APRIL 27, 2012 LAKE LANGANO TO BALE MOUNTAINS, ETHIOPIA

Friday April 27, 2012  LAKE LANGANO to BALE MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK

Today we started leisurely - we had slept well and were awake just after 4am.  The room was comfortable and the shower had lots of hot water - can you imagine how great that felt!  The sun came up and the birds started singing and winging their way around the property which had glorious views overlooking Lake Langano - the only fresh water lake in the Rift Valley that you can swim in because it does not have bilharzias that can make you very ill. We still wouldn’t take the chance.

Around 7 am we went to check out the large property with gardens and flowering trees and shrubs, a deck overlooking the lake, and a walkway down to the pebbly beach for those who would like a swim.  There was even a kids’ playground and soccer pitch.  Being 200 km from Addis this is a destination for the city folk for holidays and weekends, and there were several Ethiopians staying in the SANGARO resort while we were there.  Of course there was also new construction - large hotels and restaurants being built on both sides of the SANGARO.  On the opposite side of the lake to where we stayed is an eco lodge for bird watchers called BISHANGARI.

There are 98 bird species in the Sangaro area and we saw several including white and black striped sparrow weaver, yellow beaked hornbill, GOWAY bird, and yellow.black masked weaver.  We also saw a hare running across the grass.  By the way - if you read the blog yesterday you heard me talk about how many donkeys and donkey carts we saw on the road - well, there are 13 million donkeys in Ethiopia!  

Malcolm joined us for breakfast which included pancakes, ginger cake, waffles, eggs to order, guava juice, toast, muffins, fresh pineapple and wonderful coffee!  Ethiopia is known for its’ fabulous coffee but I really enjoyed mine this morning.  After breakfast and a quick 5 minutes in the store, the Land Cruiser was loaded with our bags and we were off.  At one point we passed a check stop on the road (we weren’t stopped) and it is where both the police were and the National Park Rangers from the Abijata Shalla Lakes National Park. Abijata means feeding, Shalla means breeding.  The name comes from the thousands of flamingoes who breed and live in the Park.  60% of the Park is the lake water which is the deepest lake in the country at 250 metres.  There are also lots of volcanic hot springs around Shalla.

We saw lots of donkey carts (what a surprise) today is Friday and market day in town - so everyone is busy taking firewood to sell, along with maize and sorghum (to make beer), as well as barley and wheat.  Masses of people and donkeys heading into town.  Ethiopia is a very industrious nation and we saw many wooden single ploughs with the farmer walking behind the plough being pulled by two oxen.

In Kuyera town (about 240km from Addis) we saw Customs - they check the traffic coming from Somalia and Kenya to see what goods are being brought into Ethiopia. Something else that has fascinated me, and we saw it everywhere today, is all the cactus hedges that everyone grows around their property.  They cut off a stem on the Euphorbia and stick it in the ground - they all grow straight up and make a wonderful hedge - they  are also poisonous!

Then we came to Rastaland, about 250km from Addis - this is where (after his trip to Jamaica) Emperor Haile Selassie gave a small strip of land to the Rastafarians, about a 200 metre strip (maybe 14 0r 15 hectares total) - we saw lots of the rasta colours and signs for Spicy Caribbean Delight and the Black Lion Museum.  The traffic was not as crazy this morning and soon we saw a major change in the countryside, changing to Ebony trees, Sycamore fig, and pine trees - as the altitude increased we changed to the alpine vegetation.  We were so lucky - Bale and Malcolm spotted a couple of colobus monkeys (my favourite monkeys) - the beautiful long furred black and white monkeys with such pretty faces.  We exited the Land Cruiser and as we waited there were eventually 9 of them on the other side of the road and up the hill.  About 5 of them climbed a very large tree and spent quite some time watching us while we watched them and took photos!  We also saw baboons (quite shy), fantailed ravens, red billed chough (birds) and red hot pokers (yes the flowers we have in our garden at home)!  Our highest altitude today would be 3800m.

The Bale Mountains are a true plateau (flat and high) known as Sanetti Plateau and tomorrow we would drive to the top for a wildlife safari for the day and we would drive the highest year round road in Africa!  The Bale Mountains get 8 months of rain each year, not all day every day, but significant rainfall. The produce grown in this area includes wheat for bread, barley for beer, and sorghum for bread and beer!

Ethiopia (sometime called the Land of Endemism) has many endemic mammals and birds including the Mountain Nyala, Abyssinian Wolf (which at times have been called the red jackal and red fox) and  Bushback.  The birds we saw during the drive included blue wing goose, ruget’s rail, yellow billed duck, white nobbed kut, spotted breasted lapwing (very noisy and aggressive little birds), black headed fiskin - really pretty birds, and cattle egret.  Along the sides of the road as we continued the drive were many false banana seedlings - called false banana because they don’t produce bananas!  However, they do produce a thick stem or trunk which is fermented underground between 3 to 12 months (!) and then used to make a type of bread!

We pulled off in the town of Dodola for an early packed lunch sitting in the gardens of a small local “hotel” (no you would not want to stay there).  We used the facilities (squat toilet but clean) and sat down to be served a cold cheeseburger and fries by Malcolm with a huge smile, brought from the Sangara hotel that morning!  They were all packed individually in tin foil, along with a tin foil package of ketchup!  Meanwhile Malcolm and Bale ate the local enjera (pancake like bread) and lamb tibs!

We then drove some more, thoroughly enjoying the villages we drove through, the donkey carts along the way and the scenery.  We pulled into the Bale Mountain Park Headquarters in Dinsho to buy our park passes for 24 hours.  We also went for a bushwalk from the HQ with a Park Ranger  for more than an hour - making it back to the Land Cruiser just before the really heavy (but short) rain shower started!  It was uphill and we were at a high altitude so we certainly knew we were climbing uphill!  We thoroughly enjoyed the walking safari and saw Mountain Nyala (1 male with 7 female), lots of warthogs with 6 tiny piglets, Reedback, grey duiker (very hard to spot him hiding behind the bushes!  We saw several solanium bushes with bright yellow fruit - looked like large unripe tomatoes which are poisonous to us but a favourite of the Nyala.  Other spottings included the African Grey Flycatcher, the Abyssinian slatey fly catcher and the beautiful yellow and green love birds.

As we pulled into the village of GOBA we learned that this is a University Town and now has a very large population of youth attending the University.  It is a muslim town so many girls and females wearing the full traditional headdress covering everything but their eyes.  We had a discussion with our driver Bale who told us that the youth are an issue for Islam Extremists - that all religions work, eat and play together with no problems and join each other in their traditional celebrations, but there is getting to be quite an issue as the Muslim youth are following the Islam Extremists.

We checked into the GOBA WABISH EBELE HOTEL around 4pm - we were to be here for 2 nights and this was to be the worst hotel we have stayed in!  It was probably about the level that we expected before we came to Ethiopia but we did not like it.  It was built in the 1970’s and it still looks the same as the day it was open I think. Old very tacky bathrooms, small rooms, small beds with sheets that aren’t large enough - we would be happy to leave here but the WABISH EBELE hotel is THE only hotel that you can stay at close enough to let you visit the Bale Mountains and Sanetti Plateau.

We went to have a cocktail before dinner and found out that there was no tonic in the place!  They said they had lemon but when they brought our drinks we had straight gin with a slice of lemon!!!  Dinner was quite good - spaghetti with tomato sauce, and veal cutlets were our choices.