Back to our home away from home. We skipped through Jijiga and made our way to Harar famous for it's town walls and for locals feeding hyenas. We're not talking zoo-keeper-at-the-zoo, stand-behind-a-big-fence feeding but rather a man (next to a bucket of meat) holding a short stick in his mouth attached to which (with gravity alone) is a strip of meat which the hyena gobbles. It's apparently not a tourist trick but rather a "tradition" (says LP) much in the way that it's a "tradition" for stockbrockers to get roaring drunk on a Friday night and do stupid but much less dangerous things. Surely this "tradition" started with a drunken dare.
We later found a photo in a book on Harar in a bookshop in Addis Ababa. A frankly terrified man is clenching a stick between his teeth. He's half-turned towards the camera yet his eyes, bulging madly, are firmly fixed on the beast in front of the camera. The hyena grabbing the meaty offering looped over Feeder's stick has a head (and mouth) notably larger than Feeder himself and a neck any prop forward would be proud of. Hyena feeding takes place after sundown when the diners are about and viewing carries a cost - worth paying when it's dark? In any case it made no difference to us because we arrived in Harar to find that the local university graduation was taking place and the few hotel rooms available were highly overpriced. So we went to Dire Dawa, a mere 50km away, to stay there. "Oh, don't you know? There's graduation at Harar University so we're full," everyone (except the 5* hotel which, for some reason, still had rooms available) told us. We looked harder and eventually scored a simple room at a cheap hotel: his last. Saved! The next day we went back to Harar and did the town. It's quite beautiful and quite a contrast to Dire Dawa: rambling and sprawling rather than neat and organised; on a hilltop overlooking nearby farmland and not flat as a pancake.
With the east of Ethiopia now completely crossed off the list we head back to Addis Ababa and spend a few days unwinding there (tourism is sooo hard!) before starting the final leg of our Ethiopia journey: the south.
Our plan is to loop through the south and west back to Addis Ababa before grabbing our Kenya visa and going directly there. Our first stop is the small town of Zeway. It's nothing special but it's large enough to be marked on Lonely Planet's map and it's next to a lake. Why not? We enjoyed it immensely in large part because the lake was an easy walk from town and the foreshore was stuffed with birds, especially ibises and large, ugly storks. We spent a lot of time there and took many photos of the birds which are quite used to people (especially as they hang out near local fishermen). The only real annoyance were the local kids who begged for money with unrivaled frequency and persistance.
After a day there (enabling Paul to get over a bout of diarrhoea) we headed to the larger town of Awassa. Arriving there we found that hotels were highly overpriced due to ... graduation at the local university. We persevered and looked around and eventually found a hotel at a decent price. It didn't have a shower but that's alright: after a little while there (and I'm not saying exactly how long) we moved to another hotel with showers. Awassa is a larger town, one of the largest in the area and has Dire Dawa's planned layout with wide boulevards with little grass strips down the middle. Although the city can look a little sterile itself it is also next to a lake (Lake Awassa of course) which makes for a good ramble. We took the most direct route to the lake and arrived to find a load of guys doing their washing by the lake shore (this is common in Ethiopia, to find a group of local lads either in their smalls or just plain naked washing themselves and their clothes in a river or lake). Our ramble continued until we could go no more: a hotel by the lake shore with the only road south going to another hotel under development. We stopped at the hotel and spent some time at the lake before deciding to dine at the hotel restaurant. At about this time a troop of monkeys became visible and started bouncing around the trees. As our order is served the waiter turns up with a broom stick (without broom head) and warns us that we should keep our 'monkey stick' handy at all times. When he returns with the rest of our food he notes that bread is their key target. Sure enough, within minutes, a monkey is perched on a nearby wall eyeballing our table. He's joined by a friend. Over time the edge nearer however they're timid enough that just raising the 'monkey stick' is sufficient for them to keep their distance.
Awassa finished we head to Arba Minch, the last big town before reaching the Omo Valley area. Again it is pleasant with cheap beers and a lively vegetable market. It also has some lakes nearby although these tend to me more difficult to reach – Lake Chamo, the closest, is eight km away. Unlike Zeway and Awassa, Arba Minch's lakes come with crocodiles. We have the option of walking to a lake to find some or going to the crocodile farm. By the time we took the decision it was already afternoon we headed for the farm. Walking there, five km away, we pass through a bit of national park and get a free view of some monkeys and warthogs – woo! - but none close enough to photograph – boo! The crocodiles in the farm, for there are many of them, will one day end up as purses and bags in Europe. Which is a bad thing for those crocodiles but good for the ones in the nearby lake. Another day we headed for the lake itself and, on arrival, found that the foreshore is in fact in the national park. With no tickets the armed guards kindly let us sit on the lake shore for a little while and we did see a distant crocodile bobbing around.
Lake Chamo is home to the 'Crocodile Market': will scant detail in our LP Africa book we actually thought it was a market at first but then found out that it's called this because all the crocodiles lie together to sun themselves as if they were stacked together in a market. You can see this if you just rent a boat for $40 (and pay the park entry of $8 per person). We bode our time.
The last part of the plan is the Omo Valley itself: to start we head to Konso where the roads from the various wee tribal villages cross. Here we find that the rules have changed since LP's publication: in LP it mentions that to travel off the bus route (between Konso, Key Afar and finally Jinka) just jump on an Isuzu: the small flat-bed truck used in this neck of the woods. A smiling driver will take you to where you want to go for a few dollars. This practice is now banned for tourists only (I later heard that there was an accident a few years ago near Konso in which some tourists died) but you can simply hire a minivan to take you where you want to go. Suffice to say the van drivers out of Konso operate a cartel and you can't find a van to, say, Turmi (about 200km away) for less than about $100+ one way. And you can see why they charge these prices: we saw more white tourists in this region (between Arba Minch and Jinka) than on any other leg of our trip and these tourists are often on short holidays and are desperate to see a local tribe. So desperate that, like the French people we met, they would pay $60 each just to try and make the market at Turmi.
We, however, caught the bus to Jinka. We whiled away a few days in Jinka, taking in the low key Tuesday market, before catching a local bus to Key Afar to see its Thursday market. This was our first taste of a local tribe, specifically the Banna people (and, in a few instances, Tsamai). We spent several hours walking around the market with me taking lots of pictures; the tribespeople each charge two birr (around US$0.15) per photo per person and, having squirreled away a big wad of one birr notes, I was ready. Why pay big money to see a tribe if they come to market?
Back in Jinka we are repeatedly offered the possibility to see a local tribe, the Mursi. This is the tribe whose women wear discs in their earlobes and lower lips as part of a coming of age extravaganza (with additional theories for this practice offered by anthropologists ranging from using increasing disc size to to indicate increasing wealth or expected dowry size to intentional scarring to avoid slavery). It's not easy to reach these people as they live about 70km away in a national park: the cheapest price we were offered was about $45 per person for a daytrip (for four people) which included national park and village entry prices. So what did we do? Jinka's Saturday market was a lively affair and within minutes of arriving we saw some Mursi doing their shopping (near the alcohol section). I didn't ask them, they asked me: photo! Four birr! Click. She slips in her lip disc, using saliva to lubricate its entry. Four birr! Click. Some friends arrive. They're a bargain: two birr! Click. In a few minutes of the Jinka market I had met my Mursi people. It probably wasn't as rewarding as seeing them at their village but then I got this from a fellow traveler whom we met in Addis Ababa and who did the same trip a few years ago and actually went to the Mursi village: “people in the Omo Valley are all corrupted by tourism already! All those people want is MONEY, money and money again. They just dress up for the tourists and are rather aggressive once you decide to leave and take no more pictures of them. A really depressing experience!” So I'm kind of glad that I didn't corrupt them any more than I did.
Our Omo experience done we headed back to Arba Minch and, curious to see more about the national park headed to the nearby office. There the park director, struggling with Microsoft Office received some impromptu help, and we received a park map and plenty of information in return. There, on the map, is the crocodile market: all you have to do is walk to the right part of the lake (having paid the park entry) and boat ride be damned! We started early the next day and, guided by our wits and a compass we headed towards Lake Chamo. On the way we meet monkeys: lots of them. We spent probably an hour combined sitting back and resting watching various monkeys at various times bouncing through the canopy or chasing insects on the forest floor. One delightful event was catching a baboon fight: lots of whooping, screaming and yapping preceded a number of large, well built baboons chasing each other around the treetops. So well built were they that when they hit the ground – landing feet first, of course – they do so with a distinct thunk. Thankfully they also aren't interested in humans so keep their distance.
In the end we pass out of forest (but not before I scare a baby crocodile out of its undergrowth lair and into the river at high speed) across thick kakayu grass pasture and up to reed beds. When we approach the lake – mildly concerned about the possibility of finding a big crocodile lurking in the reeds until we saw herds of cows eating the reeds in front of us – we found that we were nowhere near the crocodile market. This much was clear as boatloads of tourists zipped across the lack to a destination far from us. We did see a disturbing number of small crocodile skulls and a lot of dried up ex-lake bed which suggests that a bit more rain is needed.
Leaving Arba Minch we hatched a plan to swing out west to visit Jinna and Gambela before heading back to Addis Ababa. First I needed money so we went back to Awassa where there's a cash machine. It's at about this time that Paul started complaining of a sore through and swollen glands. Once it became apparent that he was having trouble swallowing and then talking we went to a doctor to confirm the diagnosis of tonsillitis and get some drugs: amoxicillin and paracetamol. The recovery was quick and after a week we set off to Addis Ababa for our Kenya visas.
The visa process was very straight-forward and after a few days in an increasingly cold and rainy capital we headed to the border town of Moyale, stopping overnight in the dusty village of Dilla on the way. At Moyale we headed straight over the border to Kenya (after dealing with a couple of unpleasant money changers).
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