Wednesday, December 2nd - Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

We were up early today as Keteme was coming at 6:30 a.m. to take us on our trip to Mt. Wenchi, a volcanic mountain over 3,400 metres high with Lake Wenchi in the centre of its crater and an island monastery and hot springs in the middle of that.  It sounded fascinating but it was a 3 hour drive to get there then a long walk or horse ride down to the bottom of the crater and back up again.  The journey is 5 km each way so the walk takes several hours as the climb is quite steep.  As a result, I was going to have to ride a horse.  Randy was convinced he could walk it and I'm sure he could.  John (British) was going with us and he wanted to walk too but wasn't convinced he could be as fast as Randy.

Aster and Raz, the hotel owners, were up before we were so they had coffee, a fruit cup and toast ready for us.  Ketema arrived and joined us and finally about 7 a.m. we were on our way.  The streets of Addis were starting to get busy so it certainly would have been faster if we had left earlier as planned.  It took at least an hour to get out of Addis and into the country.  There were lots of people on the streets and of course lots of traffic of all kinds: vans, trucks, tuk-tuks, cattle, goats, sheep, donkeys, etc.  A drive through Addis is always an interesting experience.

Once in the countryside we were treated to some beautiful scenery and a good road.  There were some barren areas but there were also some fields with crops, and in one place there were greenhouses that seemed to stretch for miles in every direction.  Obviously they find water somewhere.  We went through lots of small towns and villages and all of them were busy with lots of people, shops, markets, and of course animals.

Mesfin, another driver, called Ketema on the way.  When Ketema told him where we were going he said don't go.  Apparently there were protests in Ambo, a town and district we had to go through.  Ketema was certainly worried about this so he asked a few people along the side of the road but they didn't know for sure.  Eventually two taxi drivers knew the situation was bad and said we should turn around.  They said vans were being attacked and the windows smashed.  There are lots of police in the area and that makes people even madder.  he area is Oromifa and they want to separate or at least control their own lands..  There is currently a dispute over land grabbing by the government for something and hence the protests.  Other areas were also having problems.  Alemgena, one of the areas where Canadian Humanitarian has an education centre, had also had some recent protests and one person was killed.  So in the end we turned around and decided to spend the day doing something else somewhere else.  

Since it was now after 9 a.m. we stopped for a restroom break and a coffee break.  The restaurant we stopped at had a complete Ethiopian airlines jet at it.  We sat outside, not in the plane, but apparently you can go in it if you pay a little extra.  We had laughed at it on the way by earlier as it looks like the plane has just landed nose first at the side of the highway as if it had crashed since there is no airport nearby.  We were not sure what Ethiopian Airlines thought about the situation.  Perhaps they just saw it as free advertising.  The whole place was kind of strange but the food was good, especially the bread.

Ketema said we could go for a walk in the nearby forest instead so that sounded okay but over lunch John suggested some places he had found online and Ketema said a couple of them could be reached today so off we went back through Addis in slow congested traffic and out the other side to our next destination.  We must have driven for at least another two hours, again through beautiful countryside.  With rolling hillsides and a patchwork quilt pattern of crops in green and yellow against the brown earth and with higher mountains int he background.  In places there were deep gorges through the land.  In some places there was some water in the river beds but there was certainly lots of room for more.  At one point we passed the Awash River and it did have a lot of water in it.

Our first stop was to see the Tiya Gravestones that are 500-700 years old.  These gravestones were simply out in a field that is now protected and run by the museums branch.  Each gravestone has symbols carved on it such as spears to indicate a warrior and the number of spears indicated the number of kills.  Two circles meant male breasts and two rounded triangles pointing downward (think droopy boobs) meant females.  Other symbols supposedly represented ribs and headrests and other things that I just couldn't quite make sense of.  There were three different groups of gravestones found but they were basically the same.  They were very roughly cut stones with the tallest about five feet.  Many had fallen over or broken and just some of them were standing on their own.  It was an interesting site but pretty small so didn't take too long to get through.

Our next stop was the Melka Kunture Museum which is not far from where the skeleton of Lucy, the 3.2 million year old child, was found.  The museum was just out in the middle of nowhere and I doubt there was any one else who visited it that day but it was fantastic.  It was in four or five different huts and each one was unique.  The first talked all about the archeological expeditions in Africa and their findings.  That was really interesting and the materials were well presented with lots of English for a change.  In fact there was a bit too much English and it was way too much reading by the time we got through it all.  The maps and age charts were really good though.  That was basically the first room.  The last room had a lot about the rocks in the area.  I remember that part.  And I know there was an explanation of the evolution of man and how all the discoveries fit in.   Unfortunately I don't remember much in the rooms in between except that it was all very interesting, informative and well presented.  It was probably one of the best museums I've seen and yet it's out in the middle of nowhere.

After that we drove back to Addis and got back to our hotel late afternoon / early evening.  We had a a bit of time for some computer work and then it was time for dinner.  After some visiting it was then time for bed and we were tired.  We hadn't done much during the day but there was a lot of travelling and that was tiring.  I'm sure Ketema was happy to get home as well as he had been on the road driving for almost 12 hours with just a few breaks while we were visiting sites.