Bahar Dir, Ethiopia - What goes around comes around or something like that...

[Ed. note: Two days have gone by since Mulee. I wrote this post in the town of Bahar Dir on the shores of Lake Tana...]

Packing Jackie the Mule on an early Mekarebya morning...We camped beside this shack...

The Mekarebya school yard...

From Mekarebya it's back down to business on the riverbed. I kept stubbing my toes on these stupid rocks...

Climbing out of the river valley towards Mulee. Ambient temperature is rising. Must find water...

Weird rock formations. If you are a regular reader, the monolith in the foreground is part of the flat top mountain and in the background is the submarine conning tower mountain that we saw way back on the plateau...

Now it's really getting hot...

To the left is Fasil's sister. She's holding her daughter's hand. I think she was trying to fix me up with her daughter. Took me a while to figure out she was running the village pub. That's explained the number of hosed people sitting on the veranda...

Little dude #1.

Little dudes #2 and #3...

Walking home from the local Home Depot...

Drink up little dude #4... Not sure what they were drinking other than there were alot of floaties in it...

Mother and daughter in the house...

Fantee...

PLA infantry grunt taking pix of the locals...

Fasil and friend...does Fasil look hosed to you or is it just me?

Landscape surrounding Mulee...

Sundown...

Let me back up a bit. I could not, for the life of me, find my pen. My last entry referred to gale force winds outside tent. Did I mention the resultant dust storm within the tent? I don't know how the tent was completely consumed by dust. All I knew was I had to bail, scram, vamoose outta there, especially when the tent fabric started to rip from its poles.

I was worried about the dust. There's a whole lotta shit lying around (all over). Once it starts flying around, it wreaks havoc on unprotected eyes (perhaps lungs as well). I'm not surprised by all the eye infections I saw in the countryside. In addition, I think I saw a lot of cataracts as well. It was like a ophthalmologist's candy store out there. An eye doctor should really volunteer their services out here, for a while at least.

Yah, it was a very long day coming from Mekarebya. Started at 0618 and took nearly a half hour of steep switch backs to regain the canyon bottom. I certainly did not have a good feeling in my left foot (don't think it's broken though). Once on the bottom we'd follow the dry river bed. Not nice. Big rocks strewn all over the place (hate to see the rage of this river during wet season) plus multiple stream crossings just killed my bruised feet.

Scenery reminded me of the American West: scrub vegetation, odd shaped monolithic structures, and ancient sea stacks. The heat started picking up at about 1000, making the last major uphill to Mulee a real beast of a climb. Reached a point high enough to see the Simien escarpment again. Arrived at the first significant village on the foot of the Mulee butte. I took the chance to suck back a couple of cool Mirindas (aka Orange Crush) in the shade.

We reached Mulee early (1230), setting up camp at Fasil's sister's place. Spent the afternoon taking photos of the village people and watching Fasil drink the local brew. After a couple of pints, he became quite abusive not towards me but to his relatives. That's until he started getting into my camera gear. I should have stopped him. If anything happened to the d70 I would have been hooped.

I was beginning to wish this little adventure was over soon...

A Short Walk in the Simiens - Day 7 to Adi Arkey, Ethiopia...


Sunrise in Mulee...

Exiting Mulee and final glimpses of the Simiens...

Having breakfast with the crew in Adi Arkey...

Next day, in fact, was the last day on the trail . Adi Arkey, on the Debark-Axum road, was a mere 2 hours away. The sunrise was magnificent, casting an awesome yet eerie pinkish orange glow over the silhouette of the surrounding canyon lands.

I was excited. The trek was coming to a end. It was well above my expectations. I did it.

It was pretty much all downhill to Adi Arkey along what I call the freeway. The trail widened and was clear of most debris. I looked back often, wondering how the hell I could have negotiated such a tortured landscape. I will never forget this place.

We got to Adi Arkey. It seemed no different than most dumpy little Ethiopian towns. Hordes of people were out and about, tending to their daily business. I drew a fair amount of attention. A few of them shouted "Japanese" at me but for the most part people just gawked at a strange oriental face.

We found a cafe on the main street. While we waited for the Debark bus, I had the honour of buying brekkie for the crew. After the obligatory photos, Fantee packed up Jackie the mule and set off back to Debark on foot. Earlier, I divested myself of the stove and kerosene by giving it to Fantee as a tip. For the past seven days, he lugged that thing around, setting it up for me when required. He was a hard worker, the best employee I've ever had. Before he moseyed on, I slipped him some money to make sure he got back to Debark in comfort.

Fasil and I would take the bus at 1100. He would disembark at Debark while I would continue onto Gonder. The road would mimick the surrounding landscape: twisted, convoluted and undulating. After almost 3 hours into the ride, we could still see the jagged mountains behind Adi Arkey. As the bus climbed out of the last coulee, we arrived in Debark. I followed Fasil out. After he fetched his bag of belongs off the roof of the bus, we shook hands. I was having second thoughts over his tip while in Mulee because of his antics. But, I gave him a handsome tip as originally planned. Every Ethiopian involved in this trekking business is dependent on his/her tips to feed their families. They, the scouts/muleteers, operate on a rotational basis. So, who knows when his next trip will be?

Out of Canuckistan: A travel blog, Apr 23/07
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