I got up and ready quite early today and was out of the house just after 0800. There were two buses going in the direction of the ridge I wanted to climb, but they were both full with lots of additional people trying to get on as well, so I switched to plan B. I had noticed on the map that the Beles River joins with another river about 7km to the West. Programming the location into my GPS and having no idea what the conditions would be like, I set off. At first I used an access road I had spotted previously, about 1km up the road to the North. It led to small hill which gave me some good views. Then after negotiating a field, I found a path which led precisely in the direction I wanted to go. I met a few people on the way – they wanted to shake my hand. Some were carrying lots of, I guess it was teff grain, and a couple of men were carrying large wooden tree trunks for building. After I had got a certain way along, I didn't meet anyone else.
About 1km from the "target" on my GPS, the path became very difficult to follow. There were little stretches that had been trodden, and some places where people had cut down trees, and finally at around 700m to go, there was no path at all. I just had the GPS to guide me. There was a lot of slow going as I trod down stems of reed-like plants, and I came to a couple of impassable dead ends. Finally though, I came out looking out right over the place where the rivers met. It was much higher than I had expected, I think I worked out it was 30m above the river. It was a great view. The Beles River, flowing from Gilgel Beles about 7km up-stream, was flowing fast and there were rapids. The other river was much slower flowing. I sat admiring the view having my lunch of biscuits and mooz (bananas) – the same as I had had for breakfast. I just had to get down to the river level, so negotiating a rather steep slope while holding on to branches and reeds I made it down. The rapids were quite impressive (and this is the dry season) and I noticed lots of butterflies. You can tell how strong the river gets in wet season as there were some huge boulders. At the other end of the scale, showing how violent the river must get, there were little "beaches" of fine sand. There were some very interesting rock formations looking like they had flowed down and solidified. I'm not a geologist, but it was either lava (I think they were layers of quartz) or some kind of sedimentary layers put down millions of years ago and twisted by various forces. It was then that I noticed that I was the lowest altitude I had been since Beirut on the flight out. I was at around 950m, about 60m lower than my house – oh the heady rush of increased oxygen!!!
While I was clambering over the rocks I suddenly noticed a waterfall (or Fwa-Fwa-Te in Amharic – Konjo Telick (means beautiful big)) in the distance. It was a bit of an added bonus as it wasn't mentioned on the map. It was about 300m up the Beles and I walked along the banks and took lots of photos. Then I climbed above it and had another snack after nearly burning my rump on the rocks - they were very dark and with the strong sun, they were scorching!
While I was sitting there, to my surprise a man appeared carrying a stick and about 15 fish he'd caught. I said the usual greetings and buhzo asa – "lots of fish" and then he took one off and gave it to me. I gave him a birr. I wrapped it in a plastic bag I had, but didn't know what I was going to do with it really.
A short while later I found another dangerously-steep bank to climb up and using my GPS I navigated back to the road. The GPS receiver makes it so much easier - with no paths, or paths that keep petering out all the time it was great to look at the tracks screen and see where I had walked before. On the way back there were some very good views of the ridge.
All in all, a pretty good day!
Bonus material:
My factor 50 sunscreen seems to be working – despite being out in the full glare of the noon sun I got away without any burns. I did use my umbrella when it got really hot as additional protection.
I took 2.7 litres of water with me and drank all of it before I got back. When I did arrive at the college I gulped down two Marindas (orange fizzy drinks) and spent the evening re-hydrating!!
I managed to cook my fish. I've never cooked a fish before in my life - I usually just get a frozen bread-crumbed piece out of the freezer at home or a Fillet-o-fish (pronouncing the t) from McDonalds! I chopped off the head and tail and eased the guts out, cut it in half and fried it. There wasn't much fish on it, but it tasted ok, and, considering it had been heating up nicely in my bag on the way home, it didn't smell which I believe (and hope) is a good sign. I did remember that it had been swimming in the Beles which is where people wash themselves, their cars and it's where all the waste from the Shintabet goes!! Oh well, I'll see what happens tonight.
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