Simiens Post 1 of 2- Guest post by Cheryl Williams

Of all the planning, researching and discussion we’d had about Ethiopia for the past number of months, the thing we probably focused the most on was hiking in the Simien Mountains.  There were to be four of us, and we’d done a decent amount of research to indicate that we could organize ourselves without joining a larger group tour. This would save a significant amount of money, and allow us to customize our trip a bit. We all had sleeping bags, and we had two tents between us so this seemed like a great option.

We arrived in Debark, the closest town to the Simien Mountains, from Aksum in the afternoon. Our plan was to get organized that afternoon and then begin hiking the following day. Debark quickly became a town we kind of hated. We got hassled quite a lot and nothing seemed easy. When we finally finished all our chores (paying park fees, arranging a scout and a mule to accompany us, succumbing to the local taxi mafia to pay the exorbitant $230 transport fees, renting a few more sleeping bags and an ancient kerosene stove, procuring kerosene from the vegetable market, buying the last of the food we’d need in about 8 different local shops) we were exhausted, overwhelmed and hungry.  We found a local juice bar/restaurant where someone kindly translated the menu for us. We didn’t get exactly what we had hoped for, but it was fine until they tried to charge us for 8 meals instead of 4! All the clientele in the restaurant got involved until we finally only paid for the 4 meals we actually received.

The next morning was the start of our hike (well, first we had to stop to buy some “sacks” for strapping our things to the mule). Most people do a half day hike to begin with because they stay in Gondar, which is further away – not too surprising based on how much we didn’t like Debark! We only wanted to camp for 2 nights so we got driven to the first camp to start our hike from there. First, we had to get our mule sorted. It was an interesting and chaotic experience. There must have been 30 men involved in this – they took all our stuff and weighed it, wrote a bunch of things down in a little book, then tried to make us pay extra for the “rope” to attach the sacks to the mule (Marieke and Steph were having none of that!). Then they all stood in a semi circle around us while the one guy told us the price (which was the exact amount we were quoted). We really were not sure if they were all there in case we caused a fuss? Anyway, as they all watched our every move, I nervously handed the money to our scout who counted it and handed it to the head guy. He counted it and headed off in the other direction and the large entourage followed him. And that was that.

10 minutes later it was just us and our scout (and his gun) out on the trail. Peaceful at last. 

The first day we hiked about 6 or 7 hours. It was stunning. We were thrilled to be out on the trail just the four of us with our scout. And then we were even more thrilled when we arrived at camp. Our mule man was there waiting with all our stuff and a great big smile. We quickly set up camp as it was 4:30pm by this point and we knew it was going to be really cold once the sun went down. The camp was at about 3600m and all reports we’d heard was that it was best to be tucked into your sleeping bag by about 6:30pm.

Once the tents were set up, the water was fetched, and we’d found our warm coats, we set about the task of making dinner. We’d planned some instant noodles that we’d fancy up with some carrots and cabbage, and some lentils for protein. We didn’t bother to steripen the water, as we’d just make sure to boil it for 7 minutes before cooking in it.  We had visions that dinner would take about half an hour to make, then we’d maybe hike up the hill behind us to watch sunset. Ha! That didn’t happen. After an hour and fifteen minutes of trying to boil water, we came to the conclusion that altitude affects the boiling point of water*, and we were going to have to be satisfied with “almost boiled” to cook our noodles (forget the lentils!). And eat our carrots raw.  Anyway, it wasn’t too bad and no one got sick from the water thankfully. 

That night it was certainly cold but we were as prepared as we could be with our extra sleeping bags, down jackets and toques. 

We got up early the next morning to make breakfast and take down camp. The stove didn’t work any better but we managed to have warm instant oats with peanut butter, bananas, and peanuts to keep us full until lunch. 

We got out on the trail for our biggest hiking day by about 8:30am. Again, it was beautiful. We saw some great view points and had lovely weather, and some good conversations to keep our minds off the sometimes exhausting inclines. We spent a decent amount of time discussing and strategizing how we would get our dinner cooked before the sun went down that night. We ended up in the second camp by about 3:30pm and managed to get dinner made by about 5:15pm!  

The next morning was a “summit” hike day. For some reason our scout thought we’d best be on the trail by 7am so we were up by about 5:30am to make breakfast – one final time using that terrible stove! The summit hike was great – we went up to about 4400m. And then back down to camp by 11am. Our transport wasn’t arriving until 3pm so we had lots of time to spare (and ponder the rationale of getting up and on the trail by 7am…)

The kerosene stove had one final “gift” for us by spilling on Jon and Marieke’s stuff on the way back to Debark. Ugh! 

We should say that Debark redeemed itself slightly on our return visit as we stayed in much nicer rooms and found a restaurant down the street with a very friendly owner who made us a delicious (and appropriately priced) dinner and served us draught beer!

*a wikipedia entry says: “At elevated altitudes, any cooking that involves boiling or steaming generally requires compensation for lower temperatures because the boiling point of water is lower at higher altitudes due to the decreased atmospheric pressure.”