The Simien Mountains

If you're all a little bit sick of my 'we did this, we did that' blogging then take a break while I fill you in on the life of a foreigner in Ethiopia. There is a phenomena here which the Lonely Planet describes as 'Faranji Fever', just one day of it gives you a taste of the celebrity life. You have more money than anyone around you, you never cook or clean but more than anything else you are constantly flocked by civilians. In case that was too cryptic for you, everyone on the street calls out "hello" (not once but for the entire period you are in view), the curious rural folk follow you around and the young kids constantly beg for money, biscuits and even pens. There are no exceptions to this and it can become a little over whelming.

Di and I hoped we knew the cure, a trip to the Simien mountains. So once again we got up before 5am and walked to the local bus station, we organised a bus to Debark, the launching pad for the Simiens. By nightfall we had organised our compulsory scout (complete with AK-47) and our guide. We even got a 4WD which skips the first 'mundane' day of the walk for 30 USD, usually priced at 75. We retired early for another early rise.

After the usual morning preceedings we met our driver and the rest of the team and headed for Sankaber. Here we organised a muleteer and a mule to carry the teams gear (each cost 2 USD a day). Within 15 minutes of walking we were navigating along a several hundred metre high escarpment, no more than a metre from the edge. Its a difficult decision to chose between looking at the view and making sure your feet land at the right place. By an hour we had already seen Gelada baboons and a Klipspringer. In another hour Di was wrecked, to her credit she trudged on to our lunchtime recovery point. The day was filled with many beautiful views and some good wildlife spotting including birds of prey numbering in what seemed like the hundreds, most impressive of all was the Lammergeyer vulture.

We arrived at Geech camp mid afternoon and after setting up our tent Di took full advantage of it while some of the local kids coaxed me into a game of soccer. It started of well, I was a bit of a star if I don't say so myself. But when you live at sea level, soccer at 3600m is quite a task and in 15 minutes my lungs were screaming at me, in another 15 minutes I retired to the amusement of the locals. Still enjoying the experience I sat down to watch the rest of the game. One of the goals was situated within 5m of a steep hill and as you would expect the ball was lost over it not long into the game. I joined the search party looking for the ball and as we were proceeding down the hill Nur, our guide said "Shhhhh, look a big cat" my eyes followed his finger to the creek in the base of the valley and to my surprise I saw a leopard. Sounds of excitement from everyone in the search party startled the cat and it took off. It was the first time our guide had seen one and the other guide at camp had never seen one either. I counted myself very lucky. For those of you who are interested the ball was also found and soccer resumed.

Di and I cooked ourselves a rather ordinary pasta for dinner on our newly purchased $10, overpriced, chinese camp stove, from there Di went to bed and I joined the locals and team members around a eucalypt fed camp fire. For my benefit those who could speak english did so on occasions but in the end the conversations transgressed until they were 100% Amharic. It didn't take long to register that they were all telling campfire stories and as much as I desparetely wanted to understand I still felt privileged just to hear their family stories.

The following morning we had a late-ish start because were were only doing a half-day hike. On our way to a near by peak of around 4000m we came accross a troop of Geldada baboons. They had no fear of humans and we got within 10 metres of them. It was a magical experience; the youngsters played in the trees and the older ones mulled around eating the grass (Gelada baboons are the only vegetarian baboons in the world). We could have sat there all day but we didn't have lunch with us so after an hour we pushed on to the 'summit'. The peak itself did not really stand out as it wasn't much higher than its surrounding plateau, on the other hand the views were astounding, with a lack of words to describe it check out the attached photos (when I upload them). We took a different path home via yet another view point, as we sat staring down to the valley below Nur spotted some Walia Ibex an endangered endemic species of goat, although common in other areas of the mountains we were very lucky to see them where we were.

Back at camp we cooked some Mi Gorengs which have never tasted so good. As we were finishing up the local school kids were let out and with it came the offers to buy beer, eggs and chickens. I declined all three but I secretly longed for a beer. I started asking one of the boys sitting near me about school and soon enough the teacher in me came out and I started giving him a few maths problems to do. In no time I had about a dozen kids gathered around all furiously at work trying to solve the tasks I set. By the end of it all I was confident a few of the locals would remember order of operations, at least for a little while. A pasta dinner later, we were in bed and out of the cold.

Unfortunately the only way out of the mountains in the time we had set was to retrace our steps. So as we rewound the familiar path to Sankaber camp I sadly reflected on how quickly people become complacent, the views though no less spectacular didn't take my breath away. We encountered some more baboons, this time from afar, I still could have watched them all day. There was trouble in paradise as a few of the bachaelor baboons were challenging the older males for a place in the troop. They were fighting on hills that approached 75 degrees at points yet somehow none of them ended up falling off the cliffs at the bottom. When it was all settled one of the bachelors carried his sorry self away for some more alone time.

With the help of a shortcut we arrived at Sankaber early and to our surprise the place was heavily burdened with tents. Some tour groups were coming through and there were no shortage of old german, french, italian etc hikers. We were unceremoniously sent to the kiddies table, or rather the poor peoples thatched cooking hut where we were accompanied by three other people in our age bracket and the staff from the other groups. We drooled over the oldies prepared meals as we made yet another spaghetti dish. Its not that our cooking is so bad its just that the ethiopians have very little in the way of fresh produce available. I shared a nip of ouzo with a british guy, got some good info on the rest of africa and went to bed.

The trudge down from Sankaber to Debark was steep and slippery. Di and I were both very grateful that we had taken the cheap ride up. The views of the fourth day were meagre in comparison to the other days and it really did just seem like the way out. Our scout, Getatcho was leading as our guide caught the car back with most of our gear. He had a different opinion of a walking track to our guide and pointed his imaginary compass to Debark and made a straight line to it. So through grass, dirt, creeks and errosion channels we made a hay line for Debark. We knew we were near town when we heard the first, "Hello, give me money" I think it's the only time we have ever enjoyed that sound and it was still grating. We arrived in good time, and luckily we got a room in the same hotel as before.

After some recovery time and food we headed to our guides house and watched the end of a really ordinary movie with him. Di bought a local item called a gavvy (jumper/blanket/snot rag) which no local would be without. We said good bye to Nur and followed the usual dinner, teeth bed procedure.