Invited To Ethiopia
About a month before Christmas 06 I got a call from Heather Plett at the Canadian Foodgrains Bank asking if we would be able to travel to Ethiopia in January 07 to visit some of the work the Foodgrains Bank was doing there.
Invited To EthiopiaAbout a month before Christmas 06 I got a call from Heather Plett at the Canadian Foodgrains Bank asking if we would be able to travel to Ethiopia in January 07 to visit some of the work the Foodgrains Bank was doing there. |
Itinerary to Include KenyaWe’re leaving for Ethiopia in the morning. I’m not done packing yet. It’s so hard to know how to pack for such a trip. There has been a late addition of a few days in Kenya. |
Safe In AddisAfter 25 hours in transit through Toronto, Frankfurt, Khartoum (Sudan) we arrived in Addis to find my guitar and several of Jim, the camara man’s bags remained in Frankfurt and won’t join us again now until the end of the trip. So today was partially spent getting some camera gear, a guitar and clothes for Jim. |
One Week LaterThe last time I had access to the Internet was seven days ago, and 2000 km of spine-compressing road travel through some of the most beautiful country I’ve seen in my life. Not all of the road was brutal |
AntecedentsThis blogging thing didn’t turn out like I thought it would. I thought I would spend an hour so each night of the Ethiopia trip blogging and leaving pictures for you all to see as our journey progressed. |
Jan 5-6 We’re Off!Nanci and I left Winnipeg at noon on January 5th and flew to Toronto where we met up with Larry Thiessen and Jim and Sharon vanDijk. Larry is a producer from Edmonton who came along to oversee the filming of our trip. |
January 7 it’s ChristmasEthiopia was Christianized in the fourth century when a young man named Frumentius found himself shipwrecked on the on Ethiopian shores while on the way to India. Frumentius was taken to the Ethiopian palace of King Ella Amida eventually finding favour with the King as his personal secretary. |
The Road to WeldiyaWe woke pretty early to get on the road. Sam was concerned to get our traveling done before nightfall as the roads would be fairly rough and he didn’t relish navigating them after dark. So we gathered in the lobby at 6:30 am and met the last two additions to our party. |
A Moment of Zen…Despair relieves itself at the expense of those in its environs.” How else do we explain the West’s willingness to expend the earth’s resources to such a degree that the rest of the globe is deprived of its share and the earth is endangered? |
Back to the story… The Afar Region / Day 3We again rose early in the morning so we could get to the Afar region before noon. For several hours, the journey continued much the same as it had the day before except that we left the main road and began to travel into what felt increasingly remote. The spectacular relief of mountains and valleys continued to astonish us. |