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Hike at Lake Abaya and Theft in Shashemene

Since we couldn’t go on a walk yesterday because the truck got stuck for a few hours we did so this morning. Therefore, we had to get up at 6am which was even before sunrise. I really don’t like getting up in the dark and luckily there are only a few days were we have to get up very early.

The hike at Lake Abaya lasted 1.5 hours. We started at the campsite where we had a beautiful overview of the lake and from there we went down to the valley where the lake was situated. At the lake there were a few local women washing clothes. There were also some light weighted stones at the lakefront and when we threw them into the water they didn’t sink but floated on the surface of the lake.

After the hike we drove to Shashemene which turned out to be a quite dodgy place since several local people tried to steal stuff from us. One of them actually managed to steal the iPhone of Chris out of the truck. This happened when the cooking group returned from their shopping and a local guy who sold them some bread was helping them to but the bag with the bread on the front seat of the truck. Usually we don’t leave any local people (with the exception of guides) into our truck but the cooking group might have forgotten this. Right next to the front seat we have a multiple socket outlet where several pieces of equipment including the iPhone were charging. The guy must have taken it from there when putting the bread on the front seat.

Chris was extremely frustrated about the theft of his iPhone especially because it wasn’t his fault. There were also some other local guys trying to steal a wallet out of Norm’s pockets. Luckily we observed the thief and avoided that the wallet got stolen. This resulted in Chris going mad and he grabbed a bottle and wanted to hit the guy who tried to steal the wallet even when this wasn’t the one who had stolen the iPhone. We also managed to get Chris under control otherwise this might have ended-up in a disaster. Instead we reported the theft to the police and they told us that they know the thief and they promised to get the iPhone back. Let’s see how this turns out in the end.

While the theft occurred, Chris, I and a few others were chilling out at a little café where we enjoyed some nice fruit juice, fruit salad and cake. Our driver / mechanic Daniel also used the time in Shashemene to look for some spare parts to repair the exhaust of the truck but didn’t managed to find any.

We continued our drive towards the Bale Mountains where we will be spending the next two days. During the drive we further calmed down Chris by giving him some Vodka. After a short while he was quite drunk and it was very funny talking to him. He even gave Michelle and me a foot massage.

Our lodge in the Bale Mountains was a beautiful and remote place. There were only dorm rooms with bump beds available and so I shared the room with six other women of my group. After sunset it became cold very quickly since the lodge was situated at an altitude of 3,100m. There were also showers and a sauna but the water and the sauna required to be heated up by a fire and there wasn’t any firewood available. We only managed to purchase some firewood for the fireplace and I was heating up in front of the fire before I went into my freezing cold bed.

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