My Ethiopian Journey–Simien Mt. Natl. Park

July 28, 2016 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

No way was I prepared for these mountains. Do you think of numerous peaks over 13,000 feet when you think of Ethiopia? Probably not. There are even a few over 14,000 feet. The whole area is often referred to as the Roof of Africa.

There is only one road into the park. To get in, a tourist must stop at the park office, sign in, passport number, address, etc. Plus, you will be assigned a guard and a guide. Our guard in the photo above carried an assault rifle. No, it is not to protect people, it is to protect their rare animals from people, from poachers. Wonder why he is wearing all these clothes? It is cold at 12,000 feet even if you are near the Equator.

The drop offs are terrifying, thousands of feet, the vistas endless. Even though I have lived and been all over the Rocky Mountains and been to the Himalayas in both Kashmir and Nepal, I have never seen anything like these mountains for beauty, green, and endless vistas.

My friends near the cliff are much braver than I. In the foreground stands our guide, Michael, who spoke excellent English and was super funny. He had us laughing all the time. People live and farm in these mountains–if you look closely in the middle of the photo, you can see fields. However, the government is slowly relocating people in order to make the park a refuge for rare wildlife.

The above photos were all taken on a hike early one morning. Everything was wet because it was either raining or misty or we were in the clouds.

Because I kept slipping and sliding, I decided not to walk along the cliff with my friends and the guard, who spoke the same Ethiopian language as my friend. Michael and I took off across a meadow and suddenly here we were in the middle of all these gelada baboons, who paid no attention to us at all. They were very afraid, however, of a predatory bird that decided to fly over. How do I know? They suddenly started “talking” to each other in frightened voices. Experts now think these primates actually have a language and do talk to each other. Gelada are the last primates that are herbivores. They eat grass. All other herbivorous primates are extinct. Gelada live only in the high mountains of Ethiopia and no where else on earth, a reason for a guard. At night they climb down the cliffs into caves to protect themselves from hyenas and leopards.

If you look very carefully in the middle of this photo, you can see several duiker which are considered so common it seems no one thought to stop to really take a look so I took the photo as we drove along.

Here we are above the timberline where some very unusual plants thrive.

And some exceedingly rare animals whose camouflage makes them almost invisible until they move. At this point we are about 14,000 feet just under one of the highest peaks in Africa. Look carefully in the middle and you will see walia ibex. People come from all over the world to see these endangered animals that live only in this park. Sometimes the fog rolls in and no one sees anything. We were lucky; we saw more than twenty of them. And then the fog rolled in.

These giant lobelia thrive above timber line. Some were considerably taller than I am.

If you grow red hot pokers in your flower beds and think they are semi-arid flowers, think again. Here they are growing wild.

You can see red hot pokers in the middle of this photo by the stream. These mountain streams run down to and often across the road, making the road a muddy mess. Without 4-wheel drive and an expert driver we would have gone nowhere. In fact, at one point we did have to stop because two stuck trucks blocked the road, one of which had a flat tire.

The highest waterfall in Ethiopia is hard to hike to unless you are not at all afraid of heights. My friends did hike there. Look a bit to the right of the groove through which the water actually falls. You will see a sort of flat area. It is only a few feet wide with a drop-off on each side. Yes, that is where you hike. When I saw this view, I was rather glad I decided to wait, look for birds, and chat with the driver.

The fire pit at the highest bar in Africa is a very popular place on a cold night. Even though we had beautiful rooms, with no heat at 12,000 feet it is not exactly warm. Even the guides and guards were bundled up. The only people who seemed toasty were Scandinavian tourists with their heavy wool sweaters. The hotel staff gave us hot water bottles to put in bed with us at night. Actually, it works. Nevertheless, when you get up in the morning, it is really cold.

The guards and guides live near the park. We dropped off the guard here and watched him walk toward his house down where the trees are. We dropped off the guide near his house in the town when we left the park.

My Ethiopian Adventure–Gelada Baboons

November 3, 2014 / Juliana Lightle / Leave a comment

The last of the grass eating primates–all others are now extinct–gelada baboons are found only in Ethiopia above 1800 meters. The first I saw ran up and down the cliffs at Menelik’s Window. Because the people in this area use large tufts of grass to make house roofs, boys patrol the area, attempting to keep the baboons from eating this particular type of grass. Perhaps because of their experience being chased persistently by humans, these baboons were hard to photograph up close because they ran off. The boys who guard the grass pass time by making hats and other items out of the grass the baboons want. If you look closely at the following photo, you can see a couple of baboons running up the slope. Although you can see gelada baboons in several places in the high mountains of central Ethiopia, their major sanctuary is Simien Mountains National Park. Here they are protected from hunting. Unlike those at Menelik’s Window, these did not run off especially if one walked along quietly or stopped to watch. Unlike other species of baboons, these are not aggressive. The males may appear to be boss because of their big manes, red-hearted chests, and size, but such is not the case. In the world of gelada baboons, females rule. Females even choose the one male that shares up to six or so females. The male may try to fight off contenders, but in the end the females choose. Because I found many of the 2000 feet cliff drop-offs a bit daunting, on the hike I chose to go higher with the guide. A fortuitous choice for sure. We found ourselves surrounded by a huge troop of peacefully grazing baboons complete with babies playing in the trees. Gelada baboons spend their days sitting on their fat humanlike buttocks eating grass. Except for humans they are the most terrestrial of all the primates. They climb down the steep cliffs at night to sleep in tight groups. This helps them escape predators, e.g. leopards and hyenas. Probably their safest habitat is Simien Mountains National Park because to enter the park every visitor has to sign in. Everywhere you go, an assigned guard with an assault rifle accompanies you. Because of the rainy weather, he slung his assault rifle over one shoulder and held his umbrella in the opposite hand. We did not see any more gelada baboons until several days later on the last day of our road trip when we stopped to visit a sort of inn/hotel owned by a German woman. Experts estimate only one to two hundred thousand remain. Habitat loss and hunting males for their manes threaten their survival. They are listed as a threatened species.

My Ethiopian Adventure: The Roof of Africa, Part Two

August 30, 2014September 5, 2014 / Juliana Lightle / 1 Comment

Although wonderful paved roads exist in most of the northern half of Ethiopia, the government forbids a good paved road throughout Simien Mountains National Park. Since we went during the rainy season, a muddy mess prevailed. At times I thought, “This is hopeless; we will never make it through.” I was so wrong! Alemu persisted; we always arrived where we were headed in spite of the roads, the trucks, and the mud.

We came up on one of the first obstacles on the road here. We parked, got out, and watched. The Al-Qaeda truck had a flat tire–the truck in the front. The Obama truck, after unloading the passengers, tried to pass with this result.

It slid into the Al-Qaeda truck. The women passengers and we climbed up to the grass and waited. The men surveyed the situation and decided to solve the problem.

They attached a rope to the front of the Obama truck and pulled successfully. Everyone climbed back in the truck and headed on down the road. This allowed us to continue on our journey. As we drove along, the guide noted the duikers along the road.

See the two brown spots in the middle? Duikers. I admire real wildlife photographers. With the exception of the gelada baboons, getting good wild animal photos seemed quite a task. Either they moved too fast or they blended so well into the landscape, you could only see them when they moved.

Here we stopped to hike to the highest waterfall in Ethiopia. Once the guide explained where we would walk, I decided to hang out with Alemu and the driver of another vehicle stopped here with four people from New York, some of the few people we met from the US. Most travelers to Ethiopia appear to be Europeans. The other driver liked to talk and regaled me with stories, one of which was about a German woman who decided to trek (visitors can elect to go on either 3 or 10 day treks here). It was cold, they camped in a heatless (what else is new!!) building. She requested her guide sleep with her because she was so cold. This continued for days. Apparently, she became very cuddly and the guide misinterpreted, etc. etc. Luckily for the trekkers, depending on how “primitive” they want to trek, men like those in this photo, take food and other supplies from one camp spot to another. The other driver knew a lot about Ethiopian birds and pointed out one called a bone crusher. A raptor, it captures its prey in its talons, flies high, drops it on a rock to kill it, waits until something else eats off the meat, and finally gets the bones, flies high again, and drops the bones on a rock to break them open. It eats only bone marrow.

Because people lived and farmed in these mountains long before they became a park, visitors see villages and farms in various areas of the park. We were told that the government planned to eventually move everyone out of the park. Our guard lived in the park in an area like this one. We dropped him off on our way out. I also noted electric lines in areas where it looked impossible to build. The guide informed me that a lot of Chinese died building the lines.

Here and there gelada baboons appear. This photo shows a typical view of the muddy road we traversed.

Another stop waiting on Al-Qaeda and Obama trucks. I never quite figured out why Obama trucks are called this. They haul people from place to place but not long distances–buses do that. I never saw an Obama truck wrecked. Al-Qaeda trucks haul goods, supplies, anything commercial. Like here in the US, apparently time is money so those drivers hurry. If something is in the way on the road, drivers may drive off the road to get around it and if the load shifts, over they go. We saw Al-Qaeda trucks wrecked everywhere–they are the terrorists of the road.

Above timberline, the landscape changes to this. The plants in the foreground are giant lobelia. Ethiopia contains the fourth and fifth highest peaks in Africa. Much of the time we drove above 12,000 feet.

Frequently, we drove through thick fog, but truly lucked out when we reached the area immediately under the fifth highest peak in Africa where rare walia ibex reside. Alemu and the guide told us often visitors come here to see the ibex and see nothing.

If you look closely, you can see several ibex in the middle of this photo. We counted 23 on this mountainside above 14,000 feet just a few hundred feet below the fifth highest peak in Africa. Ibex blend into the landscape so well, they are extremely difficult to see unless they move.

By the mountain stream red hot pokers (see middle of photo) thrive. I was shocked to see them growing wild here, having always thought they are desert flowers.