12/21/19 - To Addis Ababa and Home

Our flight was uneventful, and we collapsed in the luxury of the Sheraton with its electric power, cash machines, internet access and room service. We had a late flight out to Frankfort, so we booked an extra night and stayed in our room, explored the hotel grounds and took it easy. We were getting traveled out.

We slept on our flight to Frankfort then spent a few hours in the Lufthansa lounge before boarding our flight to Vancouver. We took a north polar route from Germany to the west coast of Canada. In late November, the polar regions are in darkness, so for a good part of our journey the sun was to our south giving us hours of pre-dawn light. The slow sun of the arctic does things like this. The green flash is a transient phenomenon where the rising or setting sun refracts green for perhaps a second or two, but one group at a south polar station saw it for 20 minutes during a slow polar sunrise.

From Vancouver, we took a puddle jumper to Fairchild airport in Porrt Angeles. Canadian entry was pretty straightforward though the ATM like machines were a bit confusing at first. American entry was easier for a small plane like ours. It was just a short drive from the airport. We were home.

12/20/19 - Rira Waterfall - Part One

The trail sloped gently downwards, and we entered the forest. There were orchids blooming at the side of the trail. Down we went, then the trail became steeper. There were staircases to descend.

12/19/19 - Rira Waterfall - Part Two

Then we headed up a bit to see a smaller waterfall above this one. It was worth a bit more exploring. Then we retraced our steps, down to the lower waterfall, then up all the steps, through the forest, across the pasture and finally back towards the road where our driver was waiting for us. First, however, we had to check out a bunch of baboons who had come out to say goodbye. It was our last day in the Ethiopian country side. The next day we were heading back to Addis Ababa and then on to Frankfurt, Vancouver and finally Port Angeles.

12/18/19 - Up to the Sanetti Plateau

12/17/19 - Sanetti Plateau to Gobe

Gobe was a busy town full of small shops selling everything. There were dress shops, furniture stores, cell phone stores, food stalls, restaurants, banks and the like. We could see signs of progress with electric power and satellite dishses, but it will be a while before the chain stores move in.

12/16/19 - Back on the Sanetti Plateau

12/14/19 - The Road to Harenna

At one point, we stopped and our guide pointed out some of understory trees with dark leaves. There were much taller trees in the forest, but these trees with their almost black glossy leaves were different. They had berries, and when one peeled the husk off a berry, there was a green coffee bean inside. We were in land of wild coffee where the beans were first discovered and cultivated.

12/13/19 - Coffee Ceremony

We settled down in the pavilion, and our hostess started by setting up her fire and threshing the dried beans, removing their husks. She used a mortar and pestle to loosen the husks, then separated the beans from the husks by hand. Then, she roasted the beans over the fire. From time to time, she would adjust the fire and stir the beans so they roasted evenly.

Slowly, the beans browned and we could smell the coffee. She ground the beans in the mortar and pestle and brewed the coffee with boiling water in a big iron pot. Then, she poured us each a cup. It was one of the best cups of coffee we had ever had, rich and delicious. Interestingly, it didn't have the fruity notes were used to in Ethiopian coffee imported into the US. It was perfectly balanced, as one might expect.

12/12/19 - A Short Afternoon Walk

We crossed the stream that provided us with electrical power then walked past the horses in the paddock and the local warthogs and headed into the forest. There were old gnarled trees, a colobus monkey and groves of bamboo. We avoided the stinging trees and made our way along until the trail began to ascend in earnest.

We knew better than to continue. We more or less retraced our steps, heading back down to the lodge. Meanwhile the skies darkened.

12/11/19 - Caught in the Rain

We made our way as briskly as we could back to the lodge. The paddock was waterlogged. Our raincoats kept the upper part of our bodies dry, but our hats were dripping sponges and our pants quickly soaked through. We were a soggy mess back at the lodge. Now, however, we could congratulate ourselves on our good sense in not heading out farther. We could only imagine getting caught in that rain and having another hour ahead of us.

12/10/19 - Leaving Webb Camp

By the time we finished breakfast, the team had taken down the cook tent, and the dining tent vanished shortly after we finished eating. We packed our belongings, and our sleeping tent was disassembled shortly after. The tent, awning and even the toilet were gone. Everything was squeezed into the truck. We, our guide, our driver and one of the other workers squeezed into our jeep for the ride to Dinsho.

Near Dinsho, we stopped at a wildlife refuge where we saw nyala, and other now familiar creatures. We were much lower and already warmer.

12/09/19 - The Road to Bale Mountain Lodge

Then the road started to climb to the Sanetti Plateau. The wildlife park was around 8,000 feet above sea level. The plateau was over 13,000. As we leveled off onto the plateau, the scene was dominated by a large cell phone tower. Ethiopia has made cell phone coverage a priority, and it had the towers out there to prove it.

We stopped at one of the alpine lakes and admired the blue winged geese. It was cold, though not as cold as our morning at camp. We stretched our legs a bit and continued across the plateau. There were tall lobelias and scrub vegetation, a lot of silver gray artemesia. There were cloud capped mountains in the distance.

The clouds moved in as we headed south. We descended through fog towards Rira and Bale Mountain Lodge. The road wound its way down the south face of the plateau. We only had glimpses and shadows. We were soon in a different country, a land of bamboo slat fences and barrel like bee hives mountain high in the trees.

12/08/19 - Welcome to Bale Mountain Lodge

The lodge did not disappoint. We had a comfortable room near the main lodge buildings and made the most of the facilities as soon as we arrived. If nothing else, one could open a suitcase - including our recovered friend - and organize our belongings. We handed in a bag of dirty clothes to be laundered to the lodge. Then we settled in and admired the view.

The lodge had its own hydro-electric plant. It was rated at 25 kilowatts. We were grateful. Our e-readers were grateful. We recharged our battery packs just in case. There was lots of hot water. After Webb Camp, 20 liters (about 5 gallons) was a lot. We were back in civilization, or at least an outpost of it.

12/07/19 - Webb Camp - Day Two - Part One

The coffee in Ethiopia was wonderful, and not just because it was something warm to drink at a frozen campsite. All of the coffee in Ethiopia was excellent, even the darker roasts. This is not surprising, since Ethiopia is where coffee was discovered and, so, Ethiopians have had longer to figure out how to brew it than anyone else. They do a magnificent job.

12/06/19 - Webb Camp - Day Two - Part Two

We were not the first to notice this. Folks back in the Mesolithic, 45,000 or so years ago, lived in shelters carved by this very river. There had been a paper on this published in Science back in August, "Middle Stone Age foragers resided in high elevations of the glaciated Bale Mountains, Ethiopia". We hadn't paid much attention to the paper when it first came out, but we looked it up when we got home. There it was, an account of an ancient shelter right by Fincha Habera, the very waterfall we watched every morning while waiting for the sun to approach and warm us up a bit. There was even a picture of what had become a familiar scene.

We climbed out from under the waterfall, most likely as some ancient ancestor had done some time back, and we continued exploring the plain. We weren't up to as long a hike as the day before, but we did spot a group of nyala and saw some awesome scenery.