…Then don’t try it here.

Ethiopia is a big country. The north in particular, is rugged and mountainous. The roads are poor, and distances between towns are long. That’s why most visitors to Ethiopia fly between places like Lalibela and Bahir Dar. But not us. We try to stay on the ground wherever possible. If you could see our methods of travel – for example, this rattletrap bus I’m sitting on where three seats are crammed into the space for just two, and I’m attempting to type on my iPad as we crash into an endless series of potholes – you’d honestly think we woke up in the morning and said to each other:

Sar: “What do you suppose is the single most agonizing way we could get from point A to point B today?”
Oyv: “I’m glad you brought that up. I was thinking we should take the bus.”
Sar: “Great idea. I heard it’s a 6 hour journey so that means it should take at least 10 hours. But the driver will make time by driving like a lunatic on any stretch of paved road.”
Oyv: “Definitely. The road is mostly a disaster and the suspension will be totally shot. We’re in for a long bumpy ride!”
Sar: “That’s fine. I’ll be gripping the seat back ahead of me and bracing for impact most of the trip anyway.”
Oyv: “And chances are high the other passengers will throw up in the aisle on the bends in the road.”
Sar: “Sure thing, but we’ll pass plastic bags around, no big deal.”

Actually we’ve just pulled over to clean up the aisle. The driver’s friends sprinkled dirt and leaves over the mess.

I was happy; I got to straighten out my limbs for a bit. We’re both too long-leggy for these seats.

But I wondered if some of this sudden flurry of activity was a ruse to distract us from the fact that the driver himself was currently crawling around under the front of the bus with a wrench.

Our oddessys always begin with a visit to the local bus station where we are mobbed by touts, much like a scene from The Walking Dead (I really miss watching that show). Touts are after a commission on us, and we have to ignore them all and find the ticket office. Even so, it usually takes around 8 guys to sell us two tickets or organise any single aspect of a bus trip.

Next, we need to determine when the bus will actually hit the road. Ethiopia runs on a different system of time. I’m not referring to ‘Africa Time’ – the colloquial concept that things start when they start – that’s just a given. No, I mean that Ethiopia actually measures time on a different clock. Our 24 hour day is divided into two 12 hour cycles, starting at what we would call 6 am and again at our 6 pm. Basically you need to count 6 hours ahead of or back from any given time. So if a local says the bus leaves at 10:30 he means 4:30 am – unless of course, he has converted to ‘western’ time for us, and actually means 10:30 am, or he’s got his English numbers mixed up and means 11:30 on the Ethiopian clock (so….5:30 am). Or maybe he meant 11:30 our time. The best bet is to just get up really early, earlier than any number he may have mentioned, and go to the bus station.

I should also say that Ethiopia follows the Julian calendar rather than the Gregorian one used in most of the world. So it’s only 2008 here and we’re all 8 years younger. That alone is reason to visit if you ask me.

Before we depart, let me set the stage for our dramatic and scenic journey: winding cliff-edge roads and freely roaming livestock. Bus travel in Ethiopia is not for the faint hearted.

Then a tout hurls our backpacks onto the roof of the bus, demands a tip for this service, and we’re off! The adventure continues onboard, mainly via the driver’s usual antics. In every town, he slows to a crawl and attempts to coerce any passing villager to join us. Generally the rest of the villagers then try to fight their way onboard.

When the driver realizes he’s gone too far and the bus is overcrowded with people who don’t appear to have had any intention of travelling cross-country in the first place, arguments erupt and he starts slamming the doors in the face of would-be passengers.

On one memorable occasion, our driver leapt from his seat (kudos to him for stopping the bus first) and forcibly evicted an unwanted passenger by the scruff of the neck.

Another time, I saw man try to board with a live goat around his shoulders.

I think it’s possible the Ministry of Transport may be running an awareness campaign called ‘Faranji Hate and Fear Our Driving Skills’ because on two separate occasions now I’ve had a bus driver take me aside and courteously enquire how I find his driving to be. And in that case the campaign is working because both of us have been favorably impressed so far; the drivers do generally take it pretty easy and they know the roads.

Just to slow our progress a little bit more, the police tend to pull the buses over from time to time. They either make the men get off and search them, or make us all get off and search our bags. I’m often exempted from this and just waved back to my seat. What they are looking for is anybody’s guess. It’s no secret that people carry guns here. We see them everywhere in the countryside, although not on the bus. Or in ambulances:

But really – there is no better way to experience a country than to see it roll by in slow motion or fast forward, depending on the state of the bus, the road, and the driver’s mental health. Remote villages flash by outside and inside a microcosm of daily life plays out around us. We stop for lunch, coffee and a much needed stretch in little market towns that the fly-by tourists will never see. Getting on a bus early in the morning, we wonder what the day will bring and what awaits us in the next town, and the one after that. And after all…getting there is half the fun.

At any rate, we made it to Addis Ababa.

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For more of our adventures (and misadventures) in Ethiopia, check out the rest of my stories from the road.

The post Getting There is Half the Fun: Local Transport in Ethiopia appeared first on WhirledAway.

Tout (racing over from across the road, 5 friends in tow): “Hey, Faranji (foreigner)! Welcome to Gondar.”
Us (in chorus): “Thank you.”
Tout (sizing Oyv up, squeezing his bicep): “I like your posture. You need bus? Where are you go?”
Sar (testily): “We just got here. You saw us get off that bus.”
Tout: “You need Hotel?”
Oyv (patiently): “No, we have one in mind.”
Tout (shaking head regretfully): “It burned down.”
Sar (through gritted teeth): “Go away.”
Tout (mournfully, with deeply wounded expression): “But I have a nice hotel, you come look? Looking is free.”
Sar: (screams wordlessly and storms off)

Anyway, we asked around and although our first quote was for 700 USD per person for a 3 day and 2 night trek, we eventually ended up agreeing on a more reasonable 180 each.

And so we trekked into Simien National Park the next day with some other travelers, a local guide, an armed scout, two cooks, two mules carrying all our gear, and a mule man.

The park is 400 km/sq of mountains and home to about 7000 people in small scattered villages, bushbuck, wolves, endemic bird life and racist baboons. According to our guide, the baboons apparently only like white people.

We could get as close as we wanted to huge groups of them, but they run fast from locals who have a long history of throwing stones at them.

I was horrified to find myself huffing and puffing at first. Then I remembered the altitude: Gondar lies at 2400 m above sea level. We started our trek at 3100 m and climbed from there.

We camped in the park for two nights; at 3260 m the first night and 3600 m the second. It was pretty cold up there – we woke up to ice on the tent.

And then our luck ran out: something or other Oyv ate along the way disagreed with him and he spent the first night crawling in and out of the tent to throw up. He was a champ in the morning though and carried on, even refusing to ride the mule. He only stopped once to throw up on the path.

The third day we climbed to one of the peaks, at 3926 m. What a view! They call this park the Roof of Africa, because it contains the highest peaks on the continent, after Kilimanjaro.

Coffee is a big thing in Ethiopia. We stopped in a small village in the park for some in a family’s home. A family of 6 live in this circular mud hut, with a fireplace in the floor. There’s no vent, smoke just trickles out the cracks between twigs and branches in the walls. The whole family sleeps on a wooden platform which was also the only piece of furniture.

The mother made coffee: first she washed the beans in a skillet, then roasted them. Then she smashed them in a mortar and pestle and eventually boiled the coffee on the fire. She poured the coffee into our small cups, in three rounds, reboiling the grounds in between. Her 4 year old son happily participated in all three rounds. He took at least a tablespoon of sugar in his coffee.

Since returning from the mountains we’ve travelled slowly but steadily south in Ethiopia, stopping in Bahir Dar and Lalibela on our way towards Addis Ababa, the capital.

Other than the occasional muslim village the north of Ethiopia is predominantly Orthodox Christian. Lalibela, a remote town in the mountains, is one place where the roots of this religion are highly visible.

This small but famous town takes its name from the King who excavated at least 11 churches out of solid rock over a span of 23 years during his reign around 1200 AD. The most famous is this one, dedicated to Saint George:

The churches altogether form a huge complex connected by underground tunnels and narrow passageways.

There are two theories regarding their construction. Ethiopians like to believe the churches were miraculously scooped out of the rock by angels. The rest of us are under the impression that the work was carried out by around 40 000 slaves.

Each church contains a curtained-off Holy of Holies, like King Solomon’s temple in ancient Jerusalem. One of the reasons King Lalibela carved these churches out of the countryside was to give his people a pilgrimage site a bit closer than the long trek to the Holy Land. A replica Ark of the Covenant resides behind the curtain in each church, hidden from the sight of everyone but the priests.

It is said that the real Ark is not lost at all – it’s in a church in Axum, up north – but no one is allowed to see it. Only two people have allegedly laid eyes on it in the last 200 years or so.

And that is the Ethiopia of long ago.

Today, Ethiopia is one of the economically fastest growing countries in Africa, though still one of the very poorest. Drought leading to famine in parts of the country is a real threat. Not very long ago at all, life expectancy was as low as 45 years (although now it has climbed to around 60) due to any number of factors including poor healthcare and high HIV infection rates. But health care is improving and becoming widely available even in remote areas, and school is both free and compulsory.

If you’ll excuse this overused cliche – Ethiopia really is a ‘land of contrasts.’

In the capital city Addis Ababa, street side shoe-shiners offer to clean our trainers or sandals on the pavement; a 30-something professional walks by, dressed exactly as I would be back home, in skinny trousers, flats and a scarf, clutching her designer purse. A beggar displays the stump of his missing leg outside of a shop selling overpriced goatskin bags and other souvenirs. A brand new tram glides silently between glistening skyscrapers going up fast on one side, and a slum constructed of tin and cardboard on the other. Some men kick a suspected thief in the stomach and face right in front of us; a pedestrian steps into the busy street and holds traffic for us to cross. To the casual observer, drinking a macchiato and watching from the coffee stall – even the simplest of every day activities seems plagued by unbelievable disorder.

At the same time, Ethiopia offers the traveler some of the richest cultural heritage on this continent. It’s the one country in Africa which emerged uncolonised from the 19th century ‘Scramble for Africa’ and still today it’s independent, unique and proud. Besides this, the natural beauty of this country is astonishing.

A few days ago, we caught the eye of a fellow passenger fighting to keep his footing in a surging crowd of people all trying to board the bus simultaneously. He must have read our minds. Sandwiched between a sweaty shepherd and a nun with a tattooed-on beard, he shrugged, grinned, and said ‘T.I.A. You know: This is Africa.’

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For more of our adventures (and misadventures) in Ethiopia, check out the rest of my stories from the road.

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We had mixed feelings. Despite looking forward to a new country and the next stage of our journey, we were pretty sorry to leave Sudan, where we’d had such a good time.

We took a last look around Omdurman Souk (market) near Khartoum:

And we were lucky enough to see Sufis – adherents to a sort of mystical branch of Islam – gather to dance and pray outside the tomb of their leader, Sheikh Hamed al-Nil. The worshippers march across a cemetery to the front of the tomb, chanting, clapping and drumming. The chanting and drumming becomes more frenzied and the whirling dervishes dance and twirl. The idea is that through the hypnotic music and dancing, the dervish’s heart can communicate directly with God. It is a powerful sight.

Of course, because this is Sudan we’re talking about, on the way back from Omdurman a friendly local found the right bus for us in a confusing crush of people and vehicles, helpfully elbowed several people out of the way and pushed me on board in the wrestling match that ensued when the door slid open – and paid for our fare.

And then it was time to pack up and move on.

After one last stop for tea and a photo-op, of course.

We took a minibus from Gedaref to Gallabat. I’ve learned so much random geography in these past few weeks. Gallabat is the frontier town bordering Ethiopia so it boasts the usual border-town-assortment of scams and scammers; money changers; idle looking soldiers; and people who seem to spend the day in a continual flux between two countries, roaming back and forth in no man’s land.

We ran the gauntlet, starting the moment we stepped off the bus. A tout who tried hard to send us in the wrong direction to what was very obviously a fake customs and immigration office where we knew ‘officers’ waited to shake us down. Several persistent money changers out after the rest of our Sudanese pounds at rip-off rates. A man masquerading as some kind of border-crossing assistant who insisted he had valuable ‘information’ for us. We managed to locate the actual customs office no thanks to the real officers who do nothing to deflect all the fraudsters.

An immigration officer quickly stamped us out of Sudan. Leaving the country seems to be the one instance in which we’re processed quickly and painlessly. I love crossing by foot from one country to the next. There is no better way to arrive in a new land: disembarking a plane in a generic airport just isn’t the same. This was a pretty casual border, marked by a concrete hut painted with the Sudanese flag. A few uniformed guards waved us past and we ran ahead of the money changers who could no longer follow us.

We joined the stream of migrants crossing no man’s land. And then ducking under the rope strung across the road that separates two countries, we strolled into Ethiopia.

It was like walking into a different world. Or at least, into a nightclub. Beer! Loud, happy, exotic music! Girls, out in the streets, and in short sleeves and skirts! Beer! Men holding hands with women instead of other men! And beer. The extent of Sudan’s restrained austerity really hit us.

We waited interminably for a minibus to fill up – that is, to reach or even better, exceed, capacity – so we could leave for Gondar.

Careening high into the mountains in the cramped and sweaty bus, we watched from the front seat as one country rapidly blurred into the next. After wandering in the scrubby deserts of Sudan the lush green mountains, trees, pretty little farms and colorful villages of Ethiopia were literally a breath of fresh air.

Arriving in Gondar we saw familiar looking teastalls and little streetside eateries jostling for space on the crumbling pavement next to bars and cafes. There was the occasional shack looking very suspiciously like a brothel, and the obligatory guys fighting in the street. We found ourselves a room at a popular hotel. It had soap, toilet paper, clean sheets, and actual pillows instead of what feels like a sack stuffed with rags. We had a private bathroom and a hot shower. All this for just 14 USD – the luxury! Actually just the fact that a ‘popular hotel’ even existed felt rather extravagant.

But there are tourists here and Ethiopia is ready for them (and they’ve got the heavily armed guards out in force to prove it). The question is if we are ready for Ethiopia, after the peace and quiet and wild nights out drinking tea in Sudan.

Let me drink this beer and get back to you.

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Check out the rest of my stories from the road, for more of our adventures (and misadventures) in Sudan and Ethiopia.

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