On foot through the
Simiens
To the top of Ethiopia

Dave Stamboulis first "discovered" the Simien Mountains in an out of print travel account entitled 'In Ethiopia With A Mule', in which the British travel writer Dervla Murphy walked over 1500 kilometers through the heart of the Ethiopian highlands, equipped only with a pack-mule in 1966. The account fired his imagination and made him determined to visit the Simiens himself.




The highlands of Ethiopia, snuggled between the Blue Nile and the Somali Desert are a maze of plateaus and canyons, lying at 2000-3000 meters above sea level, with jagged volcanic peaks rising up over 4000 meters.

In the heart of the highlands are the Simien Mountains, a collection of steep escarpments, volcanic pinnacles, and clusters of thatched hut hamlets, home to the proud highlanders, who for years have wandered barefoot at alarming speeds carrying huge loads across the rocky trails that crisscross the surrounding mountains.

Home to endemic species such as the walia ibex, Simien fox, and delightful gelada baboon, the Simiens are also the locale of Ras Dashen, at 4543 meters, the fourth highest peak in Africa. Having been on the other highest three (Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Mt. Kenya, and Margharita Peak in the Ruwenzoris in Uganda), I decided that adding a fourth peak to my summit collection would be a most worthy endeavor.

Today the Simien Mountains are a protected National Park, and access into them is nowhere as difficult as when Ms. Murphy travelled through with her mule. Ethiopian Airlines flies into the medieval castle city of Gonder, and from there, a three hour bus ride deposits one in Debark, a bustling market town just outside the park. Developers have pushed a rough road well into the park, and one can now hire a jeep to drive within two days walk of Ras Dashen, but I wanted to see the landscape and animals at a more leisurely pace, travelling as the highlanders do, on foot.

I hired a mule and its driver, an amiable young boy with a big smile, and took on the obligatory scout, an armed guard required by the Park Service. It is not that there are any dangers in the Simiens, other than perhaps getting lost or slipping off a steep escarpment, but rather that the scout provides an interpreter and liaison into village life, not to mention creating employment for local villagers.

My scout, a short but strapping man named Asmoro, showed up with a blue tunic, a rifle slung over one shoulder, and a wide grin on his face. In the coming days, I was to find him to be a wizard at locating wildlife, with a deep knowledge of the flora, fauna, and maze of trails, as well as a steadfast friend. Despite our relative lack of common language, we developed a mutual respect that happens over days of doing nothing but walking silently over long distances, sharing a cup of tea by an evening fire, and gazing into the clear and star-filled high desert skies each night.

From Debark, a dirt road meanders out of town, shortly turning into a rocky path, and making its way eastward over a series of undulating hills. Despite not carrying a pack, I am huffing and puffing, moving slowly, while trying to stretch out my city legs and lowland lungs. Asmoro, meanwhile, lopes along effortlessly by my side. Villagers, on their way to tend fields of tef, the highland grain used to make Ethiopia’s unique injera bread, streak past us, gliding along at a pace twice our own. Even more astounding is the fact that they are barefoot and the path is full of steep stones. Then again, Ethiopians have become well known as being some of the best distance runners on the planet.

By early evening we reach Sankaber, a camp spot perched near a hillside filled with a troop of screeching gelada baboons. The baboons are covered with magnificent golden fur, and are amazing in their ability to cling to small holds on the escarpment cliffs, seemingly oblivious to the 500-meter drop below them.

From Sankaber, the trail hugs the edge of the northern escarpment, giving views of the Geech Abyss far below, and a vista of endless spires, mesas, and tabletops, some of the most ....




....spectacular scenery in Africa. While most of East Africa’s mountain scenery consists of giant lobelia, groundsel, and rather barren moorland, the Simiens look more like the Grand Canyon; rock sculptures of varied red, purple, and orange hues, stretching on forever.

The walking is tough on the feet and days are long, but Asmoro stops us often to rest. In villages, he is on good terms with all the locals, and we are constantly being invited into small thatched huts for rounds of tella, a fermented alcohol made from finger millet or barley, which is quite thirst quenching and guaranteed to produce smiles after one too many glasses. Continuing an age-old tradition (in a region of what used to be isolated clans), the host always drinks the first cup of tella, to show the visitor that it isn’t poisoned and that he doesn’t intend any ill will!

Lightheaded from all the tella, we make our way up a final steep climb into Geech, a small village perched on a hillside. Children materialize out of small huts, heralding our arrival to their mothers, who are busy washing clothes around an irrigation channel. Villages in the Simiens appear small, but when one considers that a hamlet of fifteen huts contains five or six family members per hut, there are actually a lot of inhabitants.

The elder men of the village are gathered on a promontory above the village, smoking cigarettes and swapping stories. They welcome us with big smiles, and are very curious to know where I am from and what brings me to their village. Although our location feels so far removed from the fast-paced world I inhabit, the men are very aware of the world around them, listening to a short-wave radio, which is reporting the beginning of the war in Iraq. The men ask my opinion of things, debate a bit amongst themselves, and go back to watching giant lammergeiers flying overhead.

Shortly past Geech, the path hugs the escarpment, terrifyingly perched over 300 meter drops. I try to avoid peering over the edge, while Asmoro leans out over the abyss, eventually pulling me over to point out a trio of ibex, clinging tenaciously to a tiny ledge 50 meters below us. Soon, we reach a high point for the afternoon, a cliff known as Imet Gogo, where there are 360 degree panoramas of canyons, river valleys, and tiny hamlets, which appear to stretch on forever, all inviting exploration. We drop into Chenek, a well organized camp back down by the road, with springs for washing, huts for the scouts and park rangers to sleep in, and quite a few families who have come in by vehicle to camp and picnic.

It is nice to swap travel tales with other tourists, but from Chenek our real work begins, leaving the trodden path and climbing up over 1000 meters to a pass opposite the summit of Bwahit, the second highest peak in the region. We then leave the world of road access behind, and drop steeply into the Meshewa River valley. In villages down here, there are few signs that the 21st century has arrived, other than the odd plastic bag, or the occasional tennis shoe. Yet nobody seems to be wanting, as in each collection of huts we come to, we are invited in to share tella and injera with scores of smiling faces. Many of the children can speak English, having studied it on the banks of the Meshewa, which their small school overlooks, perched, like everything else in these parts, on the side of a hill.

From the wide Meshewa River, reduced to mostly a few braided streams during this, the dry season, we begin our final climb. Regaining altitude, we pass through Ambikwa, a large village....




.... with a beautiful thatch hut serving as the local church. The path rises, through Mizma, the final village before the land becomes too high for regular habitation. Yet even in the highest points of the Simiens, shepherds can be found tending their flocks. The shepherds are often little boys wearing highland caps, knit of wool, with flaps to cover the ears. Like the others here, they greet us enthusiastically, with cheerful smiles.

Above 4000 meters, the pastures and meadows disappear, and we emerge into a cold and barren landscape, made up of rock and the occasional snow patches, still lingering even in the driest and warmest time of year. I am exhausted, but well acclimatized at this point, and able to move quite nimbly, leading Asmoro to exuberantly call me Haile Gebrselassie Tourist, after the famed long distance runner.

We approach three rock pinnacles, none of which appear to have any way safely up, but Asmoro beckons me around a corner, where there is a small gully with a series of ledges to scramble up on. I am so busy watching my foot placements, that it doesn’t hit me until I realize that I have no more handholds above me that I have reached the summit! Asmoro is smiling, and gives me a big handshake in congratulations. Looking around, all of northern Ethiopia is stretched out at my feet. It is as if I am looking down from an airplane, yet there are no windows marring the view, nor buffering the wind slicing across my cheeks. I forget my fatigue, the effort it took to get here, or even the fact that we still must retrace our steps. Instead, I give silent thanks for the local kindness that has been given to us on our journey, and marvel at just how perfect Ethiopia looks from my present point of view.