deuneh

in the span of a day we went from the deserts of sudan, speaking arabic, drinking icy mango smoothies (but no alcohol!), smoking shisha in illegal shisha dens, eating fuul and falafel, all amidst a very conservative culture, to the lush treed landscapes of ethiopia (gonder, currently), speaking amharic (badly - ameuseganallo!), drinking beer and tej (honey wine), eating samosas and injera with shiro, dancing at bars, and being in a place where prostitution is legal (and obvious), and the culture is therefore rather liberal. though apparently my knees and shoulders must still be covered, though likely this is to avoid being mistaken for a prostitute, thus for my own benefit.

still to early to form a definite impression of the place, but certainly a cold beer is welcome after a long, hot day (or a short, hot morning), and i'm enjoying the 10 degree drop in temperature. we're going to head to lake tana for a little day trip tomorrow, maybe visit an atheist village to get a little respite from the in-your-face religion of these parts (if it's not a mosque waking us up at 4:30am with prayer call, then it's the christian church with it's sunday morning services starting at, you guessed it, 4:30...), and perhaps a little adventure climbing on mt wenhie (sp?). we shall see! but internet is sketchy and power outages are frequent, so hold tight for photos. should be in aksum in a few days, for a glorious week of adventure climbing on solid granite.

p.s. a photo sent to me from rémi from the first month of the trip...as it's one of the few non-ass shots of me climbing, thought i'd post it!