Sunday, November 17, 2013

Mt. Chilalo

Dex, a G6, is my walking buddy. We've spent hours tramping around the Arsi Zone. So I couldn't say no to one last walk before he leaves on Sunday. Climbing Mt. Chilalo.

Chilalo is the 4th largest mountain in Ethiopia, and Assella sits right at the foot of it. It's just over 4000m.

We left just after 7 am, walking with our guide and then the guard we picked up.  Guards a necessary, foreigners have been attacked before and hyenas live on the mountain. And there's no true trail so a guide is also a must.

We went through the country side first, past farm land, and apparently it's acceptable here to pull up plants to eat them while you go along. Our guide just pulled pea plants from the earth, picked off the pods, and gave them too us.

It was a long hike, more so cuz we went at a slow pace and stopped a lot. 11 hours of hiking!  But it was beautiful!  There's a wonderful rock formation at the top, and a holy water spring. We saw some deer, but no monkey's sadly.

Despite the longer than expected walk, it was a wonderful day.  I just crashed at the end, and woke up this morning tired and achy, but totally worth it. 


1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Excellent adventure!

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