We left Addis early after another delicious breakfast and headed out to the cave. It was about a 5 hour drive and it was so interesting to watch how the scenery changed from an arid rather barren landscape, to miles of farmland as far as the eye can see, to a more tropical lush highland landscape. We napped on and off but never for long because there was always something new to see around the corner. Driving through the various towns was especially interesting. They all had signs saying ‘Bon Voyage!’ when you exited the limits.

A few times we had to stop and wait for sheep or donkeys to cross the road and as we drove through Hosanna, one of the larger towns, we saw several people crowded around a huge dead hyena, though whether it was roadkill or hunted we didn’t know. We arrived at the base of Mount Damota and had to wait for the others to go pick up food and benzene for the generator in Soddo. While waiting, we got to meet all of the school children who attended school at the base of the mountain. Christopher bought a foot of sugar cane stalk and the children showed us how to eat it. It was really quite hilarious.
Later, it was a dark and stormy night…no, really, it was. We arrived at the Moche Borago campsite just before sundown. The land cruiser had overheated 40km back so we had a late start getting up the mountain. The ride up the mountain was quite exciting. Not only was the scenery of the farm and countryside beautiful, but the terrain was rough and it was not unlike a ride at a theme park. Once at the top, everyone was in a whirlwind of activity. The Izuzu had arrived before us with all of our gear and we were all in a race against both the sunset and a brewing storm. The crew and workers were hurrying to put up the large dining and kitchen tents to store all of our supplies before the storm hit. While they were doing this, we, the students, set out attempting to construct our own tents further up the hill. At this point, it was nearly pitch dark out and the winds were gusting up around 40mph. They were using all of the hammers and tools to set up the larger tents so we used stones as hammers to set our tent stakes. “We’re using stone tools!” We were so proud of our ingenuity and the fact that it was relatively successful. We managed to get settled without falling off the mountain or getting lost in the dark and we curled up in our tents and fell asleep.

(photo by Andrew)