Simien mountains

we fell asleep under this tree and awoke to about 30 people, 50 cows, 40 goats all staring at us!

dancing and singing around the bush fire on the simien mountains. what a night!

matteo getting back to his roots

all the hard workd was worth it in the end. what a view from up there

matt getting some quite time

Drove the last 50km to gonder. Which is this touristy town about 150km from the Simien mountains. Spent new years night there which will be remembered as a pretty arb night out. With the bar closing down before 12 and the lights coming on. Matteo got really sick in gonder and was in bed for literally 3 days sweating it out. Must have been that club sandwich! Stayed in a hotel (pretty decent one this time) with a shower!!! Highlight of our week now this whole place is networked like sicily. You cant do anything without forking out the USD. We go to the park board cos we were trying to buy our ticket into the office and came out fuming mad and ready to fly back home. Non-sensical organized chaos ensued and we finally found a way to get 36k into the park without paying the exorbitant 100USD. Started our days hiking into the mountains there. We had a scout with us armed with a stey m.95 rifle. Really nice guy called Addis. Anyway he drilled us over 6 hours to the first camp. Nothing really spectacular with regards to scenery but we still managed to get up to 3600m. slept that night in a tent huddled up to matteo (yes it was cold and no I aint gay). Had a wonderful experience in a hut with all the scouts singing and dancing around the fire. So tribal and such an unexpected event that makes the heart smile. The next day we walked up to 3900 metres and the scenery just dropped away to leave us breathless (from all the hard walking not just the views!). It is an incredible place up there. the mountain range is basically all volcanic rock. And that is why it is so particular. Ive never really seen anything like it before. 20 minutes of joy and our slave driver Addis was cracking the wip for our decent. We bumped into a hundred gelada baboons on the way. Amazing animals. Getting up to just about everything including monkey business! We then hitched a ride in the back a truck to the town Debark. Had some goats pee on my boots (numerous times) and then we made it back to civilization, which was Gonder (yeah right!). our bikes are literally grounded, we have no tread on the rear tyre and it really is touch and go on the road. Were hoping and praying for our spare parts to arrive in Addis , without them we cannot move anywhere.

Giovedi 03/01/2008 siamo andati con un pulmino locale a Debark per scalare le montagne Simien, ma organizzare un escursione li’ e’ davvero un’impresa. Sembra che tutte le persone del posto si siano messe d’accordo per complicare le cose ed estorcere piu’ soldi possibile ai turisti. Il direttore del parco inizialmente si era addirittura rifiutato di venderci il biglietto d’ingresso finche’ non ci fossimo accordati con qualcuno di suo gradimento per un costosissimo passaggio in 4x4. Dopo 19 ore siamo finalmente riusciti ad entrare nel parco. Il primo giorno siamo arrivati fino a ghich a 3.600 mt di altitudine dove abbiamo campeggiato per la notte con una temperatura sottozero. Prima di andare a dormire ci siamo scaldati al fuoco insieme ad alcune guide locali che hanno improvvisato canti e balli tradizionali. E’ stato veramente coinvolgente ed emozionante! Il secondo giorno siamo andati fino alla vetta a 4.000 mt d’altitudine dopo di che siamo tornati a Debark su un camioncino insieme ad lacuni locali e 2 capre.

Colonna sonora: "Miles from nowhere" Cat Stevens