Ethiopia (April-May 2012): Mekele-to-Lalibela-to-Debark
trek (page 8 of 8)
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Map. (Click here to access the waypoints in Google Earth. Click
on the map to get a better-resolution picture of it.)
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Leaving
Archwa.
Between Archwa and
WP #25. This was a steep climb in an area
close to the Simien mountains, with
beautiful escarpments.
Church,
priests, and nun (last photo below) in a village at WP #25.
"Singing ′Alleluia′
everywhere does not prove piety." (Ethiopian proverb.)
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View of Ras Dashen (4550m). It is Ethiopia′s
highest point. Its climb is known to be tedious and the view from it to be less
than remarkable.
Escarpments
of the Simien mountains between WP #25 and WP #26.
Farm
scenes between the villages of Salamiyi (WP #26) and Dorona (WP #27).
Here people are
digging a ditch on the uphill side of a field. Water accumulated in this ditch
during the rainy season (soon to come) will later be used to irrigate the field
before the crop is harvested.
Houses
between Dorona and WP #28.
Women
and men on their way to Dorona (photos taken between Dorona and WP #28).
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Aloe
vera.
Fat ox. As we were getting
closer to Debark, the land looked more fertile and well-watered. Animals were
no longer skinny.
Brewing storm near WP #28
announcing that the end of the dry season was approaching.
People
returning from a market held at WP #28 (the location of our next camp).
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Arriving
at WP #28 in the mid-afternoon. The market was still very active, but an
increasing number of people were already leaving.
In
the market.
As
I feared, I quickly became the main attraction and the entire market was
disrupted...
...to
the point that two armed militia men came to my ″rescue″. But
they looked more scared than me. In fact, the crowd was cheerful and
everything went well. The crowd was happy to see me, I was happy to take
pictures, and the militia men were happy that nothing bad happened.
Negussie
had some family at WP #28. Here he sits in front of his father (on the left).
Farm
and fields near WP #28.
Between
WP #28 and WP #29.
Girl
at WP #29.
Between
WP #29 and Debark (WP #30).
Rare
water hole in a river.
View
of Debark, with a new road under construction in the foreground.
Arriving
in Debark.
Negussie′s wife welcomed us in their house with a coffee
ceremony.
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Photo of the group in front of Negussie′s
house. From left to right: me, Negussie, Gebru, Mulat and Gebrehiwet. A brother of Negussie
stands on the right.
In
the evening of our arrival in Debark we had a big rain storm, the first since
our departure from Mekele.
Negussie
and Mulat stayed in Debark, their hometown. Gebru and Gebrehiwet
left a couple of days later and returned to Adwa, their hometown in northern
Tigray (near Axum). I took an early bus to Gondar, some 100km south of Debark,
on the next morning.
At the end of his trip, he feels profound
friendship for these people who shared his life, the eyes of whom are strained
by scrutinizing far horizons too often, for the swarms of shouting children who
untiringly see each instant as a lifetime excitement, for the wind that
flattens campfires and swells tents, for the trees of the savanna that are
shaped like large umbrellas, for the mountainous sculptures of the desert, for
the tepid water extracted from the wells, which one must drink despite its bad
taste because there is no choice, but also for the crystalline mornings, for
the intense heat of the days, for the bloody dusks, and for the nights that
fall suddenly.
(Adapted from the last paragraph of ″Caravanserail″, a novel by Charif Majdalani.)
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Return to main Ethiopia 2012 webpage | Go to
pages: 1
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