Lake Langano Ethiopia

K8+8 thought our school year should end with one last big adventure. She picked a weekend at Lake Langano with Downtown Jackie Brown, Team Sara/Esme, Mooch Goat (bailed last minute due to illness), and I as the appropriate trip. 

We booked out of our classrooms within minutes of the dismissal bell. The next 3.5 hours were spent dodging live stock, humans, Sino Trucks-What some Ethiopian's call Al Queda, buses, potholes, and donkey carts. We arrived just in time to see stars, listen to the lake slap the shore, and hear wild dogs off in the distance. 

Ethiopia is a birdwatcher's paradise. Well, I didn't intend to look for birds, I walked around with a point-and-shoot camera and snapped what I saw.

Blood oranges? 

Cactus were flowering. 

Livestock outside out campground. 

It is common to see goats climb trees for food...or much on cactus. 

Random grave site.

The shore.

Everyone likes a eagle.

The blooming cacti were abundant. 

Nature's version of swimming pool noodles 

It is the begging of the rainy season and some trees are in bloom. 

Bird nests.

Crazy looking duck.

K8+8 likes to row in the water so we went on a little adventure checking out other villages and camp sites along the lake.

It appears most birds like the orange tree. 

We didn't quite rough it, there was a fully functional kitchen. Most of the people that use the facility are related to the Embassy and I can't see many of them roughing it.  

Downtown Jackie Brown looking for animals.

The images below are from a previous Langano visit.

A little bit of Lake Langano Ethiopia

By being a member of the US Commissary we have privileges of renting their campground on Lake Langano. It is an ideal weekend getaway...it is one of the only lakes in Ethiopia where you can swim without the fear of getting a parasite, but lucky for me I brought my own that weekend and was pretty much a no-show in hanging out with 15 of our closest friends that came along. Kudos to our friend Kate for setting it all up, we're definitely going to make the trip again and you should too if you're ever in Ethiopia...just watch out for the livestock when crossing the roads and never drive at night unless you like to play Russian Roulette. Sorry for the lack of photo, like I mentioned I had visitors camping out in my intestines.

Bale Mountains, the trip that almost was.

As a very part-time grade 9 advisor I got asked to tag along on their Week Without Walls trip to the Bale Mountains. According to the head honcho, the trip is usually in mid-December, when the rainy season is well into the books. This year's trip was an exception, I guess the person who made the master schedule for WWW decided to test fate (or ignore both sound advise and mother nature). After nearly a 10-hour drive, we arrived to the land of continuous rain. Long story short, the trip was abandoned two days into it, months of planning activities for the kids-a total waste, 20-hours to and fro in a bus dodging livestock...In the end, the kids had fun as we spent the last 2 days doing day-trips (Lake Langano and Menagesha Forest).  As I as said before, Ethiopia has some of the most amazing landscape in the world, one day I hope to return to the Bale Mountains.