Rift Valley Ethiopia

It didn't take long for the scenery to change once we left Lake Tana going north. The road skirted the valley up on the western ridge. It was a very good road. The views were just out of this world gorgeous. It was kind of like the Grand Canyon on steroids. As we went up and down in various places the vegetation changed. Lower down it was more arid until the bottom of the valley was a desert and higher up where it was cooler and there was more rainfall it was greener. The valley was layered with multi colored bands of rock. It felt like we were back in the age of the dinosaurs sometimes from the strange plants and layers of rocks. I loved it all.

We were picked up at Lake Tana by a soap salesman driving a Mercedes sedan. He was driving up to Asmara all the way up in the northern war zone. We figured we had a nice comfortable ride all the way to our destination. We were having pleasant conversation with our friendly driver for a few hours when we passed a farmer with his animals crossing the road. We stopped and let them pass without a problem. Our driver picked up speed again and then out of nowhere a donkey ran out in front of the car and we slammed into it before we could stop. The donkey was seriously injured but ran away off the road. There was nothing we could do to help it by chasing him. The car was seriously damaged also. The entire front end was smashed in, the hood was popped open and crinkled up and the windshield was all cracked. None of us inside the car were hurt at all. The engine was still running. We looked around and there were no people nearby and there was nothing for us to do so we tied the hood down to the bumper and took off. The car still ran just fine but it would need a lot of body work to look good again.

We continued down the road talking and recovering from the accident. Then about two hours later we noticed a military roadblock up ahead of us. We didn't think it was a danger to us because we weren't involved in the war. As we pulled up to the roadblock however, the men all pointed their rifles at us and started shouting at the driver. We slowly got out of the car with our hands in the air and they came up and put handcuffs on the driver. They ignored Kirsten and myself. They were not military. They were the local police. They were on the lookout for the hit and run driver that killed the donkey back up the road where we came from. Of course with the damaged car we couldn't exactly hide the fact that we were the ones that hit the donkey. Our driver readily admitted the fact but pointed out that there were no people around to report it to and the donkey ran away so what was he to do? Of course he was going to report it at the first town we came to but we hadn't come to a town yet. The driver and the police started to negotiate. It took a couple of hours since they started at $2000 for a combination fine and restitution for the farmer's donkey but in the end our driver had to fork over $400 in cash for the police to let us continue on. They also ticketed the car and told the driver that he had to stop in the next town and get the car repaired. So we lost our ride.

When we got to the next little town our driver checked into a hotel and made arrangements to get his car fixed. We spent the night there and the next morning we started to hitch hike north again.

This time we got a ride from a truck. Not in the cab, but rather riding up on top of the load in the back. It was actually very comfortable to ride like that. We covered up from the sun so we wouldn't get sunburned and settled in to watch the views roll by one spectacular one after another. We did the wild thing a couple of times up there too which was kind of fun. To kill time I told Kirsten the story of the Wizard of Oz. She had never seen it or read the story so I started at the beginning and in very minute detail I told the entire story. Kirsten was totally engrossed in the story and loved having me tell her the whole thing. We used it to work on improving her already excellent English skills.

The truck pulled over for the night and we slept on top under the stars. It was very nice weather and clear skies. We watched shooting stars and tried to see how many constellations we could remember and find. We eventually got a good nights sleep.

The next morning we took off early. We stopped at a cafe and had some breakfast and coffee. We tried some camel milk ginger tea that was delicious. The camel milk was way sweeter than cows milk is. Then we got back on the road. About an hour after we stopped I started to get sick. It started out with a headache and some chills. Then I started to get an upset stomach. then I started to sweat. Then I started to shake and I got explosive diarrhea. We had to get off the truck. The driver was very concerned about me. I was getting worse and worse by the minute. By one in the afternoon I was totally out of it. I was pissing, shitting, puking, sweating and shaking all at the same time. I was no longer lucid and could not talk or stand up anymore. Everybody around me thought I was going to die soon.

It was already dark by now and I was fading quickly. Then out of nowhere about a dozen Ethiopian men showed up with two long poles and picked me up and carried me with the two long poles. I was naked and still losing fluids out of every orifice of my body. These men carried me all night over the rough terrain. We came to a small village early the next morning and they stood me up in the doorway of a building. I was not functional but I leaned against the door without falling down right away. The men ran into the building and told the young Swiss doctor that was working at this UNICEF maternity clinic that she had to come out right away and help the white man in the doorway. Well this young little five foot tall doctor came out of the back room yelling that the white man in the door way would have to sit down and wait his turn because there were twenty two other patients in front of him. By the time she finished her little rave at me she was standing right in front of me glaring to add proper emphasis to her lecture. I looked down at her and puked right in her face then I started to fall forward without any effort on my part to catch my fall. I have to give the woman credit because she immediately realized that I was only minutes away from dying and that if I had to wait through twenty two patients I would most likely be dead. The fact that I puked right in her face did not seem to phase her one bit. She put me down carefully on the floor then she turned around and screamed some orders to her nurse and then she turned around and threw open her medicine cabinet and pulled out a gigantic siringe and put about ten CCs of amphetamines in it and gave me a shot right in my gut. I sat up immediately and started to talk. She pushed me down and made me stay on the floor. She put an IV in my arm and started a bag of fluid. Then she gave me some pills to take for malaria and some more injections of vitamins and gamma globulin. She gave me a second bag of fluid with sugar in it and then told me to just stay right there on the floor until she told me to move. I did as I was told.
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She moved me to a cot and ended up giving me four bags of fluids and several more shots including some antibiotics. She told me that I had come down with malaria and then every other illness that I was exposed to once my body was weakened by the malaria. I spent the entire day at the clinic. Kirsten showed up a couple of hours after I arrived. We found a bed in a nearby house and spent a couple of days recovering. I could not walk unassisted for almost a week. I lost over forty pounds almost all of it the first day. I was extremely weak. We ate our injera and wat every meal once I could hold down food again because there was nothing else to eat. The doctor brought me a couple of eggs and told me to eat them one each morning. I told her thank you and asked her how much I owed her for her services. She said UNICEF paid for everything and that I should just donate to UNICEF when I got the chance. She was very sweet. I never saw the men that carried me so far again so I never got a chance to tell them thank you. I asked the local people to make sure they tell the men just how thankful I was to them for saving my life. A few days later we got out on the road again to hitch hike the rest of the way to Asmara.

Terror compliments of Idi Amin

I spent a night in a hotel after the climb but the next morning I wanted to get back to Kampala. My friends wanted to spend a few more days around Fort Portal so we split up. I ate breakfast and showered then headed out to the road in the direction of Kampala to hitch hike. I was dressed in my usual boots, shorts, no shirt and my long hair was drying in the wind as I stood on the side of the road waiting for a ride. In about ten minutes a black sedan came by and saw me. The driver hit the brakes and stopped right where I was standing. I casually started talking to him about where I was going etc but he interrupted me briskly and just shouted, "Get in the car! Quickly!"

I was a little taken aback by his seeming rudeness but for some reason I complied with his request. He punched the pedal even before I had the door closed all the way and he raced down the road in a very agitated state. I wanted to ask him what was up but he started to talk first. He spoke clearly but with severe tension in his voice, "You must not know what is happening in our country do you?" I shook my head no and he continued. "Something very very wrong is going on. It is very dangerous. Idi Amin has gone crazy again. He and his soldiers are killing and torturing more civilians. He has declared marshal law and told all of the people from India that they must leave the country and not take anything with them. If they don't leave quickly he will torture and kill them. He has also declared Uganda to be under the rules of the Koran. These rules include no short pants above the knees for men or they will be killed. No long hair or you will be killed, No hair on the face or you will be killed. You are standing along the road in violation of all of these new rules and the army is just behind me. If I had not come along and found you they would surely have killed you with Idi Amin's favorite method of tying you to the ground with your arms and legs splayed and then smashing your crotch area with a big hammer to kill you painfully but slowly. They have already done that to many people."

While he was talking he saw some trees and brush along the side of the road and he pulled around behind them and drove practically all the way into the grove until the car was hidden out of view from the road. He told me to get on the floor and he threw a blanket over the top of me just in case. Almost right away a caravan of military trucks went past us on the road. I could not see them but I could sure hear them and feel the vibrations from the heavy trucks as they sped past us. After they had gone by we waited a while to give them some time to get way ahead of us. He told me more about the situation as we waited.

"Idi Amin has declared war on intellectuals and on Indians. I am afraid for my life and I work for our government as the Minister of Agriculture. I went to school in America and in England. Idi Amin does not like anybody smarter than him around and he only has a fourth grade education and some Israeli military training so he is murdering all the people that went to university especially in a different country like I did. He will kill me for sure. I am on my way to my home in Kampala and I am gathering my things and fleeing to Kenya. You will have to come with me to Kenya or they will torture and kill you for sure. Our country is in chaos. God save us!"

He told me more gory details on the drive to Kampala about the whole Idi Amin history. He told me, "The banks were all robbed by him before he told the Indians to leave because he knew they stored their cash and jewelry in the safety deposit boxes. He murdered many people from the opposition tribe to keep them from taking away his rule. Many of them had fled to Zaire or Kenya already. They couldn't flee to the Sudan or Ethiopia because there were wars going on in those places. Idi Amin closed the newspapers and now he personally writes the only newspaper allowed in the country. The airport is closed. The trains are not running. Everything is a total mess and very very dangerous. I hope we can get out of here alive. It will take me two days to get all my things together in Kampala then we will go to the border together. You will have to hide in my house until then. You can not even show your face to anyone. "

He was clearly terrified himself. So I stayed hidden in his house and he spent all day for two days collecting what he could to flee the country. Just in case, I came up with a contingency plan to flee at night alone if I had to do that. It was just in the case that he did not come back to the house. Then when he was ready we got in his government issued car and we left for the border with Kenya. At the border he was very nervous. He pointed my door at the Kenyan border and told me to watch in the mirror and if anything went wrong I should immediately jump out of the car and run as fast as I could run into Kenya and just hope that I did not get shot. He planned on bribing his way out of the country. The flaw in the plan is why should they accept a bribe when they could just take everything? I hoped the fact that he was driving an official car would intimidate them into letting us through. I sat in the car watching. It got a bit animated at one point and I put my hand on the door and checked that it wasn't locked. Then they all started to laugh and he walked back to the car laughing and joking as we headed over to the Kenyan side. As we pulled up to the gate entering Kenya he let out a big sigh and started to cry like a baby. "I am crying for my country right now, not for myself!" I knew why he was crying. I was right there with him. I was scared shitless sitting there wondering if we would make it out and the relief when we did was enough to make a grown man cry.