The following day took us to Awassa, stopping off in Dilla. It was a day of
a lot of driving and stressed bladders. The roads leading into Dilla
were a wall of tall, wide leafed green-ness. The roadside was, by comparison
to other roads, densely populated. People were either walking, selling or
just passing time by the side of the road.
We arrived in Dilla and stopped off for some food. Dilla had been Ray's
original placement before she came to Mekelle. We had agreed to meet
up with Kath, another VSO, but unfortunately she couldn't make it so
we contented ourselves with some enjera and cake.
Another unscheduled stop was to visit some ancient stone carvings. Ali had
been here previously and knew where she was going roughly. It was a new trip
for Firew and the drivers though. Another VSO had been but she was held
for a while by local men while some paper work was sorted. Knives were
involved but from what has been said, it's not really fair to say that
she was held at knife point.
We had got ourself close to the location and Firew was looking for a guide.
The man who offered asked for far too much money. In typical Firew style he
just told him to go away and went and found someone else. In this case,
it was a young boy and he got into the car and we drove off-road to a position
close by the carvings. We were all on the lookout for any problems
but there were none.
The rock carvings themselves showed cattle but not a lot is really known
about them. There were other carvings where local people had
added their own information to the rocks.
We arrived in Awassa later that day and found that we didn't have a hotel.
Firew put us in a very nice hotel and we argued with the manager to
get Habesha rates, we are residents and VSOs so they could at least
drop the price to normal. I was a bit disappointed not to see Jenny
and Neal, two volunteers from my intake, but I was able to have
a decent bit of cake. The best cake outside of Addis. Actually, it's
better than anything I have had in Addis but I haven't tried that much.
In the evening we tried the local pizzas but although they were only
15 birr, compared to 25 in Mekelle, they didn't seem anywhere
near as nice.
