Lake Wenchi is a crater lake about an hour’s drive outside of Ambo. Our first Sunday of training, some PCVs arranged a bus to take us out there for a day hike. There were several hiking options but it sounded like there’s a short walk to the water. We’d take along sandwiches from the hotel, eat them by the water, and then split up. There were about 20 of us.
The bus pulled into a dusty village. Children with younger children strapped to their backs rushed our van, trying to sell us bunches of wildflowers. We fought against paying for a second tour guide and parked in a beach of dust that overlooked the lake.
Jen told us the dust was silica – “it never gets out of your lungs.” Terrified by the clouds that each step kicked up, I wrapped my extra shirt around my face. We slipped down the sandy hills for half an hour.
lost in the G.A.D. (Great Ambo Desert)
It had taken longer than expected, but the green valley we fell into was worth the effort. We hopped over the undefined borders of a green, mossy brook. At first it was fun – for those of us with the longer legs – puzzling together the choice spots to leap from mudbank to mudbank, but by noon we were wondering when and where lunch would happen. The hike seemed to be growing much longer than expected.
We balanced ourselves on chalky rocks and unwrapped the hotel’s preparations. They had toasted the bread first, then sprinkled sugar and spread avocado or peanut butter. Some of the sandwiches also had a slice of cheese – something like a gouda, the sort you are lucky to buy in the biggest Ethiopian cities. Also included were yesterday’s cold french fries, perhaps given an extra dip in grease. This hotel measured hospitality in cups of oil. Mitch pulled a glass-bottled Merinda out of my backpack. How did he sneak that in there? I found an old packet of Rowntrees my grandmother had send me months ago. I went around the group offering them, but kicking up hidden reserves of silica as I went. “Sorry! Can I make it up to you with a fruit pastille?”
The air was cooler here, but it wasn’t much of a stopping place and so we all continued on back over the old volcano wall and through a forest. This was a lovely hike to the water, and we happily stretched out in the sun as we waited for a ferry to take us back to the parking lot. Success.
The ferry held 15 people and was propelled by 4 rowers perched on each corner. They took us to an island in the middle of the lake. There was a monestery; we were not interested. We found another ferry that took some of us off the island.
As we sat again by the shore, waiting, a gang of children found us. This is inevitable. But these kids were mostly sweet and were selling plums, 2 for a birr. They didn’t demand money from us and so in gratitude I bought them a scoop of their own k’olo. They didn’t recognize the new one-birr coins and only accepted our dirty, taped-together bills.
When everyone assembled we lugged ourselves up another hill. We’d been in the sun for hours and were ready to find our bus parked at the top. Instead, we emerged into the dry outskirts of a village. There were a few men waiting for us with their decorated horses – 50 birr to ride. The saddles seemed not attached; we declined. We marched on, sharing our water bottles’ final swigs. A child ran after us, screaming for our water. More dust, more hills.
Our guides caught up with us. So far their job seemed to be to make sure we stay on the path. “How much farther,” we asked. “Half an hour,” they assured us. I frowned – hadn’t that been the answer we’d been hearing all day? “Here, shortcut,” one pointed. I was impressed that he knew the word ‘shortcut’; I was much less impressed by the steep path he was offering. “Oh yeah? How long?”
“Half an hour.”
“And that way?” we pointed at the level dirt road winding back up the crater.
“One hour.”
“It looks really steep.”
“It gets better.”
We glanced at each other, unsure but eager to return to the buses. Up we went, grabbing at clumps of silica that crumbled apart in our fists.
It did not get better. The shortcut narrowed to a strip of sand meandering the edge of cliffs. At one point, with nothing to grab onto, I crouched onto my hands and crawled. I guess I’m a little scared of heights.
Before I left for Ethiopia, I’d wanted to do something scary, something that would push me to embrace the unknown challenges I knew I’d find at site. I had chosen rock climbing with my friend Max and his rock climbing-instructor friend. After an hour of coaching they had helped me pull myself up 40 feet of rock before I demanded to end the trial. “I’m so glad I won’t have to climb rocks in Ethiopia,” I had whispered in a fetal position to the ground.
I got to my feet and saw a wall of quickly-eroding sandstone. It wasn’t completely vertical, and extended only about 15 feet. Still, there were no ropes, only the guide’s hands, and a long drop should I fall. Maybe if I had been prepared for this I would have filed it under “adventurous hike” but that was never included in this shortcut’s advertisement.
“Chigger yellum,” the guide said to us, shrugging. ‘No problem.’ He waved his extended hand. “Come on.”
“Uh, chigger ALA,” my friend said. He wasn’t even wearing flip flops, like some of us who had been planning for an afternoon at the beach were. “Chigger, definitely ala!”
As we yelled up at our stupid guide, a farmer came too fast down the almost-vertical trial and skidded an inch from the cliff’s edge at the bottom, grabbing at the surrounding tall grasses. “Woah!” we all screamed; she laughed. “Woah.”
“We are so not paying you,” we grunted at the man whose hand we now used to pull ourselves up. I let him have almost all my weight. “Umpf!,” he cried, swinging forward. “That’s what you should expect, stupid,” I whispered.
And then we were back in front of our bus, covered in dust and minutes away from buying ourselves beers and celebrating our survival. Actually, now that none of us fell off a cliff, it had been a fun day.
