An Excursion to Entoto Mountains!
Monday, November 24th, 2008 | Uncategorized
Entoto Mountains is a historic place outside of Addis. It is home to quite a large population of people living with HIV/AIDS who have been ostracized from society and forced to live isolated from the rest of the city. It is also a historic site of a former emperor’s home, a few churches, beautiful views of Addis Ababa, and perhaps the most important thing—CLEAN AIR!!! (Addis definitely suffers from poor air quality)
Just getting there was quite the adventure. Cindy and I got a ride with a local Dutch guy which was very nice. Then we found ourselves in Shiro Meda, a huge market area where they sell tons of traditional clothes and souvenirs. We started walking up the hill. On the way up we saw women carrying 15-20 feet long eucalyptus branches on their backs. We also saw a few men getting into a fight, and of course, we saw cute Ethiopian children (there’s always a plethora of them around)!! The further we went up the hill, the more we got stared at. We were really getting the feeling that usually white people don’t walk this road. Later we realized that all forengees (the Amharic word for foreigners, also my second nickname here) take tour buses up to this site, but we wanted to try walking. That lasted for about an hour when we hopped into a very very crowded mini bus on a road with no shoulder or ramp to prevent us from falling off the mountain. (another one of those adventures that made the list of life experiences).
Once we got to the church, looked at the view of smoggy Addis and breathed the clean mountain air, Cindy and I were both a peace. We had finally made it to the top and all was quiet and calm as we overlooked the busy city. It was almost as good as going to the ocean, but not quite.
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