Mon 27 Jan 2014 (19 Tir 2006) On the Bus

Mon 27 Jan 2014 (19 Tir 2006) On the Bus Our tickets are for the Shire bus, which leaves at 5:30 AM. Be there before 5 AM. So we set the alarm for 4 AM. We leave our hotel about 4:40 AM. The receptionist is asleep behind the desk. He awakens, unlocks the front door, and we are waiting for a TopTop on an empty street. A TopTop comes along, stops, someone gets out, and we get in. For 20 birr ($1.05 US) we are taken to the bus station. On the way to the bus station, we see a woman running full tilt. We get there at 4:53 AM, and discover why. The gates are still locked, and there is a crowd of people waiting. At exactly 5 AM, the gates open, and there is a chaotic scene as people, many with loads of baggage, rush to get on their buses. We find the Shire bus, Carol gets on and finds no seats. Mike packs the backpacks in their Osprey bags and hands them up to the baggage handler on top, who ties them down. This is all happening in virtual darkness. On the bus, Carol finds a front seat packed with multiple bags. She grabs the seat. A gentleman appears, claims that these seats were his. It is settled that the three of us shared this 3 person seat, and the rest of his family sat nearby. We leave about 5:45 AM. Before we leave, we have to pay 20 birr for the bags. From Gonder north to Debark, it is 2 hours of partial climb on a paved road. After Debark (9500-10000 ft), the road turns to graded dirt, and at 7:50 down we go off the escarpment. Over the next 70 km (45 miles), the guidebook says we drop 2000 m (6500 ft). It doesn't appear that we are dropping that much on the map, but most of the drop happens in the first 15 km. The road is generally one lane wide, there is often several thousand feet of exposure, and many many switchbacks. Bradt describes the road as "the most dramatic [he's] seen in Africa, and perhaps the most scary as well." We appear to hit bottom, and then for the next 2 - 2 1/2 hours it is up and down and back and over on a road that is partially under construction. Eventually, who knows, it might become paved. About 11:15 AM, we pull into a parking area in the small town of Adi Arqay. This is the town where our businessman/busmate from the Bahir Dar to Gonder trip has a hotel. The town has a wild west feeling and Mike's impression is that nothing is really clean here, much less conducive to a comfortable stay. Bradt Guide says that "Adi Arqay is blessed . . . with a higher fly count than most." This town serves as a transit point for several crucial things. It is a rung in the ladder to get from the west road of the northern loop to the east road of the northern loop. Thus travelers coming off a Simien trek from Debark may get stuck here at least overnight. It seems to be a center of construction on the road to the north and south. This is a very desolate part of Ethiopia, and it seems to be a center of commerce for a whole isolated region. Carol finds a dirty, squatter bathroom, while Mike pees in the back of the bus parkingh lot. We have two coffees and nothing else. Mike eats one of his terrible pizza slices. Mike is of the opinion that there is NO HOT WATER in this town, precious little running cold water, and probably not a single flush toilet. The bus reloads and we are off. The first 3 km north out of town are PAVED, then it is back to an ungraded road going up and down and down and up and always with switchbacks. This goes on for miles and bumpy miles. 25 km on we pass through Mai Tsemre, another undistinguished primitive town. People are now getting on and off the bus. After a while we drop down into a valley and cross the Tekeze River, a major river in this part of Ethiopia. There we see a number of naked boys having the times of their lives in the muddy water. As we climb out, the country turns less dry, more farmed, and eventually the road is paved. At 3:30 PM we pull into Shire, a sizeable town of no perceivable tourist interest. This town seems to have a wonderful hotel, according to both guidebooks, and we might have stopped here had Carol's headaches still been strong. But she feels much better, and there is a minibus leaving immediately for Axum, so off we go. We climb and climb through rolling fields and through some switchbacks on a paved road, and finally into Axum. Our guidebook suggested that the bus will stop at an old lot on the west side of town, not the new bus station on the east side of town. However, we should have known better when two other foreigners stopped the bus at Hotel Africa, a Lonely Planet favorite, to get off. We go to the very end, and have to take a TukTuk for 30 birr back to the Abinet Hotel, which we had already passed. This hotel, supposedly a $25-30 a night place is quoted to us at 300 birr ($15.75 US). This should have been a tipoff that the plumbing and electricity was no longer up to par. We take a room, but there was no light in the bathroom and the toilet didn't flush. The helpful hotel front desk clerk showed us 5 different rooms. After picking one, eventually we move everything to another. At this point, we have two backpacks and three carry-on bags. We go to dinner at the hotel. We got two entrees on injera and a beer, and concluded that, even though we had had no lunch, it was still too much food. The TV was playing a bunch of English language/soccer replays of British teams. Though we did not watch enough TV, the only things we ever saw were African Union plenary sessions, badly produced Ethiopian MTV, with way too much talking. Also we saw much "football" from around the world, and Egyptian, Saudi, and other arabic TV channels. We also saw snippets of BBC, CNN, and occasional Ethiopian TV news. There may be Ethiopian movies or soap operas, but we haven't seen them. Sebastien in Gonder had recommended Daniel with Ethio Travel for a visit to Dallol, the below sea level land of salt mining, camel trains, and fantastic volcanic features. So we called and asked for a two day trip to Dallol. He said it was leaving on 30 Jan, so we had to be in Mekele the evening of Wed, 29 Jan. He was to call back with a price and a method of making payment. To bed. That night, Mike gets diarrhea at 1 AM. Was it the clotted cream in nafish 1 1/2 days ago? He discovers the hard way that there is no water pressure in the room. He takes a cipro, and is up several times during the night. He is sure that we are changing hotels the next morning. However, the water comes back on at 5 AM and the toilet flushes.