I am still alive ( in Ethiopia)

Kassala

I just couldn't find any opportunity to write a new blog entry in the rural areas of northern ethiopia during the last 4 weeks and on the day I stayed in Gonder, my first stopover within Ethiopia , www.blogger.com was not accessable.

So what happened in the mean time? My second attemp to conquer Kassala turned out to be successful and I stayed there for 5 days. Though it's one of the biggest and most famous cities of Sudan, it's character is rather like a big village. The "downtown" is very small and as ugly as most other cities, and after 9 p.m. the streets are entirely empty. Only during ramadan , as I was told, the city gets more alive, because many sudanese couples spend their honeymoon there. Like me, they are attracted by the coulisse of the famous Tutil mountain nearby.

As Kassala is very close to the border with Eritrea, it's consequential that a huge part of the population has it's roots there. I got to know a lot of Habbasha (a word describing the semitic ethnics of Eritrea and Ethiopia like Amhara, Tigray) who were on their illegal way to europe, by crossing the deadly Lybian desert and the Mediterrean Sea. They either fled from repressions from their governments (mainly Eritrean soldiers defecting from the army) or just looked for a better life. I also was happy to find injera (ethiopian food) as the popular sudanese cuisine is dominated by ful (beans) with few alternativees and gets boring after some time.

From Kassala it was a 2 days drive to Gonder. This city is famous for it's portuguese style castle, datingback from the time when it was the ethiopian capital. It's frequented by a lot of western tourist. On the streets one gets subsequently disturbed by "you you" shouting of the kids, and if one asks for a hotel,bus or other information, people expect money if they help you. While the people in Sudan are used to see Egyptians, Turks and Indians living there (most of them thought that I'm from Pakistan) here it's too obvious that I'm a tourist.So especially after my trekking tour in sudan was so short, I couldn't await to see the countryside and left Gonder after 1 day. On the same day there was the celebration of Timkat (Epiphancy) and Gonder might be one of the best places to see it, but the large crowds on the streets scared me off. After 1 hour by bus to Kossoye and 3 hours walk i arrived at a beautiful site next to a river.Throughout the night the priests were singing beautiful church songs and in the morning they blessed the people with the water from the river.

Then a 6 days trek to Debark followed.The big difference to my tours in Egypt and Sudan was that I crossed densly populated farmlands, walking on the main roads connecting the villages, meeting much more peole on the way. Just this "main roads" are unaccessible by car and there is not any other kind of infrastructure like elictricity, water pipes,etc.

On the way to Debark I learnt that there occur occasionally robberies in this area and sometimes I was accompanied by some local militia (1 or 2 gunmen). The nights I usually spent in the houses of the government workers (teachers, municipal managers, agricultural advisors,..) They speak quite good english and one can find them in every Kebele (the smallest administrational unit, like a municipal. Almost everywhere I was told to be the first foreigner visitor since the italian invadors during the 2nd world war. Sometimes I got a bit paranoid, because everybody, espacially swarms of kids followed me to everywhere, just staring and observing every single move, but from time to time i got used to it.

From Debark i went by a truck to Dima, a small town north of the Simien Mountains Nationalpark. I visited the park 1 year ago and this time i wanted to avoid the entrance fee, the surrounding landscape is not less impressive. In this area I saw very different vegetational zones within a few kilometres. While on the mountains there is rain all year around, enabling eucalyptus and juniper (looks like a fir) I've found semi desert area down in the valleys below about 1800m sea level , dominated by akazia and cactus. Here the wealth of the farmers depends from the seasonal rain between may and september. In that time they are often cutoff from the outside world, stuck between flooded river beds and 4000m high mountains. In some places they started to irrigate the rivers a few years ago to plant banana and papaya trees, very unusual fruits in this area.

My way continued to the slopes of the valley of Tekeze, one of ethiopia's largest rivers.Unfortunetly a huge part of the valley will dissapear under an about 100km long reservoir after about one year. I went along the shore of the river untill near to it's source near Lalibela. The most exciting part, a narrow canyon will be flooded, the remaining part untill Lalibela was a bit boring. Along the river there is no population, the nearest villages lay on the slopes around 2 hours walk from the river, so only very few people have to be evacuated. Most people i met along the river were shepherds, leading their goats and cattle to the water.

The local authorities told me that the area is safe, so I could walk the whole distance from Dima to Lalibela alone. Sometimes i joined some passangers. The biggest danger I met along the way were the crocodiles, whom I had to escape at the countless rivercrossings. I was told that there also live many hyenas and and leopards, but they don't attack human beings. Besides the domestic animals I've also seen a lot of gelada baboons ( a monkey). They climbed in large groups of about 40 animals along the cliffs of the gorge. Last year I've also seen them in the Simien Park and they were always ready to pose for a photo , but here they were very shy and i could observe them only from far away.

Since the horrible droughts in the 70s Ethiopia is invaded by a galaxy of relief organizations, but in the remote areas they did change only little. Malnutrition is still omnipresent In the dry areas the women spend up to 4 hours to carry the daily ration of water in 20 liter canisters from the next river on steep paths up to their homes.

Lalibela, the small town where I write this entry is ethiopias most important historical site, with it's unique rock hewn churches. It's the first settlement since 3 weeks where i found electricity and water pipes! Tomorrow i'll reach the top of my trek (Abuna Josef, about 4300m) end will probably end up my tour in Korem , where i meet a friend i got to know from last year. Then i intend to go to Addis Abeba to plan my trip to Yemen, either by airplane or by bus and ship).