The Road To Awassa

Today we took an 8 hour van trip to a southern town called Awassa. The ride there was through many small towns and lots of Savannah type areas. Everywhere we drove there were straw huts, cows, goats and sheep. Let me rephrase, skinny cows, goats and sheep. This is the Africa I see on t.v. and National Geographic. Since it was Saturday, the small towns had little markets selling grass. Also in the county by the little hut homes, there are piles of cow dung for burning and huge piles (10ft by 10ft) of teff, the grain type substance used to make Engera the most common bread like food here. We also saw herds of Camels, we did not stop to take pictures, but at one point there were trucks and trucks FULL of camels. Hundreds of camels, just packed into trucks. They eat them here. I guess the meat is sweet. I hope I never find out.

We saw Lake Koka and other lakes, We were also in the Rift Valley, which was nice, very lush with huge trees and a river with laundry everywhere.







We stopped at an Oasis, Lake Langano, which was an amazing resort and a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains. The water was brown, but full of minerals so it was good for the skin. We sat on the “beach” in the sunshine for about an hour and waded in the water. There were Americans, British, Chinese, and Africans there. The Africans took off all there clothes (men and women) and would swim in their underwear. We then had lunch and very, very, very yummy ice cream, mine had Papaya and Jill had caramel that I swear they made at that very moment.






On the way out to the “highway” we bought some wooden carved toys from the children and gave them granola bars and candy. Then we stopped on the side of the road to feed our leftovers to the children we saw. When we got out children came from EVERYWHERE, we were in the country and these children just appeared. It was crazy, they were filthy, some were naked. They grabbed us and would not let us go. They were eating the candy with the wrappers still on. It was so, so sad. Even the mothers were begging. One boy was running full speed, holding a small child trying to get to us. It was so overwhelming. It hurt my heart. One the way home we will buy fruit and granola bars and feed as many as we can. I know it is not the best answer, but it is just something we have to do. A few pounds of yummy fruit was only 50 cents.

Back in the car, Sara screamed at the top of her lungs. There were MONKEYS! On the side of the road, in the trees were huge, huge monkeys. We got out of the car to take pictures, but they were shy and walked away. We watched them for awhile.

When we got to our hotel, Jill was on our balcony and all of a sudden she screamed “MONKEY!” There was one climbing up the tree near our balcony. We bribed him with cookies and there he sat, on our balcony eating cookies. Amazing.

So now we are on the patio of the hotel using the wireless on a beautiful summer evening about ready to head to bed.