On the Road

Long and fascinating road trip today; the roads are getting progressively worse. We still see the flat-topped acacia trees and the eucalyptus, but now there are hectares of bananas, cotton, mangoes, the occasional papaya grove, and, as always, beautiful jacaranda trees in bloom.

We stopped at an Alaba tribe village; they are recognizable by the tall hats for men


And the beautiful houses, painted inside and out









Inside, there was a woman making injera, the Ethiopian bread


And more paintings and belongings hanging on the wall








Unfortunately, in the tribal areas the people demand 10 birr (about 60 cents) for each picture, so you have to think twice before taking a picture. The lovely young women who clustered around me, each holding a baby or two, were interested in my jewelry
and wanted me to give it to them!
Leaving the village we encountered camels...hundreds of them, being driven to market.


Babies, too!


In every little village, there were LONG (100 or more women) queues waiting to fill their plastic jerry cans with water from the communal water area


We stopped at a large Saturday market in Wolita, with lots of potatoes, cassava, chili peppers, shallots, ginger, garlic and mangoes



Unfortunately, the people (mainly young boys) were very aggressive, so we hightailed it out of there


After lunch we continued on, seeing large Saturday markets, common baboons and vevert monkeys by the road, lakes with crocodiles(!)and girls with mangoes to sell. We arrived at our hotel


which is charming in looks, but has no hot water and very little cold; we sought solace in a cold beer!

Location:Arba Minch, Ethiopia