Semien Mountains

I'm so excited to share these beautiful pictures of the Semien Mountains. Because my lovebird baboons did not load on the last post, here is another picture of them. They were cuddling just like I wish I had been with Nathan to cuddle him on my anniversary.

A small grotto overhung with moss

Lovebird Baboons :)

 Beautiful views like this are hard to come by in flat Ethiopia:

Who knew... palm trees!

Majestic!

 

Spanish moss above a small brook

Kelsey, me, Mal

No words needed

Deep Ravine

Descending Mists

Dog Survey comes to an end

As of this blog post, THE DOG SURVEY IS COMPLETE!!! Although there is a lot of analysis when I get home, and two more weeks in Ethiopia to complete the Spay and Neuter project, there is a great sense of fulfillment in bringing this portion to a close. With the help of Maria Belu and Ally Sterman, we have walked over 75 miles through this 15 square mile city and counted approximately 500 dogs.

Could it be a Corgi mix?

As far as what we have seen, dogs tend to stay close to a home setting. They act as guard dogs, and at night we can hear them fighting and howling. Although we see many dogs in the daytime, these vocal dogs tell us that there are far more that only come out at night. 

We have been very lucky in the past week to have a car that has driven us to all the transects, but we are still getting a good workout! The two graduate students Sam and Mame have been amazing and made everything ten times easier. When we get followed by troops of children, they help us talk to them so that we can use the kids to help us find more dogs. 

Our Car that can handle some major mountains

 

 

Sam in the Semien Mountains

It was so cold for him that Mame used my coat!

We had a light Friday, and so we took the chance to see the Fasil Castles and the Epiphany baths which only get filled once a year. In the bath we made our OHIO symbol and the boys.

Fasil Castle

Epiphany Bath Balcony

O-H-I-O !!!

Later we went to the market and the boys helped me haggle in this store for some fashionable Gondar clothing for Nathan's anniversary gift.

Kelsey measuring Nathan's pants

Saturday, the 21st, was my 5th wedding anniversary. Although it was hard to be apart from Nathan on a day of celebration, I was lucky to receive multiple emails from him, including photographs of the wonderful gifts he bought for the occasion. The traditional gift for 5 years is wood, and Nathan bought this beautiful antique stool for our harpsichord that I had been eying at the Antique market last month. It was a wonderful surprise.

New Harpsichord Stool!

In addition to other little gifts, Nathan tried to send me flowers, but since that isn't really possible in a small African city, he sent pictures of our beautiful garden flowers from home, which were far sweeter than a real bouquet ever could have been. One of the flowers was a new plant not yet bloomed, but he promised it would bloom by our day, and lo' and behold it did!

Not yet bloomed, waiting for our special day...

Blooming just for us! Exotic and wild, bright and awake, it reminds me what each relationship needs to thrive.

Other than our personal celebrations, our group was given the most incredible experience on my anniversary that helped me not only feel less sad about the distance, but absolutely thrilled to be in Africa. 8 hours of car journeying later, we found ourselves in the glorious Semien Mountains, one of the World Heritage sites, and an Ethiopian treasure. The car ride to the top of the mountains took 3 hours of twisty, treacherous, and bumpy mud roads. The views were so stunning that every turn of the road revealed another incredible ravine or mountain. Before we reached the top, one of the ladies had to pee, and we found this fabulous rock to hide as we all decided it was potty time.

The peeing rock

The true purpose of our trip up the mountain was to collect fecal samples of the wild animals and test for Salmonella. This included Baboons, Wild African Wolves, the Red Fox (only 80 left and we saw one!!!) and Ibex (mountain goats with large curled horns). 

Baboons!

 

This baboon is clearly wearing a Tina Turner wig

Love bird baboons cuddling because its my anniversary (fanciful thinking, I know)

Palm Trees!

I wont say much about the mountains, but rather just let the pictures speak for themselves. The low mist (well, at 4000 m it isn't low, but it is thick enough to feel enveloped) was magical, and there were many moments when I felt like a tiny speck of sand in an entire universe.

This post is getting so big, that I am going to do a separate Semien Mountian Pictures Post

Pied Piper

Now that we have been here almost a week, we have had the opportunity to see a lot of the city because of our dog survey, and we probably average 10 miles a day. However, this doesnt sound like much until you know that Gondar is very mountainous and we are often hiking uphill on rocky terrain. The foliage here is so striking I always take more photos than Ally (the other OSU student with me) thinks is reasonable :)

A succulent plant with pretty pink flowers

The Dam near one of our surveys

"Hilly" terrain makes for difficult walking

Every time we go on our surveys we seem to collect a large crowd of children. The children are often interested in us because we are "ferengi" or "foreigners" and we are often carrying iPads, GPS, and cell phones and taking photos of the dogs we see along the way. We feel a little bit like the Pied Piper of Hamlin, collecting more children with each house we pass.The other large crowds we see are the sheep, goats, donkeys, horses, mules, chickens and Brahmin cows. 

A small herd of sheep with some lambs!!!

There have been some amazing views along our transects, and we have seen some dogs who are not happy about having their picture taken!

A little photo break at the Dam

Beautiful Gondar, in a rural living area of town

This dog did not want his photo taken!

Part of our transects have taken us to some of the more popular tourist spots of the city, and we walked near Fasil Castle, which is the main tourist lure in the city. This castle is hundreds of years old and Gondar used to be the capital city of Ethiopia and the castle was the home of their Kings. The city is a perfect location for defense due to the mountains and lakes and rivers. One cool hotel near the bus station is perfectly round, and I wish we had had more of a chance to explore it. 

The wall that surrounds Fasil castle

The circle hotel, in the heart of downtown

Many of the children we have seen are just precious, and absolutely beautiful. I wanted to share this little child who photo bombed my attempt to photograph a dog for our survey. He's a perfect example of the children we have met along the way.

Can you spot the dog?

One of the most amazing experiences so far has been our time up on the Goha Mountain, which is the highest spot in Gondar. We took a car to the base, and then walked for a few miles, before a little taxi (a tiny 3 wheel vehicle) took us the rest of the way. I didn't think it would make it!!! I'm pretty sure we could have walked faster than the taxi was able to go, but it was nice to rest our legs a little. The Goha mountain has a hotel at the top that was built during the dictatorship and meant to house important people. It is now a popular tourist hotel. Upon arrival we took pictures of the city from this majestic height.

A view from Goha Mountain Hotel

At this hotel we dined with Tamiru, a teacher at the vet school, and Dr. Hoet, one of our very own teachers from OSU. Dr. Hoet wanted to try a red wine from Ethiopia and I said I would help him (of course) This wine tasted like a thin and slightly more sour Italian Amarone, and although it did not taste like the wine you would normally expect, it was enjoyable, and complimented my pasta dish very well. Italians have a history with Ethiopia, and pasta, pizza and other Italian dishes are very common here, along with traditional Ethiopian food. 

Ethiopian Wine

Of course, I will end with the food :) Dr. Hoet played an "Ice" experiment with us and told us to put ice in the bottled water and see what appeared. As he expected, the ice contained lots of little suspicious "particles." I'm not sure if the photo will capture it too well. Luckily, English people don't really drink cold drinks like Americans do, so it doesn't bother me at all, and I in fact prefer a room temperature drink.

Dirty Ice makes dirty water

We tried Pizza yesterday and it was very good! Who knows what the cheese is (we suspect sheep milk), but apparently we enjoyed it a lot as is evidence by how little we didn't finish. I also tried Ethiopian beer form a local brewery. It tastes like a summer wheat beer from America and it is refreshing enough that Tamiru and I had three rounds. 

Ethiopian Pizza

Local Ethiopian Beer

Finally, I end with my coffee, which of course I cannot live without, so its lucky that I am in the heart of coffee country. Today I discovered that you can order a DOUBLE Macchiato, and I have pretty much entered Heaven. 

Double Macchiato!!!

That's all for now. Maria, another OSU student, arrives today and I am sure that this will increase the number and craziness of our adventures.

After a 2 day long journey including a long night in Addis Ababa, Ally and I have made it to Gondar, and completed 2 days of work on our project so far. The journey to Addis was uneventful, except for our 100 lb box, that people have found so amusing and have taken pictures of our box. It is full of spay and neuter equipment, and lovingly named "The Hoss" after David Hasselhoff, because like our box, I have a love hate relationship with the Hoss.

We landed in Addis Ababa to a beautiful day and I was surprised and delighted with all the beautiful foliage. Even on busy streets downtown, people were watering the garden plots. 

Addis Ababa Airport

 
My impressions of Addis is that it is like any other city, but with goats everywhere, and a spicy aroma. The hotel we stayed at was very Westernized, and I was even able to order a Gin Fizz, which I cant actually find at most bars in the US!! Right outside our hotel were some goats munching on a "choice" piece of land:

Munching land for Goats outside of Jupiter Hotel

Later that night we saw a beautiful harvest moon that was bright orange, and because there are less street lamps in the city, the moon was very bright, although we saw no stars

Harvest moon of Addis Ababa

 We soon moved on, traveling to Gondar on a quick 1 hour flight. Tana Lake and the entrance to the Nile was visible during the descent. The land in this area is mainly used for agriculture. the airport was quaint and charming. Certainly no need to make sure you know which baggage claim to go to (hint, there is only one).

Flight into Gondar

Gondar Airport

Upon arrival, we struggled to get our 100 lb box of veterinary medical supplies into the van, but after a little bit of adjustment we found ourselves at the Kino Hotel, which is our home away from home for the next 30 days. We were in our room by a little gift left in the bathroom.

The Shorts of Lord Gondar

 The most amazing weather greeted us. Although we arrived in sunshine, within minutes of arriving at our hotel, the sky went metallic and looming, and let forth a storm of rain and hail for 5 hours, which flooded our room significantly. 

Sunny Gondar from our hotel room upon arrival

Ominous Gondar form the same view, pre storm

Mid storm one of our liaisons found us and brought us to the vet school. Before our planning meeting we sat in on DVM students defending their theses which was very intimidating (for them). The floors are strewn with long green grass that is to help keep the floors clean, but also represents serenity and is used extensively in the coffee ceremony. The students are sharp dressers, and we could only wish that our American men would be half as well dressed

DVM students in skinny suits

The next day we began our transects, and although things did not proceed smoothly or like we would prefer, we got a lot of exercise. Google EArth images did not prepare me for the mountainous terrain. What looks like city online IS city, but it is constant hills (and by hills I mean vertical terrain). Our 8 miles felt like 20. 

Just a little taste of our terrain!

Along the way I saw this little business. What "mystical general trading" is I do not know, but if I had the courage or the language skills I would have tried going inside.

Mystical General Trading Shop

We walked through the University of Gondar campus (not a surprise, there were no dogs there) but we also walked through the suburban areas by our hotel and we have found our local dog, now known as "Kino." He only has half his ears. The strange and new flora along the way is beautiful but eerie because it looks like space flora. 

Entrance to UoG

Kino, our local hotel dog

Flowers of Gondar

Perhaps the best part is the food (of course). The food here mostly consists of Injera, which is the base of most foods. It is a lemony spongy bread that looks like a crepe. On top you can get a variety of foods, and this one is Bozeno Shiro, which must be poured onto the Injera. The portions are large, so Ally and I have shared every meal. 

Shiro boiling in a little clay pot

Pouring the Shiro

Time to eat!

 

Of course, no trip to Ethiopia is complete without lots of coffee! Although I prefer plain coffee, their traditional Macchiato are common to drink all day long. I am up to three or four cups a day now, and at only 40 cents, I am not breaking the bank, unlike the US Starbucks. 

Macchiato, a gift leftover by Italian influence

Okay, more to come as we continue our trials and tribulations in Ethiopia. It isnt the easiest place to work, but it is beautiful and rewarding in a different way than work in the US.