We could not access blogspot for some reason in Ethiopia
We left Addis Ababa and headed south towards Lake Langano, which is nestled in amongst some mountains. The book said it was tea coloured and promised to be the only worm-free lake in Africa that one could safely swim in, sadly the greenish slime on top put us off! We camped for the night next to the lake, admired the stars and enjoyed being away from the smog of the city. We had an interesting chat to the American owner of a nearby restaurant on the state of affairs in Ethiopia, the immense amount of aid and sadly, the corruption. It was comforting in some ways to confirm some of what we thought we had seen.
From Lake Langano we continued south to Awassa which is a college town also on a lake where we celebrated Ethiopian Christmas (celebrated on the 7th of January). It was nice to see families out together on Christmas day and we had possibly the best dinner in months at a restaurant that served stone-oven pizza and wait for it – brownies with strawberries for dessert! For me it is often just about the food!
We said goodbye to Awassa and drove to Yabello – the scenery changed dramatically from hilly roads surrounded by banana and coffee plantations to wide open spaces, flat-topped acacia trees and ever redder dirt. The road wove through numerous villages which had pretty much all joined together and the territorialism of the locals was notable, understandable we guess given the amount of fighting in the past between the tribes here. The village road was often blocked by a piece of rope with some plastic bags tied to it or sometimes a long stick to make a barrier. These barriers appeared unguarded and mostly we could ride over or duck and ride under to continue on our way. We struggled on this road to find a stop to have a break and when finally really needing one were surrounded by about 40 people within minutes of getting off the bike – it all starts friendly until they ask for money, clothes, food or anything that you will give them and then we must jump back on and ride off.
From Yabello it was a long descent to the border town of Moyale where the Ethiopian side suddenly looked developed in comparison to its Kenyan sister town on the other side of the ‘no man land’ strip. Ethiopia has been a challenge – time to see what Kenya has in store.
From Lake Langano we continued south to Awassa which is a college town also on a lake where we celebrated Ethiopian Christmas (celebrated on the 7th of January). It was nice to see families out together on Christmas day and we had possibly the best dinner in months at a restaurant that served stone-oven pizza and wait for it – brownies with strawberries for dessert! For me it is often just about the food!
We said goodbye to Awassa and drove to Yabello – the scenery changed dramatically from hilly roads surrounded by banana and coffee plantations to wide open spaces, flat-topped acacia trees and ever redder dirt. The road wove through numerous villages which had pretty much all joined together and the territorialism of the locals was notable, understandable we guess given the amount of fighting in the past between the tribes here. The village road was often blocked by a piece of rope with some plastic bags tied to it or sometimes a long stick to make a barrier. These barriers appeared unguarded and mostly we could ride over or duck and ride under to continue on our way. We struggled on this road to find a stop to have a break and when finally really needing one were surrounded by about 40 people within minutes of getting off the bike – it all starts friendly until they ask for money, clothes, food or anything that you will give them and then we must jump back on and ride off.
From Yabello it was a long descent to the border town of Moyale where the Ethiopian side suddenly looked developed in comparison to its Kenyan sister town on the other side of the ‘no man land’ strip. Ethiopia has been a challenge – time to see what Kenya has in store.
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