March 22 - April 24 2010

Route Traveled

Ethiopia

Addis Ababa - Shashemene - Dodola - Dinsho - Shashemene - Nazret - Harar - Addis Ababa -

Bahir Dar - Gonder - Debark - Aksum - Mekele - Woldia - Lalibela - Dessie - Addis Ababa



"If you say your gonna go, and be careful, and watch how you treat every living soul"


  I landed in the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa at around 430am blurry eyed and ready for some exploration of a country i knew little about but had great expectations for. I heard that it was very difficult to travel around Ethiopia because of bad roads and poor vehicles. All i knew about Ethiopia was what i had heard from the U.S. on tv, which was extreme poverty and hunger, and good long distance runners, so obviously i had a lot to learn. Oh yeh the other thing i knew about from Anthony Bourdain's travel show was about qat, the green plant that so many people in Ethiopia eat on a daily basis, but ill get to that a little bit later.
   
    So when i arrived at the airport i found myself a taxi and headed to the Wutma hotel, and i noticed as we were driving in the street how many people were still up and partying and wandering the streets. I got to the hotel and had to wake the young worker who was sleeping on a mattress and i got him to get me a room. The next morning after sleeping till around 1 or so, after having such a late night, i first needed to get some money and then i could relax. I managed to wander out and find an atm, where i got my first batch of Birr, the ethiopian currency, which is 13.3 to 1 dollar. After walking for a while i got a new friend who decided to latch himself on to me the entire time i was walking around, it was ok because he told me about the city, and even helped me order some lunch. I tried my first Injera today, which is the staple food here, it is a large pancake like bread and there are many different options that can go on it. My favorite is Bayonetu which is vegetables with a good sauce, i also liked shiro and tegabino, but tibbis seems to be the most popular, which is cooked meat, and that is served almost everywhere in the country. When I got back to the hotel I noticed that there were a couple people sitting and having a coffee ceremony in the common area, so i decided to go and make some friends. The first one i noticed was Helen, who was strikingly beautiful and she looked different than the ethiopian girls i had seen so far. She is 24, and from Harar, Ethiopia, and when she was 17 she met an American tourist and got married and moved to New York. The other person i met was Michael, who is 48 and from the U.K. He is a life traveller who has spent the last 15 years living in Rishikesh India, for 6 months out of each year, and has been living in many different places in between. He is a avid marijuana smoker and occasionally has smuggled hash from India to the U.K. and Finland by the Mule method, which is swallowing it and pooping it out on arrival. I get to talking with them and Helen tells me that she wants to chew Qat. I was wanting to try this so i agreed to join. Qat looks like a normal green plant, and unlike cocoa leaves in south america, you actually chew and swallow them whole. We got to chewing and chewing and it made my mouth so dry, i also tried some of ethiopia's famous coffee, which is where coffee is supposed to have been created. After a couple hours of chewing i didnt feel much , but just a little more awake and more talkative, but i thought it was from the little coffee that i had drank. We all hung out and talked and then went down to the restaurant to have some dinner. Michael later invited me to try some of the charras that he had brought over from India, which i hadnt had since i was in India, it was nice. The three of us hung out most of the night and i felt quite awake from the qat and it to me awhile to fall asleep. Michael was also telling me how he wanted to head down to Shashemene, and asked me if i wanted to come along in a couple days, and since i didnt have a plan whatsoever i decided that i would go with him.

            The next day Michael and I took a walk to the church where Haile Sellassie the emperor who is so infamous here in Ethiopia is buried. There was a huge church ceremony going on and we went in and watched. It was very nice and relaxing and to see such dedication to the church is quite a site to see. After walking around the church for awhile we headed out, and one thing i noticed about the people in the streets is when they want your attention they yell out "You" and now when you first hear this it sounds very rude and annoying, but it was actually better than in West Africa where they use the hissing or kissing sounds to get your attention. Anyway we walked around the city for a bit and i then i went to the Mercado, which is supposed to be one of the biggest markets in Africa. Walking around here became annoying and tiresome because all of the people trying to latch on to me and show me around. After awhile i got out of there and had a hard time finding my way back to the hotel. I finally did and went back and hung out with michael and Helen for the rest of the day, and also with the very friendly staff of the Wutma Hotel. For the rest of the night Helen and I played cards and drank a couple of beers. I got her email and we agreed that since she was traveling to Harar to visit her family that I might meet up with her if i make it over that way on time.

            Around 8 am Michael and I headed out to the bus station to catch the bus to Shashemene. This city is where Haile Sellassie granted back in the 60's or around then land to the Rastafari. When i was in Ghana my friend Ras Johnny was telling me how he wished he could go here because it is like Mecca for rastas. So of course i wanted to see this place. My first bus in Ethiopia was very old and it fit about 50 people or so, we got there early and got front row seats. However we waited very long for the bus to fill up, because here they never leave until the bus is filled. Michael was quite tall so it was difficult for him to fit into the tight seats.   On this ride i tried my first Kola, which is small oat type food that is made from Barley and everyone eats it on the bus rides. It doesnt have much taste, but its filling and something to do to pass the time. I also tried so more qat on the bus ride that i picked up while we were at a rest stop, it didnt really effect me much at all. The people on the bus however got a kick out of the fact that i, a foreigner was chewing it just like them. After about 5 hours we arrived, and found a nice hotel with a huge courtyard. We immediately headed to the area where the rasta's are located which is called ”Jamaica”  We were greeted by some ratty looking guys that all offered us to buy marijuana. We did what would be expected in a place like this, and after awhile we headed back to the hotel with Shashemene’s finest abundance. A little later i discovered what would be my favorite treat of Ethiopia, the frest made juice. There are juice bars all over and they make it with sometimes mango, avocado, papaya, orange, and guava, usually i ordered it all mixed together and it is delicious and cheap! For the rest of the night Michael and I enjoyed our newly bought greenery and relaxed the rest of the night in this dusty town, and also the power went out so there wasnt much to do outside. The following day Michael and I went back to Jamaica to visit some rastas and we found the headquarters for the 12 tribes of Israel which is represented by the Lion of Judah. In the headquarters i met a really interesting burnt out hippie from America, that seemed crazy as can be. She told me all kinds of whacked out things but showed me much loved with our bond of the U.S., we also met some of the other rastas there and ate some great curry homemade in the headquarters. I learned about their history and they shared a little of their spiritual enhancers with us.


    Ready to head out, Michael decided he wanted to go to Awasa and i wanted to go to the Bale Mountains. So we parted ways in the morning and i headed to the bus station. My destination was Dinsho which is where the Bale Mountain National Park is located. After a few hours i made it to a town called Doddola, which is very small and not attractive at all. At the bus station I was directed to the bus that would take me to Dinsho. After waiting in the bus station and getting stared at hard by everyone, and befriending the peanut seller, who was a young boy, I started to realize that my bus wasnt filling up very much. Another hour or so, I hopped on the bus and waited, and waited. It didnt seem like we were gonna leave, and eventually i was told that i was right and that since it didnt fill up, i would have to wait until the morning. Thus i discovered the way things work in Ethiopia with the bus system, if you wanna go anywhere, it will take a long time, and if you actually want to leave you must get to the bus station early in the morning. When i got off the bus the worker told me that the bus would leave at about 11 or 12 the next morning and i thought to myself that i would be able to sleep in. When i got off the bus i met another traveler who was also stranded, he was an ethiopian named Abacarter, or something like that. He was very kind and helped me find a hotel which costs 2 dollars and was grubby as can be, possibly one of the nastiest places i have stayed, but it didnt really matter, i was just passing through. I went out to dinner with abacarter and we me some of his cousins on the road somehow and went to sit in a garden hotel to pass the time, it started raining and the town got muddy as can be, i went back to the comfy confides of my hotel and read until i fell asleep, while trying to sleep i seemed to develop quite the cough, and i was hacking up a lung. I figured it was because of how much sheeshah i had just smoked while in egypt. I eventually fell asleep and awoke the next morning in the dark to a knock at my door, it was abacarter saying that it was time to go to the bus station. I said no no it doesnt leave till 11am and i said i was going back to sleep. He kept saying yes its time, and since it was dark and rainy i really didnt want to leave yet, so he left, and i layed down for about 5 mintues and then looked around me at my room and said shit i really dont want to stay here any longer so i sucked it up and trodded off to the bus station. I got there just in time and abacarter made room for me to sit down. This is when i realized that Ethiopia has a totally different time than the rest of the world. So when it is really 12pm, in Ethiopia it means that the time really is 6am.


    Hours and hours are driving on horrible dirt roads i finally arrive in Dinsho with my bones feeling rattled from bouncing around so much, sitting in the back of the bus is a huge disadvantage, because any seat behind the back axle is so so bumpy and often i was thrown out of my seat. When i got to Dinsho , i didnt know where to go, so seeing that i was confused Abacarter showed me the direction, we also exchanged emails, he was a really nice guy who helped me out quite a bit, im sure i could have figured everything out, but when i get help like that im able to shut off my thinking and figuring out part of my brain and just go along, so its really nice when that happens. After a couple of minutes a young Kola seller told me he would show me the way to the park headquarters. We walked for about a half hour and arrived at the spot. This is where i met my guide and friend for the next three days. I am struggling to remember his name, so for this part of the story i will call him Nyala , which is the endemic animal of the area. Nyala and i talk about my options for trekking in the mountains, and i discover that it will be to expensive for me to do an overnight trip, so i decide take two day trips with Nyala as my guide. I dont have to rent any equipment or pay for anything extra. I am then taken to the park lodge, where it seems i am the only guest. the lodge is in a great forest mountain setting with animals all around. Nyala invites me to join him to join qat with him the rest of the day. I take the long walk down from the lodge to the village. We go to a small cafe type place that is just a dirt floor with benches and some wood posted up for shelter. It is a qat chewing and tea drinking establishment where it seems the same people come everyday to meet chew and talk. We get into the chewing, and talking, listen to some ethiopian music and drink tea. During the chewing i learn a lot about the country and i even get a lesson in Amharic from the guys around me, and i learn about 10 words that will be useful in the upcoming weeks around the country. I write down the words so i can practice them later. Here everyone calls foreigners Forenji and i learned the word for black which is abasha, and evertime i say this in response to being called Forenji they get a kick out of it and our suprised that i know the word. so its a nice little exchange, between us. After about 3 hours of chewing and bullshitting im really starting to feel the qat for the first time since trying it. I can feel my jaw getting tighter and im grinding my teeth a bit, my mouth is extremely dry and i need to drink a shitload of water with every passing minute to offset the qat. I have a lot of energy and i find myself wanting to talk and talk, but i also have an anxious feeling every once in awhile, like when you drink too much caffeine. But its a great time and socially its a lot of fun. Its starting to get cold and rainy, so i head out to the lodge, when i step outta the cafe it is muddy mess in the city, and i can barley walk, Nyala gets some kids to help me find the lodge by the shortcut and i am slipping all over the place. My energy is sky high , so its quite the adventure, i change clothes and make it back to the cafe before sunset thankfully, because if it got dark it would have been really hard to make it back in the mucky mud. We chewed some more qat, and then afterwards headed out and drank. After chewing qat most people like to drink afterwards in order to balance themselves out, and i was no exception, and since the qat made my mouth so dry i was very thirsty. Nyala and i went to the bar/restaurant which is one of the only ones in this small village, and we drank some beers and i also tried the local gin, which is the most popular drink in the country. it tasted awful, and we hung out and drank more beers. i was feeling good, but its hard to explain how the qat mixes with the beer, because you get a strange feeling that is nice at sometimes but sometimes a little irritating, it seems to come and go, almost like the effect of a drug. Nyala helps me back to the lodge and we call it a night, and agree that we will meet early in the morning to go trekking. From the qat there is no chance that i will fall asleep so i take some tylenol pms to help the cause, nothing like some uppers than downers to help the ol immune system.


    Nyala comes to my room at around 8 or so, and we head off trekking for about 5 hours. very nice landscape and we see some mountain Nyala's some redbocks, and some other animals i cant really remember, but it was a nice day of walking. head back to the hotel and relax and nap for a few hours, until i meet Nyala for some dinner. Make it a short night. the next morning i meet Nyala at the cafe where we have some breakfast and head out on a long trek to the waterfall, its really beautiful and my feet are so tired after the walk but it was worth it, i even get some nice blisters from the walk. Nyala is a good guide and shows me many things and teaches me about the villages and the surrounding area and its flora and fauna.   When we get back all i can do is grab some injera with Nyala and head back to the hotel to lay down. Nyala's mom runs the hotel and she offers to cook me dinner and breakfast, which is great cuz i was to lazy to head back to the village to eat. My clothes and shoes are muddy and i was ready to crash.


    In the morning i meet up with Nyala and i mentioned that i wanted to see the local market which is massive, all the people come here from all over the countryside to buy and sell. On my way to the market i get caught in some mud and my sandal even falls off, and i am very muddy, it takes forever to get it cleaned off, and everyone going to the market gets a good laugh. walk around the great market for a few hours, buy a chillum which was actually meant for drinking milk, and i got a guy to sew a colorful fabric onto my backpack. I then went to wait for the bus at the not so quite bus stop, it was actually a qat chewing cafe, and i was invited in to chew. We chewed and talked for about 2 hours or probably more, and it was a good time, i was feeling the qat, and the bus stop guy was attempting to find me a way out of the city. my plan was to head to Harar, but first i head to go back to shashemene to get there. I eventually got a ride in a huge truck that had about 15 people riding in the back along with goats and chickens, of course being a faranji i was sat in the cabin. where more chewing of qat began. the roads were horrible and it took all day to get back to shashemene, and i learned my lesson of not chewing qat before going on a long ride. because with my energy being up the last thing i would want to do is sit in a crammed space for very long, and also my mouth was really dry, but i couldnt drink to much because i would have to piss every second, and that wasnt gonna really be allowed. After a long ride, i felt irritated mainly from the coming down of the qat, which is similar to the comedown i have after drinking a bunch of coffee. I get to shashemene and stay in the same hotel i was in a few days ago. Get myself good and clean and really rest up nicely.

    In the morning while waiting to buy some fruit i meet an ethiopian guy who had studied in America, in i think Minnesota, but im not really sure. He is really friendly and even gives me a ride to the bus station and helps me find the right bus, and tells me where i need to go first in order to get to Harar. After a few hours on the bus... I pulled into Nazret, I was feeling about half past dead, I just need a place where i can lay my head, hey mister can you tell me where a man might find a bed, he just grinned and shook my hand, no was all he said... anyway i arrived in a town called Nazret, not sure if its the one from the song, but i found out i would need to sleep here and catch a bus early in the morning to Harar. Found a decent hotel and walked around town until it got dark and ate some good injera bayanetu. Not so early in the morning i headed out to the bus station to find a bus to Harar, apparently it wasnt early enough for all the buses were already gone. A guy told me i could go to a city called Abse Tarfari and then catch a mini bus to Harar, so this is what i did. After a bunch of hours i arrived in Abse and it took awhile to organize a minibus but some nice kind ethiopians heading to Harar for Easter helped me out. So i was off, driving through the mountains was not the most comforting experience, looking over the edge can be frightful as we zing around the bend. In Harar i headed to my recommended hotel and got a room, the place smelled horridly of piss and it was so bad in a place i had to cover my nose. At the hotel i immediately met one of the craziest characters of my trip, Neville. He said he didnt really get paid by the hotel but he was allowed to hang around and take care of the tourists by giving tours and so forth. I was out of money so he spotted me my dinner and my first few beers and told me i could pay the next day when i hit the atm. This was a mistake because in the end i had a feeling i would be paying a little more than what i had had. But for the time being we just hung out and drank, Neville's eyes were huge and i could tell that he had been chewing qat all day. A little later i found out that this is all he does, chews qat all day and drinks all night and hangs out with tourists trying to make a buck. He talks crazily and i am laughing hysterically at his antics. While were talking i hear someone call my name and think that noone should know my name here, and it turns out to be Helen, whom i met back in Addis. We hug and talk of how we arrived here. I was actually gonna email her, so we could meet up but i guess she was staying at this hotel, it was a coincidence, that we were both there. A little later Neville myself and another worker of the hotel head to the old city which is a walled in part of town, and apparently its one of the holiest old cities on earth. we drink at a way to loud club, which is like most clubs i found in ethiopia. then we head to hear a live band, which is a mix of amharic traditional music and reggae. drink one more beer and call it a night, neville, helen and i agree to meet the next day for a huge qat chewing session.             In the morning i head out to find the internet which is so so difficult in ethiopia, either the power is out or there is no connection, or the place is just closed. while searching in the old city i meet a dutch guy named Joe. He tells me of a place to find the internet and he also tells me unfortunately about his bus ride from Addis to Harar. On the ride in the mountains his driver as going way too fast and the bus tipped over on its side. luckily he said it didnt fall off the side of the mountain. But people were hurt and they had to climb out the window and they also head to pull people out and it was a really ugly mess. people were hurt fairly badly, but im not sure of much more detail. Joe along with a english couple i met were reallyt shooken up, and were searching for a luxury bus , who knew they existed, to get back to Addis because they were to scared to take a normal bus back. After that i met up with Neville and Helen to chew qat. We chewed for what seemed like hours, and we chewed a lot. it was a good time, and i was definitely amped up afterwards. Helen and i along with the cleaning girl of the hotel went to my room for a smoke. Helen and i then went to a really nice restaurant to eat and drink, i tried the local ouzo which was pretty good. After that Helen and I went back to the hotel and we went back behind the hotel to see the Hyenas. In Harar there are Hyenas walking around the town, but apparently they dont attack people. I think this is the case because every night at around sunset there is a tradition where men feed the hyenas large quantities of raw meat, so they are not hungry enough to attack the humans, thats my theory at least! But behind the hotel i take my flashlight and when i shine it i can see eyes glowing back at me, and as we walk we are surrounded by about 6 hyenas, and they are scary looking beasts. but they seem more scared of us than we are of them. It was quite surreal however, just from what ive heard of how dangerous hyenas are and that they have one of the strongest bites in nature.

            Later on Neville comes back to the hotel all messed up from his normal day, and we head out to the bar. things get a little rough at the bar because neville becomes a little protective of me and when he sees some guys trying to pull me to dance, (yes in ethiopia guys love to dance together) and im trying to pull away neville steps in and helps me out, and the guys dont like this very much, but things cool down and we have a few beers, and listen to the pounding loud music. later i meet up with joe and the english couple and we go to the live music bar. Im all twisted up from my day of chewing and start to come down and my mouth is so so dry and i cant stop drinking water. a really exciting and interesting day, but it was time to head home.

    In the morning i sleep in and when i wake my mouth and jaw feels like the day after being at the laser show the night before. my teeth hurt from the chewing and my jaw is tight. I walk out to find the internet at the nicest hotel in town, and about half way there my stomach gets to rumbling and i gotta go soon. I make it to the hotel and blast away in the toilet, its not pretty. the internet is closed and i take the walk back to my hotel. my stomach is rumbling and i know that im gonna need a toilet again really soon, so i briskly walk back, when i get back to my hotel its on, the intense day of diarrehea begins, i wont get into much detail but im going almost every half hour for the whole day and night, and im very weak from the shitting, i am useless i just try to drink as much water as possible and stay in my bed all day. Joe firsts comes to see if i wanna go for dinner, but i have to decline, and later Helen asks if i wanna go out somewhere, but i really couldnt leave the room. i did however make it down stairs to order some spaghetti and bread but i could barely eat it. I stumbled back up to my room and it was just an onslaught, and somehow in between the pooping i managed to fall asleep, and about an hour later i woke up and realized i had had a wet dream. Now its not the kind of wet dream that occurs from a nice dream of the sexual type, but instead it was leakage coming out my backside. I was not very proud of this, and it was quite nasty, but hey shit happens, i cleaned my self up and tried to go back to sleep. In the morning weak and sick of shitting, i drank and drank water trying to hydrate, and finally i was done. it was just a 24 hour poo poo session, and i felt back to normal by the afternoon. The day was easter and it was a big deal in Harar, everyone went to church, neville invited me to have lunch with his friend at his mothers house in the slums. we ate injera as usual with i think lamb meat. it was a nice meal, and i was happy to share it with a local family for easter. i was a little hesistant to eat it because of my stomach but i was ok.

Neville also treated me to some injera later on that night, but of course i was a little hesistant that i would find myself paying for this at the end of my stay. Neville is the kind of person who i know well back home, who try and act like a big shot, acting like they will take care of you and buy everything for you and in the end you end up paying for it in someway. Hung out with Helen and Joe and Neville the rest of the night at the hotel and at a bar, but i wasnt gonna dare drink that night, my stomack needed a night off. After many discussions and mind changes Helen decided that she wanted to travel with me to a city called Bahir Dar which is a city up in the north, where i was heading to make the loop towards the north and back down south. so we decided to catch a bus back to the capital in the morning. that night while attempting to pay neville for my room, there amazingly became a bunch of charges that he couldnt explain, he was very drunk and it became a stand off, i told him if he could explain why i owed him all this money, than i would happily pay it, but he just kept saying that i owed it and i would explain why in a couple of days. i had payed what i knew i had owed the day before, in order to avoid this, but of course there was more to pay, in the end i agreed to give him 80 birr extra which covered my beer and i had already payed for a few of his beers before. it really wasnt that much money but out of principle i wasnt gonna be swindled into this payment which was uncalled for, and since he took me to have an easter dinner and treated me to an injera, which was all supposed to be on him, i figured i could pay a little extra, we did have a good time and i didnt want money to ruin the experience between the two of us, but i did see this end coming in the beginning.

    Helen and i got a tuk tuk to the bus station and arranged a mini bus that would take us to Abse Tarfari which was the city i had stopped in on the way there. We had to wait for a few hours to find a bus that would take us only back to Nazret. While we waited we had some injera and hung out talking at the bus station. She told me about her young son back in new york and about her life, she is a waitress at a very nice restaurant and from what i heard i sensed she made great money, she even later showed me the $12,000 cash she was carrying around in an envelope which i could figure out why she would have so much money. but being so beautiful i could only imagine all she had to do to make tips was say a few words with her accent and smile and she would get huge tips.    When a bus finally came it was a mad dash to get on it, people were pushing and fighting, and this was something i refuse to do, i would wait all night before pushing someone to get on a bus, magically i looked up and Helen was inside the bus saving a seat for me, i had no clue how she got on, she told me she went around to the driver side and he snuck her on that way, good looks for sure had something to do with this, i managed to get my self on the bus to everyones dislike and found my seat next to Helen. We arrived back in Nazret and had to wait a little while to catch another minibus, but Helen of course used her magic to find us one and we were off again, we got back into addis and went to the same hotel where we had met, the Wutma.

I felt at home here, its always nice while traveling to go back to someplace that you have already been to, you know the people and you know the surroundings. i greeted the staff, and cleaned up. Helen and i went and had a really nice dinner at the oldest hotel in ethiopia, built in the late 1800's.   the next day we vegged around all day, i hung out with some rastas for a bit and drank some juice, later met up with helen, and then hung out with some qat chewers on the roof of the hotel for a few hours. There i met Etai, an Israeli who came to addis and met a girl and got married and now he lives here full time. I gave him some of my music off my Archos and he was quite grateful. He said if i needed anything i could ask him, but i didnt need a thing. bullshitted on the roof for the rest of the day and organized my trip to bahir dar, which unfortunately the mini bus left at 330 am. got some really good pizza with helen, and tried to get as much sleep as possible before the early wake up.

    Woke up bleery and red eyed and packed up and watched out the window for the minibus, because for this ride amazingly they pick you up at your hotel. got on the bus with Helen and we took the long long ride to the northern city. it was a normally slow ride, and we were so tired but its just so damn hard to sleep on those buses, you turn into a bobble head just bouncing around falling alseep and then hitting a bump and waking up minutes later, its a constant cycle that seems to go on the whole ride. we finally arrived and went to the hotel that Etai had suggested we stay at. The ghion hotel, which is located right on the popular lake tana, which is surrounded by old famous monasteries. we got a room with a wonderful garden view, for being the hotel has the nicest garden setting in an african hotel that i have ever seen. 

We had met the over friendly a little creepy owner right when we had arrived, later i had found out he was closely related to the president of Ethiopia, but im not really sure if its true, he offered us a good discount on the room. i had a nice fish dinner with him, and drank the hotel's amazing juice. hung out with Helen and a few people hanging out at the hotel, we also joe from Holland again who we had agreed to meet in Addis but never did find him, we were trying to trek together in the Simien mountains, but he was moving way to fast for me and he wanted to leave the next day, and after seeing how nice this hotel was there was no way i was only staying one night. We also met a guy named John from New York who was teaching in Dar es Saalam Tanzania.

    The next morning just lounged around most of the day, i headed to the market later and found a t-shirt at the market, and went to have lunch where i met an ethiopian guy that was living in dallas texas and came back home to get married. we talked for awhile then i headed back to the hote, and helen and john were busy chewing qat, i did not join in the chewing for i wasnt fully recovered from my last chew session, it was John's first time but they didnt really have a lot, i went and got some exercise back in the room, and rejoined the two of them, we all hung out the rest of the night, drinking and went to the clubs around town. John invited me to his place in Tanzania when i head over that way. we had a good time out that night. In the morning we met up with some tour guides on the lake and we organized to take a private boat ride to an island to chew qat and make a fire and hang out all day. It was helen john and I and about four Ethiopian guys. we had a blast on the island, one of the guys was really entertaining and we all danced and they sang songs for us, and i had my music and speakers and we all just had a great time chewing and bullshitting, they built a fire for us and we stayed until it started getting dark. They invited us to have Tej with them, which is Honey wine, and we went off to a Tej house, i had chewed a whole bunched of qat and was riled up, and i could also tell that John was feeling it as well. A word i learned which is Mercana, in my understanding means when you chew to much qat and you feel a little confused and a little crazy, and your not sure if you wanna stay or go and you wanna move around but you dont know why, this is how many people get. I forget to say that back in Harar it is probably the most popular place for chewing qat, and at any given time in my estimation about 50% of the population during the middle of the day is chewing, and this creates quite a site, because there is just tons of people walking around the streets acting all crazy, and im pretty sure its from the qat, its quite the site, people spend so much money on this stuff but they seem to love it, but im convinced it will make you crazy after frequent use.

                Furthermore, after the Tej house we took a break at the hotel and then headed back out to the clubs for the night, had ourselves a good ol mercana time and drank it up. The next day was Helen and I's last one together and we enjoyed it spending the whole day hanging out around the tranquil hotel. she was heading back to Addis and then back to Harar do to poor impulsive planning she had to go all the way back to pick up her things before going back to Addis again to catch her flight back to New York, it will surely be a long tiring journey for her. She had to leave at 3am on her bus and we said our goodbyes. A few hours later i woke and ate breakfast and the minibus picked me up for i was heading off to the city called Gonder, which is called the Camelot of Africa due to its large castles. It was one of the shortest trips ive had thus far, and i chose the first hotel i saw after getting off the bus, due to its large windows i could see overlooking the city below. I had some wonderful pizza that night, and spent my time alone thinking about the last couple of weeks i had just spent, the last 10 days of it being with Helen. 

            The next day i wanted to go to the internet but as usual it didnt work so well, so i took a walk about the mountain to visit a hotel called Goha which overlooked the whole city, it was a nice walk and had great views, and i could see the castles in the distance. Later on had some juice and went back to the same pizza place and indulged once again, i always like to get a break from eating injera, which is really good, but gets a little old eating it everyday. im convinced that 90% of the people here eat injera everyday. with it having just been Easter everyone was ready to eat meet again after giving it up for so long, so it was hard to find vegetables for awhile, which was my favorite with the injera, so i had to try some new mixes. After not doing much in Gonder, i got a but crack of dawn morning bus to Debark, which is the take off point to trek in the Simien Mountains. A half day on the bus and i made it fairly early to Debark, it was a small primitive village and when i arrived there seemed to be a huge march threw the town about some kind of protest of something but i wasnt really sure. I got my hotel and went to organize my trek for the mountains. I originally wanted to take a 3 day or so trek but when i found out the prices it just wasnt gonna be reasonable for me to do so alone. and since there was noone else around it looked like it was gonna be just me, which was perfectly fine. I really enjoy having peaceful treks where its just me and a guide, and where there is very little spoken, and i can spend my time looking around and thinking. I organized an overnight trek where i could stay in the only lodge on the mountains for dirt cheap, and i hired a scout to show me the way, he spoke no english whatsoever. The lodge was a 36km walk from the start and we started really early. I was responsible for my own food and water so i bought a bunch of bread, 4 cans of tuna, biscuits, kola, 2 cans of corn, and 4.5 liters of water and managed to stuff it all in my bag. I had met a guy named Matt that night from New York, and he gave me two bags of curry ramen noodles, also i gave him some music from my Archos , and also 4 seasons of the The Trailer Park Boys which amazingly i discovered on my Archos and i had no idea that i had it before. I found 7 full seasons of the series along with 2 movies and a behind the scenes, it must have came through when my friend justin gave me a huge file before i left, and it was great to find cuz the show was really funny and i enjoyed watching it, the last couple of weeks. In return for what i gave Matt, he gave me something almost priceless, he gave me on a pdf file, all the lonely planet books, which included all of East Africa and all of South Africa, which will be of great use to me, cuz the book i now have covers all of Africa, and only has about 15 pages dedicated to each country, i now have detailed info of every country all on my mp3 player, he also gave me a whole bunch of african music and an electronic book called Shadows of the Silk Road. In all we both greatly benefited with the exchange.

    Before the sunrose in the morning i met up with my scout who came armed with a large gun to take me on my trek. and we were on our way, we walked and walked and walked up tough mountains and down valleys, passing friendly villagers , and fantastic landscapes, the scout tried painfully to communicate with me but i could just use the few words of Amharic i knew to talk, but i was really enjoying the silence, and being alone inside my own head, sometimes when there is no chance of even little small talk, i feel at ease when i know that its just gonna be me inside my head all day, and its a relaxing feeling. we later me up with some Gelada Baboons which were the highlight of the trek, they were awesome to see, these big furry creatures provided for great picture ops. we continued our long walk stopping to rest and eat, and the scout seemed to know everyone on the mountain for he had probably lived here all his life, i think he was about 60 years old but he looked much older, and he never got tired. i didnt even try to keep up but he would always wait for me. it was almost embarrasing how much he tried to make sure i was ok, it was his job to take care of me and i could tell he took pride in doing so. We held a silent respect for eachother. The views at the mountain rivaled that of the grand canyon, it was quite nice, and after about 7 or 8 hours of walking we had made it to the lodge. it said it was 36km away but im not sure if we actually walked that far, but i do know i was exhausted and my feet had some good blisters, in the same spots as in the Bale mountains. I fell asleep in the primitive lodge for most of the rest of the daylight, and woke up watched the sunset made up some tuna sandwiches and corn, and without anything or anyone to entertain me, i was the only one in the lodge, and just sat around staring out into the natural settings around me. I went to bed around 9 and woke up to the knock of the scout at the door, before the sun came up. And off we were heading back to Debark in the general direction that we had came. The day was almost like the day before but with about an hour to go before we made it back to the city, i suddenly started seeing little white pellets hitting the ground. After a few minutes i realized it was hailing. It didnt really bother me or hurt but the scout seemed really worried , he took me under his tarp, and protected me, the hail after awhile switched to rain, and it started getting ugly with mud. we found a school to take shelter in, and this was a wild experience, the kids being from grades 1-6 went nuts when i went into their schools, they were the zoo tourists and i was the monkey in the cage. they surrounded me and just stared at me waiting for me to do something, all i could do is smile and wave and shake hands before an older kid i met started talking english with me. the scout took the walking stick i had earlier gotten from a nice villager and started waving it at the children who were trying to get closer to me, they were pushing eachother just to get a better glimpse of the white boy. we exchanged glances for what seemed like forever, i practised english with the only boy who seemed to speak english, and then suddenly i heard a girl crying, with her attempt to get a closer look at me i guess she climbed up on a stool and had fallen and busted a huge cut on her eye, she was bleeding pretty good, but we managed to stop the bleeding with the toilet paper i had brung. Seeing that the rain wasnt stopping anytime soon we decided to leave, and the young boy i had spoken with came with us, for he was going to school in the village. The walk was muddy as can be and we were slipping all over the place, it was really difficult, the walking stick i had gotten turned out to be a great advantage and i was able to keep my balance. the young boy and the scout made sure i was safe at every step, and showed me where to step so best not to fall down, and slide down the slope of the mountain. after a quite humorous but difficult rest of the walk we made it back to debark, and to the hotel. i bought my scout lunch and a beer and tipped him more than he probably made in the two days with me. lounged and relaxed the rest of the day.  

            Early morning i was off again and caught a bus , which i was told was difficult to catch to Axum. I had to first stop in Shire and then catch another bus, which wasnt to painful, but the ride was long threw the mountains and slow going, and of course as most of the rides looking over the edge is not a comforting site going threw the mountains. Arrived in Axum with my bones shaking, and got a tuk tuk to the kaleb hotel. hung out that night walked around town, and relaxed. Axum is according to history one of the most powerful ancient kingdoms, and it has the holiest church in Ethiopia and the main reason i came here was because it has what is thought to be the Ark of the Covenant. Tho from all the people i have asked, nooone alive has actually seen inside it, but everyone here is 100% sure its located there. The town also has many famous tombs and other ancient sites to see. The next day i was off to see the Ark and the church, i was told i would need to buy an expensive ticket to see this but i decided not to. I met a young kid on the way who walked with me the entire way to the church, i saw the church and the building where the ark was located. The boy hung out with me still, and when i left the church i was walking around the old city, and met up with two young girls who took me to the basket market held once a week, so now i had three kids with me, at the basket market i met a guy my age who turned out to be the kids english teacher. so it was now the 5 of us hanging out and we all went to check out the large market in the old town. hung out there for awhile and the young girls invited me to the home for a coffee ceremony, which consists of making coffee from scratch by putting a pot over coals and then lighting incense called etan. drank the coffee had a long talk with the english teacher, and then i went and bought them all lunch. the young boy it seemed barely knew how to eat his spaghetti and im sure he hasnt been in many restaurants in his life. After that they took me to the animal market which was a site, and than we parted ways. my plan was to hit the internet later on to do some writing, but when i got back to the hotel i played some loud music and to my door came Ron. I cant even skim the surface of the things Ron said to me in the short time that i knew him, but ill try. First off i asked him the usual traveller questions, and he said he came to Ethiopia because America was falling apart. He went on and on about the USA and he got to talking about how the world his gonna burn up and end in 2012. when i heard this i invited him into my room for a smoke and for him to tell me everything he knew.   thats when it really got interesting, first he told me how he stayed in front of the white house for two years straight protesting nuclear bombs. he had a bike with all his things on it including a tv and a padlock with a chain for protection, and everyone that would walk by he would tell them his thoughts and preach to them, and apparently he was quite the spectacle, he would stay outside the white house for 10 hours a day for two years until he was finally given a restraining order. He told me how he took his bike at 160mph and slammed himself into a barbed wire fence and somehow survived, he told me the best part of all which is he came to Ethiopia specifically to open the Ark of the Covenant and expose to everyone what is inside. At the hotel he was building a really cool fountain that flowed into a jacuzzi, and in his opinion this was his first step to getting into the Ark, because it would get him in good with the townspeople, and second he wanted to help build a large water tank on the mountain, and get in good with the mayor , which is getting closer to a means to open the Ark. when i asked him what was inside the Ark, i almost starting crying with laughter, he said there was a computer in there made by God, that was built thousands of years ago, and he said it was a computer like the ones we have today, and also there is Manna which is food from heaven, if i could have gotten this guy on tape im sure i could have entertained thousands with his ideas, he went on and on about the bible, and how Ethiopia is the first country every mentioned in the bible and everything has come full circle to now where the Ark lies, God is pissed off and fed up and he is gonna kill everyone in 2012. and Ron believes that like back when Noah built the Ark we need to build spaceships for 7 billion people and use them to esape this attack from God. I wont even get into his theories on 9/11... i could go on and on but i think thats enough about Ron, i asked him how long he will stay in Aksum and he said until the Ark is opened. Needless to say i had a really awesome day, hanging out first with the kids and the teacher than with Ron, oh yeh later on we went and had some beers, with some local tour guides he was friends with.  

            The next morning i was ready to leave Aksum, so i packed up and headed before sunrise once again to the bus station, and with Aksum being such a spiritual town, it was really surreal cuz as i was walking there was tons of people walking around in white robes, it was like ghosts floating through the air, and there i was cutting around them with my gaudy backpack. My destination was Lalibela, but i knew with driving through the mountains it would take at least a couple of days, ended up taking 3 days. The buses only leave in the morning so every city i arrived in on my way i had to sleep in. First one was Mekele, where i did little but hang out and eat dinner, and relax in the hotel. The next morning at 5am I met Matt again on the bus whom i had met back in Debark, we took the bus ride to a city called Woldia, and found a hotel for the night, hung out ate some dinner together, and slept early for the next morning at 5 am again we caught another bus this time we made it to Lalibela. This is one of the holiest places for christians in the world, because of the rock hewn churches. When we arrived in Lalibela, i went on a mission to find an atm, but to no success, so i exchanged my reserve us dollars and was reloaded, that night as i was walking back to the hotel a nice ethiopian girl invited me to her restaurant for a coffee ceremony, we hung out for awhile but she spoke little english, i went back to meet up with Matt, and we decided to go out and drink that night. we first went and had some great injera at the girls place from before and then headed out to a tej house. i ended up drinking 4 flasks of wine and at this place as some of the places i went before with Helen, they play live music and do freestyle in amharic, and the freestyle is aimed at the audience, they will make fun of someone and then the crowd will laugh and then they will give a tip, but the biggest laughs is when it is focused on the white people, we dont understand a word but its great fun, dizzy and happily we get a ride back to our hotel from some tourists from addis, who we had great laughs with, there jobs are to find water in remote places in the country.

In the morning for sure hungover, i ate some great egg sandwiches and then Matt and I went to check out the churches, and they did not dissappoint, i couldnt figure out how they carved them out of the mountain side, it was a spectacle and one of the wonders of the ancient world, after a long day of church and priest visiting we headed back where we were greeted by many village kids who held our hands the whole way back towards our hotel. it was good fun, worn out and still tired from the drinking i lied in bed for the rest of the day, until we went out and had some injera at the same restaurant as before, and went to bed early cuz of course we had to wake up before the sun to catch a bus. this time our destination was back to the capital of Addis Ababa, but first we had to made an overnight stop in Dessie. Another long bumpy scary ride around the mountains and we arrived and stayed in a smelly shitty hotel next to the bus station, but had some awesome pizza down the road. tired from waking up so early every day hung out in the room most of the night, Matt had given me two movies inglorious bastards and mongolia and i watched the first one for the rest of the night. Woke up at 4am this time to the most chaotic bus station i may have ever seen. Dessie is a major port for transport in the country and everyone seemed to have to spend the night here, and were quite eager to leave. we had bought our tickets the day before, but finding the right bus in the madness and in the dark was tiring, but as usual we did and were off, after waking up at 5 or earlier for the last bunch of days it had caught up to me and i was exhausted the whole bus ride, but i just played the bobblehead game for the next 12 hours, and it was mentally rough. after what seemed like forever we made it back to the capital and went back to the Wutma where i happily greeted the staff that i had come to know the times before. Matt and i ate some pizza and i was out cold by 830pm and didnt wake the next day till 8am. i was finally fully rested. got some juice and egg sandwich, and with no money left i took a walk to the sheraton which is considered one of the nicest hotels in africa and it didnt dissapoint, got some money, and made the long walk to the bus station, where i bought my ticket which will take me to the border town of Kenya. my 11th country in africa.

   

Today is April 24th and i have been in Ethiopia for 34 days and it has been like my title says a wonderful utopia, Gobas meaning wonderful. It is very poor here and the begging from everyone is so sad, the people here are friendly and very accomodating, the sites and landscapes are breathtaking, i explored and adventured a large part of the country and met amazing characters and friends, im ready to move on to another country and see what other surprises lie ahead. My trip is no more or less half way over, and so far i can only say good things, even the malaria was one hell of an experience that i dont regret getting whatsover, it taught me about myself and my resilience to cope in tough situations. My health as of today is just fine, i feel adjusted so far to the africa life style, but at any time that could change i could be thrown a curveball. To sum it up, as the Ben Harper song goes... "I am blessed to be a witness"