The Simien Mountains National Park - January 14

Speechless.



All right, I know I can't write just that and then show some pictures to prove it, but...

Really. Stunningly gorgeous scenery, baboons that don't mind if you take a stroll through their herd, bearded vultures landing right in front of your eyes, huge canyons that you can't even see the bottom of, and very high peaks.

If you said "Ethiopia" to me, this type of place would never even have crossed my mind. Our guide called it the roof of Africa.

The peaks and canyons offer a dizzying array of diversity. Different plants would appear at one altitude, then disappear, then reappear as we made our way up or down the mountains. The landscape was formed by volcanic eruptions, which then eroded away into these valleys.

Some of the valleys are terraced, and farmers were out threshing on the hills. Horses walking around in circles, near giant piles of hay.

We drove through,stopping for scenic overlook after scenic overlook. We had to have permits to enter the park, and were escorted by two guides and two armed guards. I'm still not clear why, although the guide was especially helpful (wait for it).

We trekked in a little ways to see a spectacular waterfall. To get to it, we had to climb over a little stone staircase, with nothing on one side and a steep fall into trees on the other. Our guide helped us, but not everyone came. At one point, he and I were chatting and I said,"Look, only the ladies came!" He thought that was pretty funny. Everyone here is either "man" or "lady" and we've got some hearty, adventuresome ladies on this trip, believe me. We've also got about three people who can barely walk, but that's a different topic.

At the waterfall, we could see birds soaring like hawks, but even from our vantage point, they looked huge. They were dipping into their nests in the cliff side, thousands of meters up. These were lammergeyer or bearded vultures, one of the world's largest birds of prey. On the way back, we were in the car and we saw a few that were circling close, and then one just landed beautifully on a rock not twenty feet away, looked at us, then took flight. It was simply awe inspiring. So huge and majestic.

And then we saw baboons. Hundreds of them. They were everywhere. They are called gelada baboons, or bleeding heart baboons, due to their bright red chests. The males have a long, thick mane that makes look like a lion. We saw babies and massive amounts of grooming. It was the best thing ever to stroll amongst them...

Until I completely fell on my ass. The guide trying to help me went down, too. It was on these slippery rocks and I hit the ground. Hard. As I type this, I can see the giant goose egg on my right thigh that will make sleeping tonight something of a chore (along with this scary room, but that's another thing altogether. Let's just say that I'd really hate to see what the un-renovated part of this joint looks like. Go to Trip Advisor and put in Simien Park Hotel. Not the lodge, the hotel, and you'll see).

I was reminded of a fellow traveler in Iran who slipped and fell in one of the hotel courtyards. He was holding his very expensive camera at the time and said, "I hit my ass, then my back, then my head,but I made sure sure that camera was held high!" Well, I fell on my side, but managed to hit my elbow, arm and hand to the ground, but I held onto that damn camera. Although after this ordeal, I'll have to treat it to a professional cleaning, as it has been inundated with dust.

The dust is everywhere. My shoes, my clothes, my nose, my mouth. Tomorrow is suppose to be worse.

Tonight at dinner we all decided that yesterday was wedding day, today was threshing day, and tomorrow will be dust day. Horray!