The Lakeside Lounge

22nd-24th January - Days 115-117 – Addis Ababa to Lake Langano, Ethiopia

Having already spent one extra week in Hargeisa with no aim or gain because of T's bugs, facing another one of the same old same old in Addis not long after that nearly put me on a permanent hibernation mode. I noticed this while ignorantly spinning the spoon in my coffee cup one grim afternoon in some average Addis restaurant off Bole Rd: I had started developing a case of travel blues of some sort. I was eager to move on but was being held back with the result of feeling frustrated yet indifferent about what would happen next. We both had been wading through our days lately to such extent that it even made me doubt if we still even had it in us to go on, to get on that next bus and take on the fight about the price again, to find that next place to stay for the night or to even decide where to stop next and what to see there.

I should have known better of course – that both me and T would bounce back on track as soon as we actually got on that next bus. It didn't need much more than the loudspeakers blasting out those, by now very familiar, Ethiopian tunes and the guy on the bus shouting “Awasa, Mombasa!!” to lure more passengers in while the bus drove around the same block for about 10 times before being full enough to leave, and we were already smiling wide and shaking our heads at whatever would come next.

On the way down to the Kenyan border we'd decided to make stops at Lake Langano and the town of Dila. At Lake Langano the bus dropped us off at the turn-off to the hotel that we had chosen to crash at. Before we could start the 3km hike to the beach front resort, we had to deal with Mr. Moneybags from the bus who proved to be the most outrageous one of his breed we've met so far. Knowing far well that people don't usually pay for their bags on buses in Ethiopia, these guys play the habesha vs. faranji game every single time, coming up with a various array of reasons why we should dish out cash for our luggage. We then always play the insisting game back at them, as you do, with a various array of explanations as to why we certainly disagree and refuse to pay. All of this interplay is usually decorated with smiles and insinuating gestures from both sides as each wants to keep things within the range of some manners at least. Most times it ends to our benefit but sometimes we also find ourselves paying something nominal to escape the dead-end debate. This time, however, the guy on the bus exceeded all our expectations and just started mouthing at T in what sounded exactly as reads: “GIVE ME THE MONEY!!!!” This was followed by some to-be-taken-as-a-threat lowering of sunglasses to increase the authority effect. Us and the rest of the people on the bus found all this very perplexing yet amusing at the same time, and T casually ignored the guy's demands and kept insisting back in his usual way. The guy was determined enough to start annoying me, though, so after a while I interfered in the money business (usually left for T to handle) in a rather abrupt way and declared: “Listen Mr., you should have thought about that before you gave the bags back to us, shouldn't ya? Now, I happen to be the purse so it's no use you talking to him (T), and I'm not giving you a penny. Sorry...no can do” A smile and a shrug later everyone else around us was laughing out loud, but I had clearly ruined someone's day. Mr. Moneybags stormed back into the bus and urged it off along its way within seconds. We then walked off towards the lake and at half-way got picked up by some local filmmakers who had come here for a party weekend from Addis.

Generic Scenery Picture #2375902543

Lake Langano sure is a suitable place for exactly what the filmmakers had come there for: blasting out music at the picturesque lakeside camping area until 6am while drinking your own booze brought from home. This would have been all fun and games for us as well, if it wasn't for that we were camping at the same said camping area and on a schedule to move on after all our uselessness and extra time spent in Hargeisa and Addis. We had planned to pitch up our new tent (ex-courtesy of Cole, and christened as “St. George” to pay tribute both to Cole's resemblance to George Michael and to the Ethiopian beer called St.Giorgis that we all merrily consumed together on several occasions), just take it easy for a couple of nights, check the nearby Lake Abiata-Shala National Park in between and continue on the next bus down to Dila. The plan, however modest we'd tried to make it this time, yet again didn't hold as we didn't get to sleep until 6am on the first night thanks to the noise - “Tonight's gonna be a good niiight....” indeed.

And then there were three : St. George joins the gang

Upon waking up we found a surprise package at the door of our tent. The day before we had received help from a German gentleman, Werner, while putting up . We later also had a beverage or two with him and some other member of his group and exchanged our travel stories. Now this friendly soul had left us a small towel and a note with some cash wrapped inside, wishing us a good journey onwards and expressing the willingness to help us a bit just as he had been helped by others when he had been young and traveling the world. Needless to say, we were utterly taken aback by his gesture. Even under the threat that this blog turns into a long list of thanks to all the friendly faces we've met along the way, we still want to say thank you very much Werner and if you ever plan to visit Finland again, give us a shout and we'll take you for some of that bad Finnish beer if we happen to be around! :)

Knackered as we were, we weren't capable of much more than lounging on the grass by the lake for the day. Even the cows that grazed at the campsite moved around more per hour than we did. T scouted some more birds to photograph and send to his old man, and I focused on burning my shoulders. How I managed to burn only my shoulders while wearing a bikini is still a mystery. One of the birds turned out to be an endemic rarity (the black-winged lovebird, I was later told), so all in all we did accomplish something on that day. The evening was spent debating over the prospects of the African tourism industry and discussing future plans over some St. Giorgis – should we take on Turkmenistan or the trans-Siberian Express after our Africa leg?

Don't have a cow, man - it's an Ethiopian beach holiday

Another noisy night (I got to sleep at 3am at least!) and another tired morning followed. Around noon we finally packed up St. George and started walking back to the main road to catch a bus down south. My shoulders, burnt and stiff from sleeping on the ground, gave in after 50m so we stopped at the first kiosk down the road to buy some Pepsi. Some guy waved down a van driving past and urged us onto it saying we'd get a lift to the crossing. Once in the van, we fell into a disagreement over the compensation for the 3km (or now 2950m) ride. Opportunistically we had hoped for a freebie and just as opportunistically the guys hoped for 50birr, a sum equal to what we had paid for the 3hr bus ride to the lake from Addis in the first place. “This is the countryside, different price!” After yet another debate we gave the guy a 10birr note more out of sympathy than anything which he then proceeded to rip in half in front of our faces. I started counting the seconds to getting out of Ethiopia.

Just when we were looking forward to a spot of slaughtering...