. A few of us responded in unison: “THAT one?” To which he replied with a smile: “No… the taller one behind it! And we have to go down there (pointing directly beneath our feet into the dark green valley) first.”

So we did. We climbed uphill for about 2hours straight. The British guy taught me the chastising nickname: “mega mong” which essentially means that you are a whimp and are holding everyone back. I was not that person, but had I slowed down, at least I would have been prepared for the verbal lashing I would have received. It was a brutal climb; the challenge was amplified even more so by the temperature verging on 30degrees. Nevertheless, we made it up, scarffed down our lunches, and then half the group, myself included, fell asleep in the grass while the other half took a seat on the cliff’s edge to listen to music or read. By mid-afternoon we were reluctantly on our way again, facing another 2hour hike to the final campsite at Chenek.

At popular rest spots all along the route, groups of barefoot children would wait all day long for trekkers passing through so that they could try to sell some handcrafted goods (wool hats, twine boxes etc.) or possibly to get really lucky and score an emptied plastic water bottle. We were about 50ft from the peak of Chenek when about half a dozen kids wrapped in blankets who had been lingering nearby started wailing and chasing after us. I assumed that this was some sort of last-ditch plea for handouts or a game they liked to play with foreigners. However, Florian who had been lagging behind caught up with the rest of the group and informed us of what was really going on. The scout had taken the kids’ hats, each of which are worth about 50birr to the family. They were chasing after him to try to get him to give them back. Of course we all thought that this was an unnecessary harsh punishment for a little pestering of foreign trekkers, so we drew our guide’s attention to the situation. As the scout chased a little guy in a red jacket over the edge of one hilltop, our guide just laughed. A little perturbed having watched all of this happen, a few of us demanded more of an explanation. Our guide explained to us that every park employee makes an effort to discourage kids from approaching trekkers. One way of doing this was to take their products to the park headquarters where the parents of the children could come to collect them at a later date. Eventually, the wailing turned to laughter as the kids made a game out of popping up around every corner to beg the scout not to tell their parents on them.

We finally arrived at the last site late in the afternoon, hunched over, dirty and exhausted, but feeling a satisfying sense of accomplishment having trekked over 50 kilometers in just 2.5 days. The only thing missing from our Simien experience was a Walia Ibex sighting. And would you believe it? Across the road was a grazing Ethiopian big-horned goat. We enjoyed some local white wine, Kemilla, at dinner to celebrate. Later, around the fire, we all played the game where you tell three stories: one is true, the others are not. Sorry, but what comes out around the fire, stays around the fire!

So there you have it: Simien trek 2010 in a 4-page nutshell! That last night I slept like a rock in 2 pairs of pants, 3 pairs of socks, 3 t-shirts, 2 long-sleeved shirts, 1 sweater, a scarf, 2 sleeping bags, and 2 sleeping bag liners. We left at 9am the next morning so that we could arrive in Gondar well before dark. I took the remainder of the afternoon to visit Debre Behan Selassie Church. Debre Berhan is said to be one of the most spectacular churches in Ethiopia, and is the only church in Gondar that was not destroyed by Sudanese Dervishes in the late 1800s. Inside the thirteen stone-linked towers - 12 of which represent the Apostles while the 13th and tallest represents the Lion of Judah - sits a small stone church. The interior of the church is what makes it so awe-inspiring. The walls were coated with tef and wheat (the raw materials used to make injera) and then painted over by a local artist with images of saints, Ethiopian lore, as well as the story of Christ’s death and resurrection. For any fellow travelers reading this blog, take a rickshaw (locally referred to as a Bajaj after the company that produces them) to the church. I walked, got lost, and a little boy, no older than 4, slapped me on the leg and then ran away laughing. That would be about the point I gave up and hopped into one of these three-wheeled steeds.

On Monday night, after a cold shower - which I considered myself fortunate to get considering the fact that both water and electricity were out in the city all afternoon - I met a few of the trekkers and some of their friends for dinner. We shared a meal and a few St. George beers and said “see you later” as most of them will thankfully be passing through Addis on their way home over the course of the next few months.

That brings us right back to the top! In just two days I leave for a remote woreda in Benishangul-Gumuz which is actually closer to the Sudanese border than Addis Ababa and is accessible only by a vehicle capable of traveling over completely undeveloped land. Not everyone would be excited about a trip like this… but, Gravol in hand, I am!

AMHARIC VOCAB:
Rebih/sh - Are you hungry?
Melkam manget - Bon Voyage! (Literally translated means: happy road)
Qindis - Bargain
Wit - Expensive

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Photos

Simien Landscape
layer upon layer...

Selam!
Andy turned hippie

Comments

[ATroy]

PPS
I forgot: Loves n Misses! Troy