Nechisar National Park

by Daniel

As I mentioned in another post, we had given up on visiting the deeper parts of Nechisar NP. It was just too expensive. However, on our last night and just before I went to my room to go to sleep, a guy stepped out of the neighbouring room and we started exchanging a couple of friendly words. It turned out that Aschalew was a young Ethiopian road construction engineer who was on a short holiday with his friends since they had just finished a project. They wanted to visit the national park the next day and invited us to join them. What luck!

The next morning we met Aschalew and his friends Addisu and Pedros at breakfast. We invited them to a splendid breakfast of Shekelau Tibs and after having fixed some screws on their  beat-up company Toyota headed off for the national park. With a lot of aching and careful driving the Toyota pick-up got us through the jungle and over the first hills passing an amazing scenery with gorgeous views over both lakes. At the first (and only) serious ascent it turned out that the four-wheel drive did not work properly. After three failed attempts at climbing the hill we were kind of devastated and feared to break the Toyota completely. The guys were desperate enough to let me try the hill and although I made some progress also was unable to reach the top.

Luckily for us, another pick up with park officials turned up. They told us to get onto their truck and without any difficulties, laden with ten persons and some other goods, climbed up the hill. It turned out that the savannah part just started there annd we immediately spotted a herd of zebras and some gazelles. On a huge plain they dropped us off and told us they would return in two hours. So we started walking through the savannah, chasing antelopes and following warthog trails until the pick-up returned.

On the way the national park pick-up picked up ever more people until there were 32(!!) people crammed into and onto the pick up plus loads of coffee beans. Luckily we were able to stand just behind the driver’s cabin and, although not being being able to move our feet for even an inch, had a splendid view. Eventually we reached the spot where we had abandoned our pick-up and took up eight of the passangers on our vehicle.

Later in the evening we went out with Aschalew, Addisu and Pedros dancing to Ethiopian tunes until very late. It had been an amazing end to our time in Arba Minch and after three hours of sleep we hauled ourselves tired and dizzy to the bus station for our trip back to Addis.