Excerpt from Appalachia, Summer/Fall 2008
Few Americans have ever seen Ethiopia’s high-altitude wildlife. The man pointed at his leg and began to babble. I couldn't see anything, and I couldn’t ask the problem. My knowledge of Amharic, the Ethiopian language, was nonexistent. I was more concerned with the small herd of horses that had congregated around the oversized, antiquated scale. I hoped my duffel was under the weight limit. The horses were supposed to carry up to 55 pounds each, the unofficial worldwide standard for pack animals, but these looked a bit scrawny.
The man touched my arm and pointed to his leg again. This time, he turned to the side, revealing a ten-inch gash that ran down most of his calf. It was an old wound, closed but seeping and miscolored, in the throes of a terrible infection. I grabbed my duffel off the scale to the protests of the white-bearded gentleman who was fitting various sized brass knobs, part of an archaic system of weights and balances, onto a horizontal bar. My first aid kit was on the top. First, I washed the dirt from the injured man’s leg with my ration of drinking water for the day, and then I proffered a couple packets of bacitracin. By now, my guide, Seleshi, was by my side to translate. I knew the bacitracin would not heal the wound, but it might stem the infection long enough for the man to survive the two-day walk to the nearest medical clinic.
We were in the Simien Mountains in north-central Ethiopia. I had come here to see this region of volcanic goliaths, many over 14,000 feet, with sheer cliff walls as impressive as the Grand Canyon. Few Americans have even heard of Simien Mountain National Park, which receives almost no visitors. Long the poster country for famine, AIDS, drought, and abject poverty, Ethiopia is short on both tourists and the infrastructure to support them. That was part of the allure, for me. The other part was the fact that the Simien Mountains are home to a number of rare species of flora and fauna, such as gelada baboons and walia ibex, and more than 180 species of birds.
I never saw the man with the gash again, though I would wish I had brought a gallon of bacitracin with me. We encountered a number of highlanders who wished to show me an infected rash as we trekked by a precipice 10 miles from the closest village. A benign scrape becomes a life-threatening wound here because of lack of basic hygiene. In the Simien Mountains, man, bird and beast live beyond the boundaries of civilization, dependent on a rugged, unforgiving land for survival. Yet the place was breathtakingly beautiful and alive, a vast wilderness where rare animals peered at us from grassy plateaus and raptors soared below us as we climbed to lofty perches.
Until my college friend, Debbie Hannam, had suggested that we explore this remote range, I had dreamed of a classic safari on the African plains, aiming my lens at lounging lions, long-necked giraffes, and galloping zebras. I had never heard of gelada baboons or the Simien Mountains.
Debbie and I discovered our common desire to trek off the beaten path over a casual summer gathering in 2004. We had hiked together in the White Mountains, but yearned for something farther afield. By coincidence, we both wanted to go trekking in the Himalaya, particularly Bhutan, which was on the cusp of discovery but was still largely off the mainstream radar. That adventure proved so fulfilling that we decided to plan another one for the following year. Debbie suggested Ethiopia. I didn’t hesitate to commit.
In November 2005, two days before our departure, I received an ominous email from our liaison in London who was helping to coordinate our guides, permits and travel logistics. The perennially unstable Ethiopian government was on the verge of a coup. One hundred fifty people, including seven journalists, had been killed in the capital Addis Ababa. The British and American consulates warned that the country was limited to “essential travel only” and had sent home all but critical personnel.
We postponed our trip. Once in the mountains, we would be far from any unrest, but we needed to travel through the capital, as it had the only international airport in the country. I called my doctor to verify that the myriad of shots I had just received would be good for at least a year. We delayed for a full year because we wanted to go to the Simien Mountains in November, just after the rainy season, when many of the wildflowers unique to the region would be in bloom.
After an interminable flight from Boston through London and Alexandria, Egypt, and a brief layover in Addis Ababa, we boarded an Ethiopian puddle jumper bound for historic Lalibela.
During the taxi ride from the airport into Lalibela, I watched the landscape with keen interest. An old army vehicle lay on its side, now more flora than jeep. A man walked along the road with an impossibly large pile of straw on his head. Three school girls, dressed in blue, giggled at us as we passed. There were few other cars, an occasional rickshaw, but many people walking. Ethiopia is the third poorest country in Africa. The average income per capita is the equivalent of about $600 per year, half the cost of my plane ticket, yet poverty here looked much different than other Third World nations I had visited. For example, in India, the poor lie in the street, begging with an outstretched hand and a forlorn eye. Here, I saw few beggars. The roads were lined with people walking with a purpose. Their homes may have been little more than mud and stone huts, but they were well-cared for.
I t was Sunday. The walkers wore white robes and turban-like head dresses, standard church garb for both men and women. Though Muslim and various animalistic religions are common, Ethiopia is considered a Christian nation, the only one in Africa, and Lalibela is at the heart of the Ethiopian Orthodox sect. It was the capital of Ethiopia during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and seems frozen in those medieval times, attracting thousands of pilgrims each year, though the road there is impassable during the rainy season. Its dozen stone-hewn churches are arguably more remarkable than the lost city of Petra.
The car stopped at a height of land. “This is Bet Giyorgis—Saint George’s Church,” said Seleshi, “The most well-preserved of the stone churches.” Nothing around me looked remotely looked like a building, let alone a landmark church. “Look down,” smiled Debbie.
Then I saw it, a giant cross dug into the hillside. We walked to the edge of the pit where it lay. It was three stories deep! The church had been dug into the rock, straight down, like a giant sculpture. We spent the remainder of the day exploring the many tunnels and carved grottos that connect the dozen rock-hewn churches in Lalibela. A posse of young school boys followed us, dribbling a soccer ball made of rags wrapped around a rock. The underground churches to me surpassed the most remote Buddhist monastery in Bhutan, the most ornate cathedral in Europe, even the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem in the feat of their construction. It was a powerful introduction to the people of the Ethiopian highlands.
The next morning, we got back on the puddle jumper, this time heading for Gondor, another former capital of Ethiopia. We spent another day of acclimatization there, which included a tour of the former royal enclave. We walked through the only castle in Africa, now a crumbling mass of stone. A military stronghold for the Italians during World War II, it had been bombed extensively by the Allied forces.
Finally, on day three, we loaded our gear into an old Toyota Land Cruiser to begin our trek. I casually inspected the vehicle, strolling around it under the pretense of photographing some blooming poinsettia trees on the edge of the parking lot. The tires were as shiny as black satin and unlikely to offer much traction on the rough roads we were sure to encounter. There was no spare and no driving after 6 p.m. because of the possibility of bandits. My confidence waned. We had to make it to the trailhead or this expedition would end rather badly before it had really begun.
I glanced at the roof rack as Seleshi threw the last few bags up to our driver. A row of tall, thin containers filled with petrol prevented the bags from falling off the back. A large metal box, currently empty but soon to hold our provisions, formed the front barricade. The rack looked sturdy enough, but it was grossly overloaded, as tall as the vehicle. I wondered how we would fare in a strong crosswind.
Lisa Densmore is the Emmy-winning host of the PBS program Wildlife Journal and a freelance writer and photographer. She lives in Hanover, New Hampshire, with her husband and 11-year-old son. She hikes, writes, and photographs frequently in the Green Mountains, White Mountains, and Adirondacks. To see more of her photos from Ethiopia and elsewhere, visit her website, www.DensmoreDesigns.com. To read the rest of this article and others
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