Arba Minch and the Bale Mountains

February brought a big mile-marker for my training group: Mid-Service Conference! This means that we are half-way through our two years of service, and had a three day conference to catch up on all we are doing at site.  Since we were already in Addis for the meeting, a few friends and I decided to take the next week to do one of my absolute favorite things, travel!

I do realize that I live abroad, and in some ways I have been “traveling” for 15 months now, but having the opportunity to get out of site and visit to a new part of the world always makes my heart beat with excitement! My wonderful friend Danielle and I decided we wanted to visit the Bale Mountains in southern Ethiopia, but of course plans kept changing until the day before we left, when it was finally decided that four of us would first spend a long weekend in Arba Minch.  This city in southern Ethiopia literally means “Forty Springs” and is most well-known for its national park, Nech Sar, "White Grass."

After a day full of buses from Addis, our bus arrived in our destination city, which I can only begin to describe as something from a fairy tale.  A smaller city surrounded by mountains on three sides, and two lakes on the other that just screamed adventure to us-- Exactly what we were looking for.

A quick bus transfer and we finally made it to a village in the surrounding mountains, Dorze, which boasted a cultural lodge, where you sleep in the local huts, for under $10 a night!  A buffet of Ethiopian food, a personal gabi (local blanket/jacket) draped on each of our shoulders, a couple glasses of tej (local honey wine), and a night filled with traditional music and dancing; we couldn’t have asked for anything more!

The next few days we spent exploring the national park, stalking what appeared to be the last four zebras in Ethiopia, spotting a Peter Pan-sized crocodile and camping under a canopy of trees.  I must add that there are more than four zebras (which, in Amharic, are called striped donkeys) but while we were in the park only four ever came into sight.  We had so much fun, despite the fact that it seemed like every bus or tour guide we dealt with wanted to try to rip us off more than the last guy.  I could write an entire book about the art of bargaining in Ethiopia, but at the end of the day we are still ferengi in their eyes, and therefore, rich.  An emotional beating every time you get judged for the color of your skin, but I’m hoping it is making me a stronger person in the long run.

Moving past that unplanned tangent, we then cut across to Hawassa meeting up with another volunteer and friend from home, who were joining us for the Bale Mountains portion of our trip! Traveling from Hawassa to the entrance of the Bale Mountains National Park proved to be another full day on buses. Hawassa to Shashemene to Dodola to Adaba and finally to Dinsho! Four legs later we were dropped off right outside the entrance gate where we happily accepted the “resident rate” and hiked in a couple km to our first campsite.  We were only in the park a few minutes before seeing our first nyala and several dik diks.

We camped in the park for three nights, each at a different campsite, hiking during the day to new areas.  Since two horses and a guide were compulsory, it worked out well that Danielle and I could hike without our packs, while all the boys carried theirs, leveling out the playing field!  It was such a relaxed environment; each new area was filled with places to explore: waterfalls, forests, cliffs.  We would arrive in the afternoon, setup camp, and spend the rest of the day playing games and discovering the surroundings.

I learned that the local guides are a lot better at building fires, and keeping them alive than we are.  They are also able to endure long nights of cold rain without tents to keep them dry, only shallow caves to barely shelter them.  We had so much fun hiking through the Bale Mountains and enjoying the beautiful region.  Wart hogs and their babies scampered around the fields, mountain hyrax jumped from cliff to cliff, and six ferengi balancing on rocks to cross a river while carrying packs.  We succeeded in finding an adventure; we always do.