Ethiopia 2012: Main page

Ethiopia (April-May 2012)

Ever since my first trip in 1973, I have wanted to return to Ethiopia. During that trip I had learned the great joy of adventure, exploration and discovery, which has influenced not only most of my more recent mountaineering and trekking trips, but also my professional life as an academic researcher (see ″Second Life″ slides). For various reasons, I returned to Ethiopia only in 2012. Of course, during this lapse of 39 years, Ethiopia has changed a lot. It underwent two revolutions. In 1984 it went from a quasi-feudal system under King Haile Selassie to a communist military dictatorship. Since December 1994, it has been a federal republic made of eight regions and three city-states (including Harar). During the past decades, Ethiopian population has grown several folds. Its main towns are much more modern. In particular, Mekele, the capital of Tigray, which had been the launching point of my trek through the Danakil desert, was a small and dusty town in 1973. Today, it is a vibrant city with a new airport, a new university, many schools, and fancy hotels. However, the countryside has not changed much and remains as fascinating as before. Traveling in Ethiopia is never boring, but is not very easy. Every single day provides at least one truly magic moment, yet once in a while you ask yourself ″Why am I here? ″. ″Faranji hysteria″ (swarms of shouting people around you, a foreigner) can be overwhelming, and takes some time to get used to (in fact, some foreigners never adapt to it). In retrospect, however, I realize that it is this combination of experiences that makes Ethiopia so exciting. I wish it will never get too polished as it develops and gets more ″modern″.

My main goal for this trip was to trek from Mekele (the capital of the province of Tigray) to Lalibela and then from Lalibela to Debark (province of Amhara). The approximate itinerary is shown in dotted red line in the map on the right and is described in more detail below. I had selected this itinerary mainly for its expected diversity of terrain (a combination of low- and high-lands), as well as to visit the famous rock-hewn churches of Lalibela along the way. This trek lasted a month

After the trek I visited Gondar, a former Abyssinian capital, for its remarkable 17^th-century castles , and Lake Tana, for its old mysterious churches/monasteries, some of which were founded in the 14^th century.

I then traveled to Harar in eastern Ethiopia. Harar is neither beautiful, nor blessed with spectacular monuments. It is nevertheless one of the most exciting towns in Ethiopia, due to the exceptional diversity of the people who meet there (Hararis, Argobbas, Oromos, Somalis, Yemenites, ...). It is an important trade center and a holy place of Islam. It is also a major production and trade center of khat. a stimulant that causes euphoria (and, later, loss of appetite and depression). Chewing khat leaves is a widespread social custom dating back hundreds of years in Harar. French poet Arthur Rimbaud lived in Harar the last 11 years of his life (1880-1891), during which he traded coffee and weapons. I enormously enjoyed Harar and its colorful people.

The entire trip lasted 7 weeks.

Mekele-to-Lalibela-to-Debark Trek:

Itinerary

The itinerary is shown in red in the map on the right. (Click on the map to get better-resolution version in a separate tab.) The places pointed by the red arrows are the successive GPS waypoints (WP), 1 through 30, recorded each evening. The table below lists the names of these places based on my phonetic perception. Some entries are empty, either because the places do not have special names, or because I did not note them. We spend one night at each WP, except in Mekele (2 nights) and in Lalibela (3 nights).

1. Mekele	2. Melber	3. Adigueba	4. Samre	5. Finaroa	6. Sara
7. Chakra	8. Samara	9. Mailomi	10. Sekota	11. Wouala	12 Hass
13. Hava	14 Bilbela	15. Lalibela	16 Daria Johanes	17 Mari	18 Azila
19	20 Amusit	21.	22. Tekeze river	23. Chinamba	24. Archwa
25.	26. Salamiyi	27 Dorona	28.	29.	30. Debark

Between Mekele and Lalibela, the itinerary follows or remains close to an unpaved road with very light traffic. For the first couple of days, it remains above 2000m where days and nights are comfortable. Then, for 3 days it traverses a lowland area (less than 1500m) where days are very hot. Between Chakra (WP #7) and Lalibela (WP #15), it has many ups and downs, but overall regains some elevation (with Lalibela lying at 2400m). From Lalibela we returned to Bilbala (WP #14) by bus and resumed our trek from there. This second part of the trek has more pronounced and steeper ups and downs. Its lowest point is the crossing of the Tekeze river (1200m). Between WP #18 and #25, water was very scarce. We often had to buy jerricans from villagers. These jerricans are filled at remote sources or wells, and carried by donkeys back to the villages. The last 4 days followed a trail south of the Simien Mountains National Park.

Support Team

I was helped by a four-people team: Mulat and Negussie from Debark, and Gebru and Gebrehiwet from Adwa (Northern Tigray). In the photo on the right, Negussie stands on my left. Next are Gebru, Mulat and Gebrehiwet (and Negussie′s brother at the far-right of the photo). Mulat was the only one to speak English. Negussie (a former military) had the best knowledge of the country and its people. Gebru and Gebrehiwet acted mostly as porters.

The team was truly excellent. It had been provided to me by Solomon Berhe, who arranged most of the logistics for this trip. Solomon has intimate knowledge of Ethiopia and has developed many contacts across the entire country. In Addis Ababa, I had passionate discussions with him about the past and future of Ethiopia and about possible future trips. Though he is an expert in arranging bird watching tours (not my favorite type of trips), he can as well organize all kinds of touristic or adventurous trips anywhere in Ethiopia. I highly recommend him.