Trek, day 2: Rachel and Safta were incredible

This is advertised as our longest day, 20 Km (12.5 miles). We arise to a table set on the edge of the escarpment looking down upon the vast Ethiopian equivalent of the Grand Canyon. Breakfast of pancakes, scrambled eggs and tea.



We set off for the trek slightly ahead of schedule with a plan to stop every hour. This worked well till the last hour when many aches and pains slowed us down.

We passed thru vast grazing lands where sheep, goats, cattle, oxen and horses are all tended by children in bare feet, aged perhaps three to ten. Huge wheat fields were ready for harvest. Men working with 12" diameter sickles were cutting the wheat, arranging them in large piles. They gathered the piles on their heads and walked long distances where they were set on the ground in a large circle. Two or three horses were then led round and round for hours to thresh the wheat. When the winds come in a few weeks it will blow away the chaff. The wheat will be crushed by hand into flour that will then be used to make the wonderful bread that we ate that was baked without a stove. There is no electricity, running water, plumbing, ect. However they have found a way to provide all the necessities of life.

Lunch is another idyllic spot where there are three tikuls. One is large and open on the sides -- the lunch room. One is the kitchen with a charcoal fire, and the third is the toilet, open on one side to the amazing view.



We meet people from Belgium, Germany, holland and the u.s. Hiking in opposite direction to us. We sign the guest book in which only one or two guests out of every one hundred are from u.s. I cannot help thinking that if people would do this instead of cruises we might make a dent in our obesity problem. Two other obervations; in 30 or 40 pages that I searched I found two 7 year olds and a scattering of 13 and over. To date Rachel is the first 10 year old to do this trip. Lynn and I are the most senior that I can find in dozens of pages. Oh yes, one more item; Brad Pitt has done this trip.



After lunch of, spinach, beets, potatoes and crushed spicy chick peas, we are off for two more hours to our destination on the edge of yet another section of this seemingly endless escarpment. Two other guests are with us here; a couple from France on their honeymoon.



Afternoon snack is Ethiopian pizza ala the bush. Our first "shower" in an enclosure built around a tree in the great outdoors. Dinner around a warm fire is again wonderful, nutritious and vegetarian.

We are off to sleep under a starry sky, the cooling air of nighttime in the mountains, and silence like you have probably never experienced.