We are covering a lot of distance in this trip as we selected the places to visit.  On our drive to the national park this morning the markets were extremely busy with a procession of people along the road bringing goats, sheep and chickens to the markets.  Remember it’s the last day before Easter Sunday where they celebrate and break the fasting.  The people can come from miles away and it appears that most everyone walks.  I can’t believe that there a so many people walking without shoes on the rocks beside the bitumen road.  Ouch!  We reach the biggest markets and our car needs to navigate through a sea of people shopping for Sunday’s feast.  They let us through when the driver toots the horn.

The reason for our drive is to visit the Simien Mountains National Park to see the Gelada Baboon troops.  So our drive so far is for 2 hours and we stop at the National Park HQ and pick up a park guide and a scout (with a rifle) to protect tourists from any dangers then we drive another hour to reach the point where the trek starts.   The jagged panorama of the Simien Mountains National Park is known for its exclusive landscape, afro-alpine vegetation and unique wildlife; Gelada Baboon troops and other animals but we won’t see them during the middle of the day.   We trekked for about 2 hours on the edge of the beautiful escarpment to view the green valley and we sat amongst the Gelada Baboon families eating and grooming themselves.  We were so close to them approx. 1 ½ metres watching them and taking photos.  Geoff took some amazing photos and close ups.  There was a big fight amongst the baboons where Geoff was within 3 meters of them but the guide advised us that the baboons are vegetarians and the humans are fine as the male baboons just fight amongst themselves to establish hierarchy.  WOW! How exciting this is what I call this a David Attenborough moment.