As I continued my journeys of exploration throughout Africa, it was my first trip to Ethiopia. My travel companions for this trip were Jimmy, his wife Susie and Jimmy’s brother Kosta. they are friends of mine. Jimmy and his brother are Greek and have been living in America for over thirty years. The brothers grew up in Ethiopia and this was their first time back in thirty-five years. I was amazed at the number of people the brothers still knew even though they had been gone such a long time.

We spent the first couple of days in and around the capital city of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa.
By the way the name means “new flower”
We all had limited time in Ethiopia so we had to make a decision whether to travel north to the historic sites or south to the remote areas of the Omo Valley. We decided on the Omo. This was going to take us about eight days to go from Addis to Omo and back. So our driver Sieu and the four of us headed south from Addis, our destination was the Omo Valley Lodge. It took about two and one half days of driving on typical dirt roads that I often travel on throughout Africa, dusty and bumpy! Along the way we stopped at couple of small villages, as we passed through it was market day and believe me that is a site you do not want to miss. People come from far away to trade their own goods and purchase supplies they need at home. Most of the folks are decked out in their best dress, as market day is the major social event of the week!

We finally made it to the Omo Lodge where we spent the next three nights. The Omo River runs next to the Lodge and it is a beautiful area. The bird life is plentiful along the River. I went for a walk by myself one day as the others went to a market. As I was sitting, just listening to the birds and watching nothing else happening before me, a local guy came walking by. I motioned to him to come over and sit with me and he did. We could not speak to each other, as he did not understand English and I did not know his local language, however it was one of those worthwhile moments in life, as two guys from completely different worlds connected and we did not need words. His name is Opinata Zeno.

On our way back to Addis we traveled a different route. The highlight of this route for me was being in the town of Jinka. This is what I would refer to, as a “Real African Town” There was electricity in town; it was only on each day from noon until 10:00pm. There was no power plant, just a very large outdated diesel run generator, but it certainly did its job. The people were very friendly and curious as to what we were doing in town. It was also market day in Jinka. Being that Jinka is a largest town in the area, the market was quite large.

After bidding a farewell to Jinka we made our way back to Addis. I had another day in Addis before my flight from Addis to Khartoum, Sudan, as Sudan was my next destination on this journey.