I took off at 6 am, intent of traveling north to cross the
Blue Nile, pass through Debre Markos, and finally come to spend the night at
Bahir Dar, by the shores of Lake Tana . I am
assured that the road is paved throughout, so 8 hours should be enough to cover
the 550 km. I filled the tank in the only gas station that was working at that
time, and took the steep road that climbs up from Addis into the high Ethiopian
Plateau. Oh, no, the road is narrow and was full of trucks slowly grinding
their way up the slope at a snail’s pace L
Fortunately the traffic cleared once we made it to the top,
and I saw ahead of me a landscape of rolling hills where farmers were hard at
work plowing the soil with plows and teams of oxen that belonged to another
era. It was beautiful, but I wonder why were then plowing in June? Were they
going to get a second crop of teff during the summer? An alternative
explanation is that they were using an old dry-land agriculture trick, in which
you break the soil in coarse lumps to facilitate infiltration. Once the rain
reaches the intact underlying soil it infiltrates by capillarity it stays
there, unable to evaporate because it is protected by the coarse layer of
turned soil. In this way the farmer can “store” the water until the time comes
for the next planting.
After 150 km or so I came to the edge of the Grand Canyon of
the Blue Nile . It was a magnificent sight,
with the thin ribbon of muddy water nested in between the walls of an enormous
canyon, a good thousand meters deep. The road that goes into the canyon (and
out of it in the other side) is paved, but it has been deformed into a swell of
waves by the passage of heavy trucks, so it feels like you are sailing across a
choppy sea.
The canyon has magnificent exposures of the stratigraphy of
this region. On top one sees the upper Cenozoic flood basalts of the Ethiopian
massif, underlain in turn by lower Cenozoic sandstones, Upper Mesozoic
limestones, and Lower Mesozoic cross bedded massive sandstones typical of the
arid climate of Pangea. My geologist’s heart is chortling with happiness. I
could very well be looking at the Navajo Sandstone in Zion National Park Africa when a tribe of
chattering baboons crossed right in front of me, and made itself comfortable by
the side of the road so the females could nurse the infants that were hanging
for dear life to their bellies, and so the males could engage in the ritual
game of grooming themselves.
The landscape changed as I reach the high plateau on the
other side of the river. It is so verdant, and the fields are getting ready to
be harvested. I am not sure I can recognize many of the crops, but in some
small plots I saw corn, which you can buy roasted by the side of the road, and
beans. I assume the “grassy” plots are teff.
When I looked at the route I had to follow I was worried
that it was going to all be twisty mountain roads, but actually most of it was
meandering through gentle hills. This would have enabled me to make good time,
were it not for the fact that people and animals very much feel they have right
to share the road with little cars like mine, minibuses, and enormous trucks.
It is not too bad when I am the only car in the road, funneling through lackadaisical
groups of three or four people walking side by side on the edge of the road.
The real problem comes when a huge truck is decided to share the narrow
corridor, coming at the people from behind. So I have to stop, let the truck go
by, and then resume my way while the folks continue uninterrupted their
conversations.
Speaking of people, this is not Mongolia , where you can go for
miles without seeing anyone. People are everywhere here, so it is really hard
to stop to pee. No sooner have I stopped at an apparently empty spot when four
little boys pop out of the bush, smiling and asking for a coin. Once I was in
the middle of doing my business when a little boy popped out and simply stood
staring while I finished watering the daisies.
I was approaching Debre Markos, at about half the way, with
a little under half tank of gas, so I decided it was time to top off. Imagine
my distress when I found out that the three gas stations in town had run out of
gas! No sooner had I noticed this when the needle started leaning decidedly
toward the one quarter mark. I started sweating, as I wasted some more of my
precious fuel driving 15 km to the next town (no gas either), and another 15
km, and a final 20 km where one of the attendants took pity of me and directed
me to a hidden pump in the back and topped me up. I was shaking a bit as I
gratefully shook his hand.
The last leg of the trip was again different. Many years ago
Ethiopia
was in the verge of environmental collapse, because all trees had been cut for
cooking fuel. Then one of the emperors (Menelik II?) had eucalyptus trees
brought in from Australia
and in the years that followed the new trees expanded explosively through
northern Ethiopia ,
until now they form veritable forests in the highlands. Because eucalyptus
grows so fast, a logging industry is now well established here in the
highlands, with farms of young, tall, straight trees growing everywhere.
Eucalyptus is not such a great wood, because it is too twisty to cut planks, so
instead they are cut when they are 5 to 10 cm in diameter, stripped and loaded
to impossible heights in heavy trucks, and are ultimately used as poles, either
to frame a house that will be letter covered by adobe plaster, or to build
scaffoldings used to build 8-storey high buildings. Some of the wood is also
charred into coal, to satisfy the energy needs of rural families.
After nearly 12 hours of travel (very nice slow travel) I
finally made it to Bahir Dar, the city at the southern shore of Lake Tana Blue Nile , so
for a water guy is like coming to the origins of it all. I decided to splurge
and book myself into the Blue Nile Resort, and am writing this log from my two
room suite seeing the sun rise over the placid waters of the lake. Not my
style, but I have to say that luxury is not bad from time to time.
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