October 25th, 9:30pm, Paarkii Baallee Hoteell, Robe:
Well, the pools at Wondo Genet weren’t nearly so romantic or fantastical by the light of day… everything looked a bit trashy, though you could still imagine what its former beauty must have been like. The pools were still warm, but if you looked close you could see the water was fully of little algae particles which were less than appealing. The waterfall had slacked off considerably from the night before, and was now just any other muddy little stream windy between grassy beds. The showers, however, were still fantastic (although it was a little disappointing to see the corroded pipes the water spouted out of) and it was kind of fun to stand in a big crowd of local guys, all taking turns sudsing up and washing our crotches in the blasting hot water. Still, I’d gladly go back, but would be very sure to take that long hike up in the hills during the day (Shimeles said there is a place somewhere up there where there is a big sand pit right up in the hills, and the sand is steaming hot and you can bury yourself in it and watch the Colobus monkeys play overhead. That’s on next trip’s must-do list) and save the romantic trip to the hot pools for after dark.
Never did get to try those little bananas again, or the local papayas or special fruits who’s name I can’t even recall right now. Oh well. I suspect there will be another chance in a year or so.
We began the drive up into the Bale Mountains (pronounced Bali), and it didn’t take long for the jolting of the road (really awful!) to bring back the acid reflux. I’ve fingered as a likely culprit the chronic overeating, along with constant meat intake, low-level stress, and jolting car-rides with no exercise. Shimeles offered that, should I want to bring Halle back here next time, he’d be really happy to go with us to see the best parts of Ethiopia, on the cheap… backpacking and camping, student-style. I think there’s a very decent chance I’ll take him up on his offer, if I don’t get too burned out on this place. He’d be an incredible guide and fun companion, and I figure if we just let him choose the dates and paid his way for a few weeks, he’d be happy to do it. Now that I’m getting a better idea of the best places to visit, a return trip for vacation purposes is sounding more appealing. … But not THAT appealing. Keep in mind how damn homesick I am, after only 4 weeks here.
You know one habit of Ethiopians that bothers the hell out of me? They’re all hopeless cell-phone addicts. EVERY Ethiopian seems to have one. I’ve seen guys so poor they don’t even seem to own a pair of pants, yet they somehow afforded a cell phone. And they’re ALWAYS talking on the damn things. But that’s not what annoys me, not so much. Americans are really just about the same (although I like to think that my friends, at least, are mostly different). But the Ethiopians have absolutely no sense of cell-phone courtesy. Their phones are NEVER turned off, not for any purpose. And if it rings, they answer. Always. In the middle of a deep, personal heart-to-heart? Doesn’t matter. You’re instantly cut off. Telling a joke? A story? Asking a question? At a fancy restaurant? Sitting with the territorial governor or the regional army chief to beg a favor? In the middle of a tense argument with a gang of Afars who are all shouting and pointing their guns at you? It doesn’t matter! They’ll always answer, and there’s no “sorry, I have to get this…” No apologies, and once they’re on the phone, there’s no effort to get off to get back to the business at hand, either. They’ll talk, and talk, and talk… and personally, it’s been the hardest thing not to take too much offense to it. But it’s really RUDE! And I don’t know how many times I’ve just wanted to snatch the phone out of Shimeles’ (or someone else’s) hand and smash it on the pavement. Even when we’re way out of phone range but someone keeps trying to call Shimeles, six times in a row the conversation breaks up after a few seconds, but he’ll keep answering the damn phone in the middle of a conversation with me and shouting “Hallow! Hallow? Hallow??” It drives me crazy.
Well, I don’t want to spend too long writing tonight because we have to get an early start tomorrow and I still want to call Becks tonight, and read a bit, and spend a good seven hours at least sleeping on this wonderful firm queen-sized bed I somehow lucked out in getting… Had a bit of a scare for a while tonight, convinced myself that I’d left the sat phone at Wondo Genet, and was ripping out my hair in silence on the drive home from dinner, trying to think of where I’d put the damn thing when we were packing up to leave this morning. Found it, though. Phew. Oh, other stress: that damn cheap battery that Becks picked up last time she was here to use in the field and insisted we take: it’s turned over twice in the back of the car and leaked battery acid all over everything, and the big North Face duffel and the Timbuck2 laptop back got a good dose of it… and I know those bags are at least worth $250, and I’ve taken them with me twice into the shower and scrubbed and scrubbed them with soap, but I’m really nervous that there’s really nothing I can do now, and slowly the acid will eat big holes in both bags. It’s already got a start on them, and I don’t have much confidence that my washing has stopped it. Oh, dinner: really quite good tonight. Pure meat. Lamb, I think. They had the carcass strung up right inside the restaurant, and sliced off the hunks of muscle right in front of us and chopped it and cooked it and served it in this neat Ethiopian tagine with coals in the bottom, and damn it really was tasty. That was it. Chunks of meat, with a bit of injera for those who so desired. Of course everyone was feeding me gurshas long after I was completely stuffed, but at least I enjoyed the taste this time. I sketched the tagine for Halle to copy if she wants.
Our drive up into and through the Bale Mountains was my happiest time yet on this trip: even from 70 kilometers away, I started thinking that the place looked a hell of a lot like Montana, only with grass-thatch huts and eucalyptus trees and black people. If it wasn’t for the terrible road, I would have been enjoying myself immensely, but the jouncing and jolting was so awful that my inner euphoria was competing with some serious external discomfort. However, as we got higher and higher into the hills, I really started to enjoy myself. Near 9,000 feet, the villages got very sparse, and the ones that were still around were very small and picturesque, with only a couple beautiful little huts and patchwork fields of bright green grasses and grains, on the steeply sloping hillsides. At 10,000 feet all the trees fell away, and we reached a sort of temperate, equatorial tundra, where everything managed to look lush and alpine at the same time. Up ahead and above us, huge pegmatite and limestone spires soared skyward in awesome domes and formations jutting from the ridgetops like a stegasaurus’s back-spines.
At 11,000 feet, it was getting damn cold, and the air became so clean and clear and fresh and sharp and delightful… I kept trying to open my window, and everyone else kept shivering and shouting at me to close it. The sky was gorgeous: billowy white clouds and smeary grey ones, in sharp, crystal-clear contrast to the brilliant blue sky patched between them as they whipped and churned above us. The kind of sky you can only find at higher elevations on cold spring or fall days, the kind that make you want to whoop and run about and suck great lungfuls of air and sing songs from The Sound of Music and let the cold wind make your nose run. We drove right through the spires on the ridge-top, and through picturesque little mountain villages and I thought, ‘this is a part of Ethiopia I could get used to, a part of it I could stay for a considerable time!’ and admired the mountain-people who looked happy and tough and rode beautiful horses on strange saddles and plaid saddle-pillows and rode very upright and whipped the beasts along with cloth riding-crops, looking very elegant in a way that instantly set them apart as highlanders. Topping out at a little village around 12,000 feet, we drove straight into the clouds, and then soon after it started to rain fiercely, and the road became truly treacherous and we slid and banged and sploshed around all over the road, barely making progress and still with a long way to go to Robe. We entered the Wildlife Preserve, and there were almost no villages now, and things looked more and more like a real wilderness of sorts, and we kept our eyes peeled for a red fox or Ethiopian Wolf, but it was really pouring and we had no luck. We reached the entrance to the Bale Mountains National Park, and I made a mental note that if I ever came back to Ethiopia on Vacation, trekking here would be the No. 1 thing on my checklist. About half an hour before dark, we finally bounced and slid into Robe, and successfully extracted over six months of data from the continuous station without trouble or incident. The evening light was spectacular, the air cool and clear, the streams and rivers running clean and sparkling, and though the town wasn’t one of the wonderful villages of traditional huts that I liked so much, the view from the one street made me feel about as close to back home as I suspect I could ever get here. The scenery and smell and feel of it isn’t really just like Montana… no, not at all… but there are some things similar that I think all high, lonesome, mountainous places share, and for those things I was very, very thankful. To top it off, just as we checked into our hotel and the last light of day was fading from the sky, the entire town of Robe experienced a power failure and I sat on the step of my room watching the white clouds fade to deep purple in a turquoise-violet sky, and the sky fade to black, and the clouds clear and a crescent moon rise. The full outline of the moon was visible, all around the dark part, and the sky was able to get darker than I’ve seen it my whole visit here. Thank goodness for power failures! The two ladies were bitching, but I love the way these towns look when the lights and generators and loud music go off, and all the little candles and lanterns come out, and everywhere is soft light and quiet voices, and as I looked up, so did the bright, bright stars, twinkling from the strange constellations in a cold, clean sky.