We started our trip in Bahir Dar, next to Lake Tana, and we spent a couple of days visiting Orthodox monasteries and running around getting letters of reccommendation from the Tourism Comission, the embassies, the head of the police and the militias, just lots of paper with signatures and stamps to get a trouble-free passage. Papers in hand, we set off with our guide Molla to Tsat Falls, and there the police insists that we take armed accompaniement. We’re very reluctant but they won’t let us go, they’re worried that nobody has done this trip before and they want to make some money as well.
After hours of negotiations we agree on taking one scout, Mulukan, what a character! He is an ex-bandit (all the guidebooks on Ethiopia talk about the dreaded shifta..), and after serving a prison sentence he came out and dedicated himself to growing sugar cane. He got ready to leave on a week long trip from Tsat Falls to Mota in 5 minutes, and came with a green suit jacket and matching shors, yellow plastic sandals, his riffle from XIXth century in one hand and a bag with biscuits on the other, oh and balancing a blanket on his head; that was Mulukan!
So we start following the Blue Nile through breathtaking scenery, and on the way we come across farmers as little as 4 years old with their goats and sheep, women carrying water or wood, men on their way to the market in the next village… It’s Christmas Eve, so we stop by a farm and put up our tents and cook poulet a la crème du lait! The next days we follow the same routine: we get up with sunrise, prepare tea and set off to walk before it gets too hot; for lunch and dinner we try to reach some farm or little village and we always get invited in to share some injeera (traditional bread) and have a coffee ceremony (they roast the beans, burn incense and serve three rounds of lovely coffee). We realise how remote this is when we see the faces of the children, scared because we probably look so pale to them even if we haven't had proper shower for a week and have been walking under 25 degrees. We get used to doing all our daily things sorrounded by a crowd of kids, whether it is brushing our teeth or putting on sun lotion or filtering water , we’re like a circus!
After a week we arrive in Mota, the first decent size town, and we go straight to a restaurant, never a Coca-cola has tested so fresh and an omelette with fresh bread so good, my God how much have I missed the dinners at Palatine Rd because here everything is so so basic, there’s no vegetables or fruits, if we’re lucky we get onions and if we’re extra lucky bananas, that’s it… We’re exhausted, full of blisters and flea bites, but it has been a fantastic first leg of the trip and we buy some more buiscuits and blankets for the secong leg, we change scout because Mulukan doesn’t know the area anymore so Tele comes with us, and we are also accompanied by Shembal and his donket, which carries some of the weight as this time we’re going up the Choke Mountains.
We start climbing up these singing mountains, apparently you see nobody but you can hear them talking to each other and singing while pasturing their animals or working the land, it’s magic… And when they see us they stop what they are doing, they say Salam and come to greet us with a HUGE smile and shake hands, I’ve recorded so many smiles in my memory that I don’t think I’ll run out for a long time! For New Year’s Eve we are at 3,000m and we decide to have a rest day on the grounds of a school, the teachers invite us to a coffee ceremony and then they sing and dance around a fire to ceclebrate our New Year (theirs is on a different date), a small but very special celebration…
On the next day we keep going higher and the landscape is just mindblowing, this little village hanging on top of a hill is like a little Eden, lush green, and with a famous sheep market, so the whole village congregates in the town hall to invite us for a tea and hear us talk to the chairman about out trip. Afterwards the chairman and the police and the militia (very hierarchichal societies here), armed with kalachnikovs accompany us to the house where we’re going to camp for the night and they slaughter a sheep for us. It’s quite a ceremony itself, and while they are cleaning it the falcons are flying over our heads and diving down to get any left over… We have a feast around a fire, and then they start singing and dancing banging their kalachnikovs on the ground, it’s such a beautiful scene but I’m terrified! So I slowly make my way to the tent, and the next morning I wake up and find the whole group sleeping right outside my tent, covered with thick animal skin blankets… and I feel so honoured that this people really went out of their way to wellcome and protect us.
Finally we reach the summit at 4,100m and we have a little picnic right on the top, and Mr. Hakon Jacob Rothing asks me to marry him, and of course I say Yes, yes, yes, I’m so happy for it! So details to follow…
Then we start going downhill again, down to our beloved rolling hills, and in a couple of days we reach Debre Markos, dying for a hot shower and a proper bed, so we treat ourselves to a nice hotel and even the smallest luxury feels like heaven. We stop in another couple of small towns and we return to Addis, where we just rest, and eat, and rest, and eat…And I already miss the singing mountains and the smiling farmers, what a trip!
