I love Awassa. Wow. I almost feel like I'm speechless because I love it so much...but then I think about how long this blog is going to be and realize that I'm evidently the opposite of speechless.
Let's begin.
On Friday morning, we began our journey. A couple of people had dropped out, so that left me, Kendra, Lisa, Dundee and his girlfriend, Ruth. This meant we could all fit in Dundee's car, which was good news. We piled in, and left the city. This was exciting enough on its own, because a little break from Addis was certainly needed. It was about a four hour drive, with beautiful scenery the whole way. After driving for an hour or so, something exciting happened. It sounded like this:
Lisa: "Hey, there's some camels."
Me: "Where? Where?! Where?! WHERE?!!!" At this moment, I was frantically searching for my camera and the camels at the same time. Don't worry, I found both.
Kendra: "CAMELS?!!!!!!??!!!!!"
Dundee just kept driving, and Ruth laughed at us. Unfortunately, as Dundee was driving about a million miles an hour, we were not able to get pictures. But we decided not to worry, we'd just have to hope to see them again on the way home. I was a bit disappointed, because what were the odds of that? How often do you just spot camels when you're not in a zoo? Apparently often enough. More on this later.
Just over halfway there, we stopped at a beautiful beach area for some lunch. There was a very nice resort there that overlooked a lake. It was very pretty, and super in the middle of nowhere. I liked it very much. Also, I got spaghetti with alfredo sauce (yeah Ben, my fav!) so that was just delightful.
Because Ethiopians seem to run very late and on a very slow clock, planning to leave Addis at 9am to get to Awassa at 1pm didn't happen. We arrived around 6pm instead...just in time for dinner. We met another friend who lives out there and had been visiting Addis about a week ago, named Josie. He came to dinner with us, and then we hung out at his "man room" (what he referred to his house as) for a while before heading to our hotel for bed.
Now let me tell you a little about our "hotel". Of course, Kendra and I were beyond pumped because Dundee had promised running water. I pretty much cared about nothing else. Staying at a place that has running water for two nights?! Heavenly. There was in fact running water, but this was certainly no five-star hotel. Not that I expected it to be, but it was just kind of entertaining to see our room. It was tiny, for sure. Room for a bed, and not much else. They generously give you a bit of toilet paper (by a bit I mean no more than you absolutely need for a two night stay) folded nicely. No crazy toilet paper roll business...that's too fancy. My bath towel was pretty epic, since it was a children's beach towel featuring Barbie. That's just fun. But the best part was our mosquito net. In Awassa, since it is at a lower elevation than Addis, there is malaria. Of course, I'm taking medicine anyway so I'm good to go. But for the extra protection (and because it was just awesome - not being sarcastic here) we took full advantage of the net. It was like sleeping in a tent! Pretty exciting stuff. Then there was the shower. Wonderful streams of water, flowing and flowing. Of course, it flooded the whole bathroom because there isn't actually a shower or tub...just a shower head. But who cares, we were so clean! All of this greatness for only 150 birr per night. Yes, that's approximately $9. Ha! Luxurious.
Funny story - Kendra and I shared a hotel room. We were told that we each had to have our own, unless we were a couple. We assumed that this was for money purposes, and were bummed that we couldn't just pay for one. But it's only 150 birr, so not a huge deal. Anyways, as I said, we still shared a room. We each received a key to our own, which were two rooms right next to each other. We soon decided that we were too afraid to sleep by ourselves on the first floor of a new place with windows that I'm pretty sure my four-year-old nephew could break into. And the beds were pretty ginormous. So, I moved my things into her room. Well, the next day my bed had clearly not been used. Evidently this was a cause for concern. The hotel people confronted Dundee and asked if we had shared a room. We told him yes, because we were afraid to be alone all night (I know, total chickens). A little background information: homosexuality is very not okay in Ethiopia. Dundee assured the hotel peeps that we were not a couple, and never wanted to be a couple, just two stupid Americans who wanted to share the room.
We showered, we slept beneath a mosquito net, it was a delightful night. The next day, things got wayyy super fantastic. We started the day off with breakfast, where Kendra and I got awesome gigantic pancakes. Yum. Then Josie said he would take us to his "Starbucks". This place was the total opposite of Starbucks. It's was super traditional Ethiopian, but the coffee was amazing. After that, we began our adventure of finding all kinds of super cool animals. Let me preface this by saying that all the animals I am about to mention were wild animals...not animals from a zoo. Yes, the people living in Awassa know where to go to find these animals, but they are not in cages or in any sort of wildlife preserve or anything. They're just hanging out, and it was pretty much the best ever.
First, we saw crazy huge birds. By huge I mean almost as tall as Kendra with beaks as long as my arm. They were insane. We went to see the fish market on the lake and they were everywhere. On tree tops, in the water, flying around, on the grass, all over. They didn't seem afraid of people, because they got verrrry close to me. I was a little bit afraid of them though, because I'm pretty sure they could eat me.
We then walked a little ways into some trees to where we could find monkeys. There were so many! Tons of them! They were so cute..not like the giant scary ones we ran into at the Nile gorge, but little ones that seemed harmless. Apparently they get fed a lot, because it you hold out a piece of food they walk right up and take it from your hand. Oh my gosh, I loved it. We had leftover pancake with us (which we had brought just especially for the monkeys) and we fed them. It was so much fun, having them walk up and grab it. Some of them even had little baby monkeys hanging on to their stomachs...so adorable! It got even better when I got to feed a monkey while it sat on my shoulders. I was beyond excited...the pictures I have do a pretty good job of showing that. It was absolutely amazing.
When we ran out of monkey food, we got on a little boat and headed out onto the lake to see the hippos. We were very excited, but also very nervous that our boat would tip and the hippos would attack us. Apparently they aren't nice creatures. But our boat driver, Massai, seemed like a very good protector-from-the-hippos type of guy. So that's good. We took the boat all the way across the lake an then, all of a sudden, hippos!! Right there, swimming around! We saw at least six of them, maybe more. He took us as close as we could safely get, which was a little closer than we thought was safe. But the hippos did not attack us, and we loved seeing them.
It was lunch time then, which we had at a very cute little resort on the lake. There were monkeys running around, which obviously makes for a fantastic time. Every time a table was left unattended a monkey would jump up and steal the food. Sometimes the monkey would jump up while the table was not unattended, in which case people would usually scream and I would laugh. Clearly a fun lunch.
The rest of the day was spent hanging around outside, relaxing. After dinner, things got pretty exciting again when we went on a hyena hunt. Don't worry, we stayed in the car the whole time...I wanted to see a hyena, but I didn't want to be eaten by a hyena. We drove around, Dundee and Josie in the front and us four girls in the back, and searched. We hadn't been driving long before we came across our first hyena! He was a big guy, and fast! After that, we saw three or four more running around. One even ran across the street right in front of our car! It was pretty thrilling, I must say. All in all, a delightful ending to one of the most amazing days ever. I cannot blog well enough to make you understand just how incredibly happy I was to see weirdo birds, monkeys, hippos, and hyenas. I miss them all already.
On Sunday, we were planning to leave in the morning. Of course, that didn't really happen. After breakfast, we walked around a little and climbed up this random giant tower that was in the middle of a roundabout. Pretty good view, but very high and rather slippery steps. We had to walk down verrrrry slowly. We then went to visit a sister of Dundee's that lives in Awassa. She lived in a teeny tiny neighborhood that looked like it was all farming houses. It was cute, and there were lots of kids around who were super excited to see us farenje. They were pretty cute! We finally made our way home in the late afternoon, stopping again at the resort we ate at on Friday to have some dinner. The ride was basically the best ride of my life, because we did indeed come by camels again. There was instant excitement in the car, and we made Dundee turn around and pull over so we could get pictures. So we're in the middle of nowhere Ethiopia, surrounded by dirt, beautiful trees, and nothing else (besides the epic herd of camels, obviously). There were tons of them walking around out there, it was so cool! Lisa, Kendra and I were standing outside the car on the side of the road getting ready to take some pictures when Dundee said, "Um...you should get back in the car. I think someone's coming." By 'I tihnk someone is coming' Dundee meant 'there's a dude with a giant stick coming to attack you'. When we turned around, we saw this Ethiopian guy running at us at full speed, huuuge giant stick in hand. It's true, Ethiopians are not slow runners. This guy was moving quick. And he was clearly headed towards us. Evidently he was not pleased with us taking camel pictures. Naturally we got into the car as quickly as possible. He was still coming after us, and nearly reached the car just as Dundee was turning around and speeding off. Woah! That added some serious excitement to the camel spotting. And also some danger.
We made it home safe and sound, and instantly began sharing our stories with everyone. I think they realized very quickly how much we loved Awassa. It was absolutely amazing, and I had a fantastic time. It was so nice to get out of Addis for a couple of days, and there were so many fun things we got to see and do. If you ever go to Ethiopia, I highly recommend it. I feel disappointed in myself for not doing a better job on this blog post, because I want you all to understand how amazing it was. However, because of all that amazingness, I am still a bit exhausted tonight and I'm writing this right before bed so I can post it tomorrow. So even though this writing is not super epic, you'll just have to believe me that the trip was super epic. Perhaps pictures will help...hopefully I'll get some up tomorrow!
Oh my gosh, I'm glad I near about these things AFTER they happen! You are amazing!!
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