Out of Ethiopia

Sitting here in an Internet Cafe in a modern Nairobi mall that I had frequented two years previously, it is truly astounding to think back to the leg of this trip Jay and I completed just yesterday; down what is known as the most dangerous road in Africa.

We left the comfort of Dr. Abebe's home in Addis Ababa on Monday at around 4:30AM to catch a bus to the border town of Moyale (there is a Moyale, Ethiopia and a Moyale, Kenya). Unfortunately, the bus was full by the time we lugged our massive and aptly named, Jandd "Goliath" packs through a bustling station. Thanks to the wherewithal and successful jockeying of Abebe we were instead able to catch a bus to Dilla, a university town about halfway between Addis and Moyale. Completely underestimating Ethiopia's environmental diversity we both expected to find ourselves in increasingly flat and more arid landscape as we got further South. Instead, we rose out of Awassa and Shashamene into the high mountains of what we were told is the place of origin for coffee (not sure if any South American country would argue this point). Dilla itself was beautiful and a nice stop. This was especially so considering the bus driver, who we later discovered had never driven this route before, seemed hellbent on launching us off one of the mountains. He had no idea how to downshift, so in order to make it up hills he would put the petal to the metal on the preceding downhill to get momentum for the uphill; oncoming traffic, pedestrians, corners be damned.

We left the next day, again at 4:30. Surely this time we would be heading into more arid terrain. Again, we were mistaken as we climbed even further into the lush green mountains. After a breakfast break in one of the mountain villages our bus, not unpredictably, broke down just on the outskirts of town. We got off to wait and were soon surrounded by probably 30 or 40 kids. For some reason the "you you you" and incessant begging had been left behind in Dilla and these kids simply wanted to practice their limited English and play soccer with us. The hour and a half break turned out to be a great experience.

After the bus was revved back to life we finally began our descent out of the Ethiopian highlands. The ubiquitous herds of sheep and goats turned into camel trains and we were soon in desert scrub-land. We had no idea how long this part of the trip would take. Whenever we passed over any sort of vertical change in the landscape we would hopefully look ahead for signs of a town. We looked for buildings for hours until finally, 10 hours after leaving Dilla, we pulled into Moyale, Ethiopia.

Being late in the day we half-expected, and feared, that the border would be closed. Instead we passed easily under the make-shift gate and into Kenyan customs where, ironically, they would not accept the Kenyan Schillings for which we had exchanged our Ethiopian Biir. No, the Kenyan Government only accepts American Dollars. After much hassle we were able to convince the border agents to allow to return the next day with dollars and were allowed to spend the night in Kenya with out a visa.

It was a neat feeling for me to return to Kenya having worked there two years before. That night we naively asked the Somali owner of our hotel where we could have a beer. As a Muslim he said he did not drink and furthermore, that all of Moyale was Muslim. Then, in a hushed voice he told us of a secret bar hidden behind the local prison. Here, the Christian policemen stationed in Moyale could sneak away for a drink. We thanked him and made our way, rather nervously, to the speakeasy. Once there we met a friendly Kenyan engineer who offered us a free stay on the Kenyan coast. Unfortunately those resorts were never part of our itinerary.

The next day we were to leave for what would probably be the hardest part of our journey.