When the mind wonders off – part VII

Sipping tea, at the side of the street, you see many faces of the city pass you by, with many stories behind them and various problems – yet they still find a smile to give to the occasional tourist.

We spent a day visiting marketplaces, tasting freshly squeezed juices and similar things and concluded the day appropriately – at the camel market.

Not being able to find it, we asked the first local friendly face: “If you could tell us, where we can buy a camel?” And the kind gentlemen said: “Naturally, may I go with you?”

So we were on our way, with a friendly stranger, who invited us – after we’ve made a tour of the huge camel market – to his home. So what should we do, but accept the invitation of the friendly Sudanese, wearing the traditional white dress and a turban?

His large family was very happy to have met us and offered us tea and small snacks. In the back they’ve even killed a goat, but I’m not sure if it was in our honor or just an everyday thing. It seemed a feast was about to start.

Next day we went to see the pyramids at Meroe, a bit over 200 km from the capital. The pyramids with huge figures and outer reliefs from the lion temple are a symbol and depiction of 30 kings and it is believed the Nubians created this site eons ago.

Ethiopia. Small houses and muddy roads indicated the boarder crossing between Sudan and Ethiopia. With filled water reservoirs and checked tires, as well as a local hitchhiker we picked up at the crossing, we cam e to the custom house. It was 40km away from the crossing itself, making the local’s knowledge more than just a tad useful to us. After settling the administrative obstacles, we realized we’re still missing some fuel and the people directed us toward something that could have never fooled me as having a gas station there. We thought it might have been a joke, but in one of the huts near the road we were able to buy 60 liters of fuel, with no pump or anything – straight out of the barrel, with a lot of energy and patience. While we were refueling, a group of locals gathered around us and watched us with very curious eyes – as we did them!

The path lead us to Gonder. People on the street, especially children, were quite annoying. Begging for money, explaining it’s our duty to give them some cash and so on, shocked us. The years of foreign help left the trace on local people. It felt like they look at foreigners as walking bags of cash.

We moved from the city to the glorious mountains of Semien. Camping at 5 degrees we started our tour of the Ethiopian mountains – and were quite cold. Luckily we quickly warmed up by the fire of the eucalyptus wood. We had our guide with us, with his Russian made machine gun, who really did show us the place. The high mountains really are impressive (over 4500m above the sea level) ate the home of the baboons, wolves and wild cats. It’s a hard to get to terrain, but still there are many villages high in the mountains, linked by simple paths.