Land Travel in Ethiopia

Ethiopia isn't all that big, about twice the size of Texas. But most tourists take private landrovers or use Ethiopian Air. But if you know anything of us, you probably expect that we choose a different mode.

However, we understood the benefits of private and air travel on our very first bus ride. After missing the 5AM bus to our original destination of Bahir Dar, we hopped the next bus north: destination, Debre Marcos, about 250 kilometers away. Our bus was the local one, big and lurching and stifling unless you score a seat crammed against a window. As we have recently learned, Ethiopians have a superstition against bird: the draft that attacks the back of your neck. So, the window is a mute point, aside from the view.

So, the bus was fine. For the first three hours. Then we descended into the Nile Gorge: airless both inside and out. By this time, windows were being cracked. A smidgen. Barren, dry, not a speck of water, with occasional cacti breaking the stark terrain.

This first bus trip, covering 250 kilometers, took a total of eight hours. That's an average of about 30 kilometers an hour. Metal roof of the bus sending radioactive currents into my sweaty head. Children crying with discomfort. But we made it, and Debre Marcos was wonderfully real and far from the tourist path. And there is a sense of comradery among people that share uncomfortable situations. There wasn't the communal clapping that sometimes follows a disconcerting plane landing, but the sighs of relief upon arriving in Debre Marcos were in unison.

Road conditions are difficult in Ethiopia, and the quality of your bus seems to be luck of the draw. The double-price minibuses don't seem to be worth the price. From Gonder we did join a group of six foreign teachers on vacation from their school in Kenya, all hell-bent on making the two day (local bus itinerary) trip to Lalibela in one day. A flight, though incredibly overpriced, takes 45 minutes. An initial estimate of seven hours on the bus turned to nine, then ten, then twelve as the scalding pressure of the interior bus radiator continued to seep steam, occasionally blowing off the cap and nearly scalding passengers. 

We met many villagers that day. Our bus was a traveling circus troupe, the locals just didn't know what to make of us. During one of the many pauses, our traveling comrades all climbed atop the minibus for a A-Team photo-op; the locals were hysterical with laughter. We are grateful for the kindness of the Ethiopian villages, and the opportunities to provide unfathomable entertainment.

Winding roads, section of loose gravel, ancient buses (until yesterday, I hadn't heard the sound of a tape deck eating the tape in a looong time), poor pedestrian etiquette, and a menagerie of large and small, horned and hoofed, furry and fast, humped and ornery beasts wandering back and forth and along the road. A long break occurred on our bus yesterday when a troupe of CAMELS casually blocked the entire width, chewing meditatively and paying no heed to the blaring horns.

With only one month here, sometimes we feel that we are destined to see most of Ethiopia through the windows of a bus. But that's better than seeing it from thousands of miles up in the air. But I say that because today we are only six (or nine or twelve) hours from Addis.