Shawn

Yes we are off once again on our yearly trip albeit later than usual. This year we will be heading to the Himalayas in South Asia to visit the mountain kingdom of Bhutan as well as Sikkim. We are meeting up in New Delhi and starting our travels together in Sikkim. Sikkim is a tiny state in north east India and used to be an independent country until 1975.

It was quite the ordeal travelling from London back home LOL. I thought Ethiopia was hard travelling until I arrived in London to find all the 700 flights that day cancelled! They had a snowstorm and were not equipped to deal with it. They closed the airport and told us to find food and accomodation. I went straight to the Sofitel to find all the rooms fully booked. All the airport hotels were also fully booked. I ended up staying in Windsor across from the castle. The queen was in residence apparently.

The heathrow airport was a zoo with thousands of stranded passengers. I waited 5 hours in line to rebook my flight. They found one on Thursday. 3 days after I landed!! Thank G-d I took insurance. I was able to procur a flight to Montreal then on to Toronto. It of course was delayed by 5 hours and I just caught the last flight to Toronto at 10:30 pm.

and they lost my bag AGAIN!

We took a couple of days to head out to see the hidden rock hewn churches in Tigrai.  The roads heading out were great.  They were paved and smooth, better than those in T.O.!  It turns out that the Prime Minister of Ethiopia is Tigraian, hence the funding.

These churches are scattered around the mountainous region hidden from those who wanted to destroy them.  We had to climb up some precarious rocky outcrops to  find some of them.  You cannot help but feel a sense of wonder as you enter each church, not only for the craftsmanship, but also for the antiquity and the air of sanctity it has absorbed over centuries of uninterrupted use.  It was one of the highlights!

We arrived in Axum after taking 2 very long bus rides (6 hours and 3 hours) on very bad dusty roads.  It’s an odd custum NOT to open the windows on buses in Ethiopia.  Despite the over 40C heat and omnipresent dust, they have a fear of moving air.  I kept opening the window only to have it shut by the passenger behind me.  We did this for the 9 hour trek!

Axum was in existence at least 3 centuries before Christ when it was the imperial capital of the mighty Aksumite Empire (lasted for 1000 years).  The city is quite relaxed and they even have 2 main PAVED  roads!

The Cathedral of Tsion Maryam, founded in the 4th century, is regarded as the spiritual home of the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian.  It houses the Ark of the Covenant according to the Ethiopian people. 

 There is a stelae field with some 75 stelae in various shapes and sizes (think Egyptian obelisk).  They were placed by various kings over the years.

We took a very long bus ride the next morning to go to Debark where we arranged our 3 day trek into the Simien Mountain National Park.  It is a stuningly beautiful range bounded by a massive escarpment cut along its length by steep gorges.  While trekking we saw the famous Gelada Baboon as well as the Walia Ibex.  Arlene and Sandy (our Australian friend) saw the rare Ethiopian fox.  The nights were frigid and we were thankful to have our -12 degree sleeping bags.  We had a great cook and scout and ate  delicious Ethiopian food as well as the standard Faranji (western) fare which was spagetti.

Next stop Axum!

We arrived in Gonder on the second day of Timkat when the city was bustling with reverent Ethiopians.  We went to the Royal Baths where they had a ceremony re-enacting the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan.  We ended up arriving after the ceremony when all the kids had jumped into the water filled moat around the small castle-like building. It was lots of fun watching them play.  There were many people singing, blowing horns and dancing in the bandstands around the “pool”.

The next day we visited a Falasha village in Wolleka.  Most of the Ethiopian Black Jews were air lifted by Isreal between 1985 and 1992 due to the persecution during the Mengistu regime.  There remains only an old synagogue with a star of David in the ceiling.

Later that afternoon we went to see the 17th century castles for which Gonder is famous.  They were built by the old kings of Ethiopia over the years.  The area is now 70 000 square metres and contains 6 castles within.  It was very cool walking around them at sunset when the colours were so rich and hardly anyone was around.

We arrived in Addis just in time to catch a minibus to the Timkat Festival.  We knew it was going to be a big event as everyone was talking about it.  We got off the bus and followed thousands of people coming from all over to this ceremony in a huge park.  The clergy brought the “arks of the covenant” from the many churches around Addis to a special tent in the park.  People were dressed in white thin dresses and shawls holding candles. They were singing and dancing and praying.  Priests were giving sermons from the central platform.  We ended up somehow on the stage talking to one of the high priests.  We even exchanged e-mail addresses!  It was quite the experience.

We are off to catch the second half of Timkat in Gonder tomorrow morning.  I believe that this part includes water (something about the baptism of Christ in the river Jordan).

My bag eventually turned up but I told them to keep it at the airport as I was leaving the country to go to Ethiopia that day. 

We arrived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia after befriending an Ethiopian-American woman on the plane.  She ended up giving us a lift into the city and we stayed at her boyfriend’s hotel.  The first thing I noticed when I got out of the car was the  aromatic smell in the air.   We’ve arrived in the land of berbere, the spice mixture used in cooking the many different “wats” (stews).

The next morning we managed to buy a flight from Addis to Arba Minch in the South Omo valley.  I bought the tickets from the airline office at 8:30 AM and our flight left at 10:30 AM so we were very happy it worked out.  Things were not so easy once we arrived in the south.  It took us a long time and much haggling over a price to procur a 4×4 wheel car to take us on our trek of the Omo Valley.  We finally found a driver and his car and managed to leave to explore the region about 6 hours after we started looking.  It turned out to be a great experience as our driver brought us to his parent’s home to meet his family and have a small dinner with them.  We sat on the floor and ate Doro Wat ( a spicey chicken dish) served on injera ( a pancake like bread used to soak up the sauce).  Naturally I told them that I was fasting and was able to eat only the injera.  Fasting days in Ethiopia are Wed. and Frid. when they only eat vegetarian!!  It was Thursday but I told them I fast every day and they were impressed.  We then went to his house to pick up his wife and friend to take them alkong with us. It turned out to be a family vacation for these newly weds.

Travelling the  Omo Valley proved to be one of the most difficult trips we have done.  The area is quite remote and the roads terrible even in our 4×4 Landcruiser!  We knew when we arrived at our first stop, Konso, that things were about to get tough.  Our room had no running water nor electricity.  I managed to communicate with someone who brought us two buckets of cold water to shower with.  We were very happy as we were grimey from the car travel and a cold bucket shower by candle light felt great.  The next day we continued on our way along the dirt roads bouncing all around to reach the famous market in Key Afer. People from different tribes in the Omo Valley come to this market once a week on Thursday to sell their wares.  It was amazing wondering through watching the transactions occuring between different tribal groups.

  They were selling corn, barley, honey, butter, clothing as well as many other produce.  There was even a group of young Bana warriors looking for their brides.  I managed to get a photo of all of them but only after paying 2 birr per person (an equivalent of $1).

We continued on to the Mago National Park,  the home of the famous Mursi Tribe.  This ride was the worst that we have done.  We scrambled along roads washed out by the previous rainy seasons.  The temperature must have been in the 40’s and we had to close the windows (NO AIRCON) to avoid the aggressive Tsetse flies from coming in and eating us alive.  We finally arrived at the entrance to the park where an armed ”scout” came into our car to accompany us to his Mursi village. The Mursi are a tribe that are known for their women who put circular flat plates of clay in their lower lips.  The men scar  and paint their bodies.  It was an exasperating experience!  They were all over us demanding money for photos, albeit only 2 birr per pic ( 20 cents).  I guess all those national geographic film crews had an negative impact on how they interacted with future travellers.  I had to leave quickly as I couldn’t take it anymore.  Upon leaving two of the elders demanded we pay 200 birr to leave (20 USD) for no apparent reason.

We left the park to return to Jinka to spend the night.  The countryside of the south Omo valley is stunning.  There are villages and huts dotted along the way in a valley surround by rolling hills and mountains.  We returned to Arba Minch and caught a morning flight to Addis Ababa.

After a long flight, we finally arrived at Entebbe airport to discover that the airline had lost my bag once again!  In the usual African fashion, it took at least 2 hours to make the baggage claim.  5 clerks and 5 passengers without bags and 2 hours!  Despite  no bag it was exciting being in Africa with its characteristic wonderful smell. 

We spent the next morning arranging for transportation to the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in the west of Uganda near the border of the Congo. We decided to rent a 4×4 Landrover instead of a grueling 10-12 hour bus ride on supposedly unpaved roads.  We were pleased to discover that the roads were paved for most of the journey and it took only 9 hours to arrive.  It was a pleasant journey along lush tea and banana plantations. The countryside seems way more green and mountainous than the other east African countries we have visited (Tanzania and Kenya). We stopped about an hour into the drive from Kampala, the capital, to take the requisite photos of the equator north/south sign.

Bwindi Impenetrable Forest is an area of dense rainforest where nearly half of the world’s endangered Mountain Gorillas are located (about 350).  They have no natural predators so their numbers have deminished due to man!  They have been hunted for sport and for their meat as well as to capture the babies to be sold as pets! 

 We were a little surprised to find that our 80 USD accomadations, booked from Kampala sight unseeen, was a tent!  It was located on the side of a hill overlooking the mountainous rainforest and had an ensuite toilet and shower albeit with cold water.

The next day we set out to trak the elusive 18 member gorilla family.  They allow 60 minutes with the gorillas in order to minimise our impact on them.  We were split into 3 groups of 4 people to trak the 3 different families.  It takes anywhere from 2 hours if you are lucky to 12 hours if not.  They are constantly on the move during daylight hours, eating, sleeping and playing.  Our group found them after only 20 minutes!!  We spent the shortest hour of our lives watching  these gentle giants habituated to human presence.

There was one silverback gorilla (the patriarch) and many blackbacks and their young.  The silverback is the largest and oldest male and so named due to the large patch of silver hair (not fur) on its back.  He was quite intimidating and we naturally kept our distance.  The others in the family were so close at times that you could smell them (and what an odour…major B.O.)  It was a surreal experience!  The young were playing around with each other and the babies were breastfeeding.  The older adults were hanging about eating and constantly moving searching for food.  One of the gorillas was laying on its back with his arms over his head scratching his belly with his feet up in the air.  Quite the amusing sight.

It was hard to leave after our 60 minutes were up.  The guide kept calling my name but I couldn’t pull myself away.  We were supposed to stay 7 metres away from them to limit their exposure to our potential germs and if you have a cold you are not permitted to trak (they apparently refund your $50o usd permit).  On one occasion a gorilla passed by almost brushing against my legs! 

Seeing as we finished our trek in 20 minutes we decided to go on a 4 hour hike in the rain forest up the mountain.  At the top we were rewarded with a stunning vista.  We were able to see the entirety of the Bwindi Forest as well as the bordering areas of Rwanda and the Congo.

On the way back to Kampala we unexpectedly came across 3 adult lions along the side of the road!  We stopped the car to observe these huge cats.  The driver kept rolling up his windows as we were that close.  We could see their battle wounds on their paws and faces!  Continuing out of the Quen Elisabeth NAtional Park we encountered elephants and babboons. Quite the imprompt safari.

NEXT STOP…..Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

So I’ve arrived in London after a great flight in a great seat (thanks Brad).  I saw a  movie on board called “il y a longtemps que je t’aime”  which I really enjoyed (thanks Felipe).  I am sitting here in my cousin Ali’s apartment in East London (quite the trendy area in Shoreditch aka Bangla Town) .  Going to head out to lunch and maybe see the Tate and hang out in London until my flight to Entebbe, Uganda tonight ay 9pm.  By the way Ruwa the chile-chocolate cookie was one of my favorites.