How to run like an Ethiopian

Here's some convincing evidence that Nike or Adidas do not want you to hear. It's no secret that Ethiopians can run, and, along with Kenya, it's one of the only countries where running is the top national sport. The main square in Addis Ababa (Meskel) has a running track where you can see hundreds of locals training at speeds as fast as you can sprint 100m on a good day.

On our last morning in Gondar, we were lucky enough to stumble into an elite 10km race. Even better, it was 4 x 2.5 km loops that ran right past the balcony of our hotel. All of the 40 or so runners finished under 32 minutes, with the winners around 28 minutes! The world record (held by an Ethiopian) is only a minute quicker.

Now, here's what they were wearing:



And a closer look at those fancy shoes:


Most have on a pair of sandals (20 Ethiopian Birr, a bit less than US$3), which are readily available from most Ethiopian markets. They're a bit like Crocs, but with slightly harder plastic. A few were even barefoot for a race run on tarmac and cobblestones.

I think an Olympic marathon was won by a barefood Ethiopian 40 to 50 years ago, but they still run mostly barefoot in this age of high-tech shoe design. Faster than I'll ever run in fancy shoes. Maybe a lifestyle of walking 50+km a day (at altitude) has more to contribute to the 28 minute 10K than the shoes. Sorry, Nike and Adidas.

The perpetuity of the Ethiopian Fairytale

The history of Ethiopia is full of colourful tales, perhaps a bit embellished over the centuries. A massive church hewn from a single rock in little more than 24 hours by an impressively strong woman (with a little help from some Angels). The location of the original Ark of the Covenant – that nobody is allowed to see – and how Ethiopia was chosen by God to guard it. Promises of great armies sent to help Europeans fight the Crusades. Some, like this latter one, are clearly fairytales in hindsight, but centuries of religious homogeny (in northern Ethiopia), have left a very rich and colourful history.

Our first stop was Bahir Dar, a small city on the edge of Lake Tana (source of the White Nile river). About 300-400 years ago, nearby Gondar was the capital of the Ethiopian kings, and Bahir Dar became known for its monastaries dotted around the lake. Not to mention thousands of pelicans and other interesting birds.



Ethiopian christianity is considered one of the “oldest” versions of extant christianity, perhaps because Ethiopians are very persistant when it comes to resisting change. Since about the 4th century AD, when followers of Jesus Christ first arrived in Ethiopia, little seems to have changed. Even the old calendar is still in use – it was the month of Megabit and the year 2002 while I was there. The rest of the world has gradually abandoned this old calendar in favour of how the Roman Catholic popes frequently re-interpreted the calendar – last changing it about 500 years ago. Even the time of day is different. A day is 24 hours long, but switches at 6:00am (western time), so sunrise falls at 'midnight' and sunset at 'noon'. Hence there's no need for AM and PM – there's 2:00 in the daytime (=8am), and 2:00 at night (=8pm). Once you get used to it, and it doesn't take much more than setting your watch to be 6 hours slow, this actually makes a lot more sense than the time that we're used to.

Even the Ethiopian Fairytale is alive and well, although in a slightly more sinister modern form. In Bahir Dar, this manifested itself in the blatant lying we constantly encountered when trying to organise just about anything. It's a bit sad that whereever we went, almost every tour operator, hotel manager, or “friendly” local resorted to fairytales just to get our custom. Boat operators in Bahir Dar had fancy tour programmes that included hippo-watching en-route to a monastary (the driver didn't even bother looking) and visits to the best old monastaries (one was still in the process of being built!). On leaving Bahir Dar, we were promised a minibus full of faranjis (foreigners) who hired a bus that would go direct to Gondar (as expected, we never saw a single faranji and stopped in just about every small town in-between). Unfortunately, unless one can speak/read Amharic (a devilishly difficult language from an English-speaking viewpoint) or pay for a local “guide”, living these fairytales is unavoidable.



But, as was the Ethiopian theme, the modern fairytales are easily offset by their historical counterparts. On the Zege peninsula near Bahir Dar, we visited a 16th century monastary (Ura Kidane Mihret) that has withstood time (and constant use). Old religious manuscripts from the 8th century were still being read by white-robed priests. Similar to Borobudur (in Indonesia), which featured stone murals relating the life of Buddha and tales from the Buddha's past lives, this monastary featured colourful painted murals relating the life of Jesus and other key biblical stories on every square metre of the central shrine. Most of these were painted about 250 years ago, but some fragments of the original paintings still existed thanks to the dry environment.



Up the road in Gondar, the former capital, the old royal enclosure rivals any castle in Europe. Built over about 100 years by successive kings, the tales of succession (fratricide seems to be the quickest route to the throne) add the necessary royal scandal.



The highlight of this area, however, was a small 18th century timber church (Debre Berhan Selassie) up on the hill above Gondar. Not only was the local priest a genuinely friendly man, with an unassailable pride towards his church, but the paintings inside covered more than just the central shrine and had a handcrafted quality that made it seem like the Sistene Chapel of Ethiopia. Hundreds of angels peered down from the ceiling rafters, each one slightly different in complexion and size. According to the historical fairytale, this church would have been destroyed by invading Sudanese dervishes in the mid 19th century, were it not for a swarm of bees that greeted them at the gate. And as we saw later in Lalibela, this wasn't the first time that bees sent by God have featured in an Ethiopian Fairytale.



Pictures (from top)
1 - Pelican on Lake Tana
2 - Original murals from Ura Kidane Mihret
3 - Current 19th century murals on the shrine of Ura Kidane Mihret
4 - Gondar Royal Enclosure (Fasillias' Palace on the right). Much of the destruction was actually caused by British bombing of the enclosure during World War II (the Italians used part of it as a base).
5 - The ceiling rafters in Debre Berhan Selassie Church, Gondar

How the world was before globalisation

Without any prior experiences in sub-Saharan Africa, it is difficult to put a visit to Ethiopia in its proper context. But, without doubt, it was the least developed place I've ever been, which made three and a half weeks there feel a bit like a roller coaster ride. The highlights of the trip were extremely high, but these were balanced out by the hassle of being of European descent in Ethiopia (the locals seem to feel an entitlement towards your money, so genuine friendliness – commonplace in Indonesia – was rare in Ethiopia).

Asia and South America both feel a bit more developed thanks to cheap labour, which has drawn firms by the thousands to set up shop and indirectly provided a reasonably complete infrastructure (power, transport, water, etc.). Ethiopia seems to be a land that globalisation skipped, despite a similar supply of cheap labour. USAID (the international aid arm of the US Government) seems to be a main supplier of foodstuffs – one day in Lalibela, we watched a parade of locals march by, alongside their donkeys laden with USAID 100kg sorghum sacks and vegetable oil. The Chinese government is just beginning to build paved roads (with imported Chinese labour!) – though, the dominant form of transport, by a long shot, is still walking (up to 50km/day in rural areas). Main streets are chock full of locals walking up and down, going about their daily buisness – in scenes probably not too distant from what it was like 100 years ago in the US and NZ. The internet doesn't really function yet – mostly because the two necessary infrastructures (telephone and power) are extremely unreliable. There were only four days out of 24 where both were functioning at the same time, and even then, most Ethiopian runners could run 10km barefoot in the time it took to download an e-mail (just to have the power go out before completing a reply).





So travel is tough, but a lack of power, internet, phones, and, somethimes, water, is a great way to experience a more simple life. In the next few posts, I'll be quickly summarising the more interesting bits of Ethiopia from my experience. As a fiercly anti-colonial state – Ethiopia was not taken under the wing of a European state (only a brief takeover by Mussolini) – it retains a culture and history to rival any European country. The natural scenery is equally astounding; most of populated Ethiopia are fertile ex-volcanic highlands, with landscapes that seem to combine New Zealand, the Grand Canyon and Utah's Monument Valley all in the same spot. And the simple life itself can also be extremely interesting – where else could you have a chat with someone who had no concept of what the USA was or ask if women in our culture also had a 9-month gestation period?

Photos:
Top - Aid distribution in Lalibela
Bottom - An Ethiopian highway - the main "road" to rural settlements north of Lalibela

46 centuries and counting...

This is the view that the great pyrimids and sphinx of Giza have had for the past 46 centuries, standing on the plateau boundary between the habitable bit of the Nile valley that now makes up the mega-city of Cairo (22 million+) and a mega-empty span of inhospitable desert. 250 to 300 generations have come and gone since the pyramids were built. It's hard not to be impressed.





This last pyramid, the step pyramid at Saqqara, was the first one to be built - about 100 years before the great pyramids - making it the oldest "building" in the world (or at least the "oldest free standing stone structure", since the definition of building can vary).



It was really good to see it now because a team of French archaelogists is completely re-building the original outside casing. Yes, they'll use some of the original stone that was found around the site, but most of the small bit that has been completed looks pretty new and thus doesn't convey the awe one gets when looking at the imperfections of a 4600 year old pyramid.

We're now off to Ethiopia, which doesn't have very good internet services. Expect the next few updates (if any) to be text only, followed by a picture post once I reach South Africa on April 14th.

Between Then and Now

It's been three and a half months since we left Lembeh... and now we're in Egypt, a short stop before the start of an extended African experience in Ethiopia, Madagascar, South Africa, and elsewhere.

Perhaps one day I'll get around to filling in the gap, but for transitional purposes, here's the brief summary:

Northern Sulawesi: Manado has some of the world's most efficient public transport (really!), but the rest of the province is good value only if you're a single traveller.

Raja Ampat, West Papua: Great fish action, if you're in the right place and don't have your flight to Sorong cancelled.

Saigon/Ho Chi Minh Vietnam: Wow, this place has changed in the past 40 years... Great food and friendly people.

Phnom Penh: You don't need to go to the killing fields to feel shocked about what the US was doing here while I was in school (supporting the Khmer Rouge in the 1980s). The old high school/prison was enough.

Siem Reap/Angkor: A great way to finish a long trip - fantastic cycling through 1000-600 year old ruined temples.

Five Pass tramp (Mt Aspiring NP, New Zealand): Simply the best walk in New Zealand - by a wide margin over Cascade Saddle in 2nd place. The three-year wait for good weather was worth it.

...so let's begin with Cairo before I lose internet connections for a month.

Life under the Lembeh Strait

Back in Indonesia, we headed straight for a busy shipping channel off the northern coast of Sulawesi, between the mainland and Lembeh island. Despite this channel being next to a rather ordinary Indonesian port city, Bitung, with plastic rubbish (and even a dead animal) littering the water's surface (and the sea floor), it's one of the world's top dive destinations.

Whenever you read of the “best” dive location, there's usually a fair bit of debate – for example, some divers prefer reefs with small fish, while others prefer big fish, big current, wrecks, or underwater caves. Even in these categories, there's probably quite polarised opinions on, say, the best wreck. But when it comes to “muck diving” – which is diving on a sandy/muddy bottom looking for small creatures in the muck – Lembeh is an undisputed king. Perhaps that may be because enthusiasm for muck diving is new – diving in Lembeh was not even mentioned in a 2000 edition of Lonely Planet Indonesia. But the place we stayed at (Two Fish Divers) was full of people who were coming back. One Dutchman was making his fifth trip!

After four days of putting our faces in the Lembeh muck, I mostly agree with the clichés that promise lots of weird marine life. Again, this may be because one doesn't normally dive in a sandy shipping channel; most of the fish books we reviewed post-dive for identification mentioned that most of what we had seen was “common in Indo-Pacific waters from S Japan to N Australia”. But what I really enjoyed about Lembeh, and perhaps muck-diving in general, was the ability to observe marine life for much longer than reef fish, which tend to dart away. This was because the critters in Lembeh typically relied on camoflauge to find food, so most of them were not very mobile. On each dive (which wasn't very deep, so it was possible to stay down for 90 minutes or so), we just hovered right above the sand, waiting until something caught our eye.

The ease at which it was possible to approach marine life made it quite easy to get pictures of the highlights:

The Flamboyant Cuttlefish pulses white, yellow & purple colours as you get near, then blends into the sand as you retreat.

The Hairy Frogfish looks just like a volcanic rock with algae all over it.

Small, very colourful, frogfish also lurk amongst the algae – some of the most enjoyable moments in Lembeh are just watching these little fish waddle in the sand to find the best hiding spot in the algae.

Nudibranchs are quite common in Lembeh – some of them, like this ceratosoma species, disguise themselves like a frogfish.

A school of banded pipefish, swimming alongside some Lembeh litter, which often acts like an artifical reef. Indeed, the most common homes for reef octopi were old bottles (below).

Orang Hutans et al. vs. Elaeis guineensis

Part 2 of the visa run was up into the northern tip of Borneo – the Malaysian state of Sabah. One experience that constantly makes lists of “endangered tourism” is the chance to see orangutans (orang hutan is “forest person” in both Indonesian and Malay) in the wild. Of course, the wealth that enables Sabah to have such developed tourist infrastructure for visiting the jungle is, ironically, likely to be a product of the driving force sending the orangutans to the brink of extinction in the wild.

The “enemy” is a palm tree imported from Africa that is used to produce palm oil. On landing in Sandakan, in the far northeast corner of Borneo, it is not hard to be amazed at the scale of the monoculture that Elaeis guineensis palm oil plantations have produced in this part of the world. From Sandakan, we took a 2 and a half hour drive to the southwest and only spotted three types of land use: (a) urban areas, (b) palm oil plantations, and, only in the last 50 metres, (3) regrowing rainforest. Palm oil plantations easily accounted for 99% of that drive, and trucks hauling palm oil or palm kernel dictate the speed of travel on Sabah's highways. In other regions with severe monocultures, say the example of the midwest US and corn, there are at least occasional fields of livestock and other crops. But in Sabah, there is only palm oil trees (or clearcut forests awaiting palm oil tree seedlings).

Perhaps because of this big reliance on a monoculture, Malaysia's economy may be more at risk than the orangutans. Palm oil is useful as both a vegetable oil (as such, it's impossible to avoid in Asia) and the key ingredient for inexpensive biofuels. The world can only use so much vegetable oil, so it may have been EU biofuel mandates that led to widespread clearcutting for timber and palm oil (now spreading into the Indonesian half of Borneo). Most environmental advocates are now turning against palm oil – Cadbury in NZ made a disastrous decision to use palm oil in their chocolate, a decision that affected their image and sales so much that they switched back three months later. Hence, the boom days of Malaysia's love of palm oil may come to an abrupt end, which would be devastating to their economy.

It's not hard to be both amazed and distressed at spotting an orangutan in the wild. Basically, the plots of forest that remain are those that are unsuitable for the palm oil trees – low-lying floodplains and other swampy areas. This makes it somewhat easy to spot the wild orangutans, since they're pretty much forced to the river's edge; hence, wildlife tourism companies commonly offer you the chance to cruise up the river and “see orangutans from the comfort of a boat”. Some bits of re-growing forest here and there have yet to be felled (a second time) for palm oil, but these “native lands” are not covenanted as conservation areas, hence it is not uncommon to see an orangutan with the faint soundtrack of chainsaws in the background. It's not all doom and gloom – big NGOs are spending a lot to preserve what little natural forest remains in some of the heavily agricultural basins like the Kinabatangan River, which we visited.

At the same time, other conservation-minded charities are on the ground helping orangutans (and the other loveable macro-animal of Sabah, the probiscus monkey). These are “sanctuaries” whereby workers assist injured or orphaned animals, so you're pretty much guarenteed to see an animal at one of the feeding tmes. The sanctuary near Sandakan is the Sepilok Rehabilitation Centre. While it was great to see someone taking care of the injured and orphaned animals, I did feel a bit awkward – the problem with orangutan populations is habitat destruction (not survival), thus Sepilok and other rehabilitation centres seem to be treating the symptoms of the problem as opposed to the hard (and expensive) question of preserving habitat.

Some of the propaganda for the charities points out that they are typically founded by benevolant plantation owners, who valiantly step in to stop their workers shooting a few monkeys. On reflection, it doesn't take too much speculation to spot convoluted economic logic of Bornean land use trends: (1) fell the forest for timber sales, (2) plant palm oil as a cash crop, and then, once macrofauna have become endangered, (3) set aside some poor land as a reserve for fare-paying conservationists. As more and more magazines write of the gradual extinction of wild orangutans, the price for visiting is skyrocketing – the annual rate of inflation at Uncle Tan's Wildlife Adventures (where we went) seems to be around 50%.

Needless to write, as one of those fare-paying conservationists, it was very enjoyable to see the wide variety of animals that we could spot from the boat on the Kinabatangan River. Five orangutans, lots of probiscious monkeys, hundreds of macaques, silver-leaf monkeys, Bornean gibbons, colourful birds that could be closely approached at night, owls, snakes, bright red frogs, and big monitor lizards all lazed around the riverbanks, particularly in the early morning (before the real heavy rain set in, as it was the wet season).

Photos (from top):
1 - Typical section of riverbank along the Kinabatangan River - a thin edge of secondary jungle, with clear-cut terraces ready for palm oil plantations.
2 - Orangutan at Sepilok sanctuary
3 - Macaque
4 - Harlequin tree frog
5 - Hooded pitta (easily approached to within metres at night!)
6 (below) - At lunch one day, just before playing a bit of soccer, a poisonous spitting cobra darted out onto the soccer pitch and devoured a small lizard. Despite all the guides poking around in the bush where it came out (with long sitcks, of course), the snake wasn't seen again, and the soccer continued.