Chilalo Mountain

The town of Asella is nestled at the base of a large mountain called Chilalo. It is a beautiful beast that had been taunting Joe, Abel, and myself for some time, luring us to try to conquer it. And conquer it we did (kind of [not really {I'm genuinely surprised we lived}]). The mountain is ranked somewhere in the top ten tallest mountains in Ethiopia. The exact figure is unknown because measuring, turns out, isn't an exact science. I am going to say, because I jump while at the top (and I can jump fairly high), we were at the six highest elevation in Ethiopia. In actuality, I think the summit is around 13,000. I feel that is pretty solid for a day hike.

Our destination as seen from my house

Early in the morning, Joe and I left from my house to meet Abel at his. We arrive there at around 7:30am. It is worth noting, we arrived back at Abel's house at 7:30pm. It was a long day. But the weather was perfect. There were very few clouds about, giving us some spectacular views.

Here we are: clean, excited, and perhaps a little naive. We knew other people had done the same climb with success so it never occurred to us (or at least me), the day would be anything but a pleasant jaunt.

Apparently there is a forest in Asella where local runners train. The cool thing about living in this area is that local runners could actually be future Olympians. By the time we reached this forest, most of the runners were done for the morning. But I have watched people in Bekoji train the same way. They zigzag through these trees, up and down hills with speeds ranging from a light jog to sprinting. I tried to run with some of them and could not keep up. Going at what seemed like a snail's pace in comparison, I still fell over tree roots and had to stop to catch my breath before the actual runners seemed to be done with their warm up.

 

Once out of the forest, we came upon a path that people walk daily to get to the market in Asella. What to me was a fun novelty, was a daily routine to them. 

 

One thing that I love about Abel is his love of coffee. Because we left so early, he was not able to drink coffee. To an Ethiopian, this is obviously unacceptable.  We came upon a rural area that had some houses. While Joe and I were hoping that no one would stop us and tell us we were not allowed to climb the mountain, Abel was going to door to door to see if anyone would make us coffee. This nice woman was happy to prepared a full coffee ceremony for us. She built a fire, roasted the beans, pounded it into grinds, cooked the coffee, and served it to us.

In my opinion, the most amazing sight of the day (and possibly my service) took place in this woman's home. There is a common phrase here (at least among PCVs) called "habasha hands". It is an equivalent to "housewife hands" in America (I feel like maybe this terms is not appropriate to say anymore, houseperson?). It is the idea that a person works with hot objects so often that he or she can touch something that would burn a normal person.

This woman had the craziest set of habasha hands I have ever seen. To give some perspective, Abel went home and told his mom about this woman. Abel's mom raised five children, four of which are boys, and she was astounded. Our barista built the fire to boil the water on sticks. Once the fire as going, she balance the kettle on the sticks. The kettle literally became red hot because it was directly on the flame. Once the coffee was done, she grabbed the kettle from the bottom (the RED HOT bottom) and pour three glasses of coffee. She did not flinch or grimace. She felt nothing. As she held metal that would have melted my skin off, she just continued to smile and talk.

I think this was our rock band album cover photo

With a dose of caffeine in our system, Joe and I decided to do what any good American would do in this situation: play baseball. There were circular plants growing in this open area and we took the opportunity to have batting practice. This was Abel's first time taking a baseball swing and as you can see, from the fear in my position, he is a natural!

My best attempt at, "You shall not pass!"

Abel and Joe

The rock formations towards the top of the mountain were amazing. Chilalo used to be a volcano (or still is? when does a volcano stop being a volcano?). The result are these beautiful rocks that look just like lava rolling down hill.

Close to the top. Asella is somewhere down there. At a certain point we stopped trying to find it.

Joe at the top of the world. 

For anyone who is a regular reader of this blog (so basically just my mom), you will remember that Joe and I climb a mountain called Gelama together near his town of Bekoji. Once at the top, someone asked if we wanted our picture taken. Thinking that we were "too cool for school", we scoffed and said no. Later in the day we realized how dumb we were and that probably would have been a really nice picture. We did not make the same mistake twice, here is our photo: redemption! I would also like to state that Joe is noticeably taller than me, I have no idea why I look like an amazon woman in this photo.

And on the back side of Chilalo, there was ... drum roll... another mountain! Kind of. It turned out that Chilalo is crater-like. There are three walls of the crater, but since they are near the same height, you cannot see the others unless you are on the top. We were all blown away by this. Looking back now, it all makes sense. People from towns all over the region use Chilalo as a marker, but these markers always contradict each other. Knowing the actual geography of the mountain makes it obvious that people are just referencing different faces of the mountain.

I have never in my life seen anything as expansive and amazing as the view from the top. I honestly felt like I was on the top of the world. 

Group shot; we made it!

 

As I said earlier, the trip was 12 hours straight of walking. Joe had a fancy watch to tell us how far we went, but it ran out of batteries (telling of the day). Based on what the number was before it died, we walked somewhere between 15-18 miles. 

We got lost on the way down and that cost us a good hour or two. While in some places in the world this would not be a problem, it meant we were likely walking through hyena turf towards the end of the trek. A fairly scary idea at the end of a long day. We realize we were in trouble when we passed people on the road and they offered to let us all stay at their house for the night. They almost pleaded with us because they knew the path was unsafe at that hour. But when given the option of getting one hyena bite or one million bug bites, we all knew the best choice. Fortunately, we had no problems and all got home safe.

In my mind, the day was one of the best examples of everything I love about Peace Corps and Ethiopia. I went with two people who were strangers a year and a half ago, but are now family.  I saw some of the most beautiful sights I will ever see in my life. A woman we did not know and lives in conditions of such poverty that her bedroom, kitchen, and barn are all one room, treated us to coffee. Any time were were lost and someone was around, they were happy to help us. On the way back, strangers cared about our safety, perhaps more than we did, and offered us their home for a night. The day was perfect and exemplified all the forms of beauty in which this country is so rich.