Addis, it's Capital!

Awasa to Bale Mountains
There was a power cut around the Hotel Pinna area and the pastries weren't ready for our breakfast so instead we took a walk down to the lakeside. On the way we found the Lewi Hotel which looked newly built with a great café and power so we stopped there for coffee and doughnuts. We then checked out the lake, drew money and found the telecoms place where Kaz was able to place calls to Pamela in the UK and granny in SA. Not having outgoing communication is a real pain.
Then set off to Dodola en route to the Bale mountains. It is a bit of a trek eastwards and it means backtracking but given that it is the home of the Abyssinian wolf and numerous endemic bird species it is a trip we were determined to do. The road all the way is under construction and it is a real mess. The rainy season compounded by the heavy commercial traffic turns parts of it into a quagmire and real heavy going. The road also climbs over a mountain before climbing again towards the town of Dinsho, near the Bale park HQ. Funnily enough the Chinese, that well known road building nation, have the contract for this road and with a completion date of 12 March 2009 they don't have a hope in hell of completing it…unless of course they are using the Ethiopian calendar, in which case it's still 9 years away, and then they are in with a small chance!
The people in this region remind us of the Basotho with their horses and blankets. They have a penchant for white horses so the car kept resounding with the sound of; "White horse, white horse. Bring me good luck. Cross my fingers till I see a dog." Luckily there was no shortage of these either.
We got to Dodola just as a huge storm was brewing and checking out the dodgy camping option we decided to press on to the national park, a further 70+kilometres. The road and visibility grew worse but we soldiered on. Tom Cruiser was covered in mud and he'd only had a wash in Awasa!

After a 7 hr, 200 km drive we drove through the park gates. Hooray! Now, just to find the campsite.

Tom Cruiser, you old stick-in-the-mud!

We followed the signs to Dinsho Lodge and in the twilight found the campsite sign. We turned up the road and then the fun started. The road was really wet and muddy. We slipped and slid up and over some muddy sections until we got to a point about 300 metres from the top of the road when Tom Cruiser's tyres had turned into slicks and lost all traction. We couldn't go up and because of a large ditch behind us we couldn't go down either. We were well and truly stuck! We walked down to the lodge in the evening gloom to see if we could rustle up some muscle. We tracked down 2 guys who walked up with us to view the damage. Instead of mounting a rescue operation in the dark, we decided to call it a night. We brewed some coffee and hot chocolate which we had with doughnuts and spent a very "slopey" and chilly night in the tent.
The next morning we packed up a wet tent and, together with the help of some visitors staying in the lodge, we managed to extricate Tom Cruiser from the mud and reversed back to the lodge and set ourselves up in the carpark. There was no sign of our so-called Samaritans from the night before!
Of course the road to the campsite is supposed to be closed in the rainy season but it seems to be too much trouble to indicate it as such!

The Bale Mountain National Park is beautiful and the scenery more than makes up for the awful access road. We spent the day in the campsite doing washing (clothes and car) and journaling. We weren't able to walk or go anywhere in the park without a guide so we booked Abu for the following day to drive to the Sanetti Plateau for some wolf and bird spotting.

Abyssinian wolves, Abyssinian catbirds, Abyssinian hares
This country has loads of endemics and we drove off to the Sanetti Plateau via the muddy towns of Robe and Goba to find some of them. En route to the summit, which tops out at 4391metres, we were lucky enough to see 8 of these endangered wolves (they are jackal-like but bigger with orange-reddish fur and a white neck – I'll try to post a picture in due course), blue winged geese, black headed siskins, and more. The vegetation changed the higher we climbed and we ended up in alpine scrub complete with giant lobelias and alpine chats. At the summit we walked around the telecoms installation in an icy wind that threatened to blow us over the edge. We didn't have time to drive down to the Harenna forest and to be honest didn't fancy an additional 80km round trip in a day. If we'd thought about it we could have planned a night's stopover in the forest but that would also have meant another day's guide fee and all the rest. So we can do that next time!
Back in camp we made the most of our daily guiding fee with a short bird walk around the lodge. We walked up to the campsite we had tried to drive to: What a brilliant view, but no facilities!!

The bally road out of Bale

Up early to a rainy morning, great weather in which to face the long drive out of the Bale mountains. At least this time we knew what to expect and again we ended up with a mud be-splattered car by the time we finally made it back to the main road to Addis. We sped along the tar road towards Lake Langano where we planned to camp at the Bekele Molla hotel as recommended to us by the Italians we met at Lake Nkuruba. We found the turn-off and made our way to the hotel that looked like it was besieged by day trippers from Addis. The camping was expensive, the staff obnoxious and the campsite was basically the car park. We took our leave and looked for something nicer. We found it in the form of the Karkaro cottages. The campsite was secluded, uninhabited and right on the water's edge. Just our kind of place. Oh yes, it was also half the price of the Bekele Molla,, never mind the lack of facilities at Karkaro, it was far preferable. We cooked popcorn and then pasta and tomato sauce courtesy of Rose.

Addis Ababa

After more than a week in Ethiopia, we were about to set foot in the capital city. We packed up the tent and manage to cook breakfast before the rain came in from across the lake. We splashed our way back to the main road and Kaz dodged suicidal donkeys, goats and people all the way into the city. Addis did not let us down. The roads into the city are as bad as those into all the other African cities we've driven into this trip. Our first stop was the Egyptian Embassy to see if they were open. Not open for business so we started looking for accommodation. We found the Addis View Hotel not far from the embassy so we decided to base ourselves there for the next day or so while we check out the other options some way away. The hotel has a great view over the city and TV!! Rebecca is in her element; television and an en suite bathroom with a loo that flushes. What bliss!