Simien mountains
Photos by Mike Shrimpton

by Daphne Martin

December 1960 was eventful in Addis Ababa. We had an attempted Coup d’Etat and for a few bloody days bitter battles raged through streets and over mountains. The fighting boomed and bashed on for over a week ending with public hangings. My bungalow was at the epicentre of events so I had an exciting time.

Immediately after the Coup, the country was still simmering when I set off with 3 friends in an ancient, t temperamental vehicle, to cross the vast and magnificent mountainscapes of then-sparsely-populated Ethiopia. At the time, outside Addis, roads were bad; notoriously ferocious bandits (called Shifta) proliferated; and services of any kind were poor or nonexistent. Sensible people would not have even contemplated this adventure, but we hoped to reach a place from which we could try to climb Ras Dashen, the highest mountain in Ethiopia and fourteenth highest in Africa. For me this badly-equipped expedition was even more stirring than the Coup!

Before us, only three non-Ethiopians in past centuries had ventured to the highest point in Ethiopia. Sir Wilfrid Thesager, the famous explorer, travelled in the Simien Mountains but in conversations about his travels in Ethiopia, I never heard him mention any detour to Ras Dashen.

When invited to join an expedition through northeast Ethiopia, I felt honoured. I never suspected how ad hoc the organisers’ adventurous arrangements were and didn’t know how lucky they’d been in the past to escape violent or agonising death at the hands of men or Nature. I learnt the hard way. They didn’t want company but they needed companions to help defray costs. Maybe I was asked to join the expedition because few others had agreed to risk it. I was shaken to learn that, due to fears of an impending Civil War, three of the original seven members of the expedition had cried off. Apart from reducing our complement of strong men from 5 to 2, this also meant that we would have just one, instead of two, Land Rovers. Spare parts? Special tools? Extra water? While on the Ras Dashen trip I realised with horror that the organisers never bothered with those. It was then too late to do anything about it! I was even more devastated to hear that, instead of leaving their infant daughter with friends in Addis, the organisers had decided to take her with us, but after some days they left her in a village in the care of their maid.

The leader waved a remarkably empty map. Surveys of Ethiopia started in 1968 so, in January 1961, we didn’t expect detailed information about far-flung parts. Travellers relied on handdrawn charts provided by friends. These gave directions such as: ‘After a burnt hovel drive 4 miles on gravel to a collection of woodpiles, then turn right onto a cut-up dirt track. In about 5 minutes you’ll come to a ford which can be used if it hasn’t rained recently. Cross the river. Head downstream towards a baboonshaped rock... ‘. “We’re not quite sure of the mountain’s exact name or location so we don’t know where we’ll start walking,” said the leader, folding the blank map. “I haven’t found anyone who knows the district, but that’s not surprising since it seems that it’s never been explored. We’ll start asking questions when we’re in roughly the right area.”

So off we went!

From Addis Ababa, to reach the region where we thought we might be able to start the walk to Ras Dashen, we spent four days driving across Shifta country, some 600 miles counterclockwise through immense isolation and truly sensational mountains. Had a road going in the opposite direction existed we could have made an appreciably shorter journey travelling the other way – through equally magnificent scenery. It was difficult to find a village where anyone had even heard of Ras Dashen, and even harder to locate anyone who imagined they might be able to find the way there. Mules were unobtainable but we acquired three decrepit horses; one was possessed of an evil spirit, another was blind in one eye, and the third had a horrid sore which caused him to rub against every boulder and bush in an attempt to dislodge his load, break our tent poles, and rip our bags. What those poor creatures achieved was nothing short of miraculous. One day we set off optimistically with ‘Gelata’ who thought that he might find the way. The village headman insisted that we take two soldiers as protection against bandits who were rife in the district. These very reluctant worthies we named Shifta Shifter and Bandit Basher. Boots, slung round their necks, and very tatty ex-army overcoats were their signs of office.

For 5½ exhausting days, at altitudes of between 2750m and 4551m, we threaded miles of vast, tumbled boulders, slogged through spectacular but painfully arid terrain, tremendous mountains, and heart stopping gorges. We endured freezing nights, biting gales and no water. In the extremely rare, miniscule hamlets hostile inhabitants resented our presence, retired behind thick walls, closed their gates with thorn branches and spat at us. They were poor beyond imagining and terrified of any strangers who might be shifta. The scenery was grandiose and magnificent, but very soon superb views were ignored. We had eyes only for horrendous boulders, the size of cars and buses, over which we were battling. They were tumbled like bricks of a child’s smashed castle. Scrabbling, gasping for oxygen, slithering, clawing round unyielding lumps, used so much energy that, despite the fierce and bitter wind, we stripped off outer layers of clothing.

Our pack animals couldn’t cope. We had no option but, time and again, to unload the three wretched horses and, going back and forth, move camping gear and food ourselves. Yet, even with nothing to carry, our intended beasts of burden could scarcely conquer the gradient or surmount cascades of great vertical chunks of toughened basalt. It was hard enough for humans, who could use hands. The policemen, who had been forced upon us, were now very useful.

In the lead one of our two scrawny, barefoot, anti-shifta guards struggled up the arid cliff with, like the rest of us, an assortment of unlikely items in his arms and others draped about his body. In his tatters, he looked more like a melodramatic theatre buccaneer than any real-life militiaman. Panting in the thin air, Bandit Basher and I reached a place where we could stand side by side and listened briefly to the dreadful sounds of our five companions and the horses as they made incredible efforts to battle up behind us.

“Here! Take this!” My improbable policeman dropped his bundles, shoved the sack I was clutching roughly to the ground, and thrust his rifle into my hands; “and keep your eyes well-skinned for Shifta!” (It was only at the end of the trip that we found out they had no ammo for the rifles!)

Perforce I took the gun, though I wouldn’t have known how to use it; and, still puffing, stationed myself upon an out-thrusting boulder, eyes peeled across scores of simmering, ochre ridges for any suspicious movement. A young, scruffy, sunburnt female in skimpy shorts, I did my best to look menacing. Shadows along our current unending gorge were sharply-defined, purple-black depths that could have shielded hundreds of desperadoes. Elsewhere scorching sunlight reflected blindingly off towering crags. What would I do if I spotted an advancing column of ruffians?

My Protector disappeared downwards to help Gelata and Shifta Shifter who were quite literally pushing, pulling and shouting our horses up the cliff. The poor creatures, ears back, eyes rolling, kicked and scrambled, slipped and sprawled, sending rocks bouncing down the chasm. Echoes rebounded round the long ravine. The noise was thunderous and explosive beyond description. Any brigands within miles must have known of our presence. Was our shoddy troupe sufficient inducement for them to attack?

The frosty top of Ras Dashen, when we eventually got there, was disappointingly unpeak-like. From the east the approach is a steady slog along the edge of an escarpment. But coming from the north, we had to scramble up a vertiginous cliff where little white patches could have been snow or ice.

There isn’t room here to describe the joys and horrors of the return walk. We spent one night at a miraculous spot where there was turf, a clean spring, and an astounding view for hundreds of miles over an infinity of unbelievably-shaped peaks.

All round Gelada Baboons munched giant groundsel and giant lobelias. On our return we made a sorry procession. Two of us had bandaged knees; one, utterly exhausted, couldn’t move without assistance; one’s toe was so swollen with infection that he had cut away part of his shoe; and a half-blind horse brought up the rear.

Very short of cash we counted cents as the Land Rover ground its way back to Addis, via historic sites such as Axum, possibly once the Queen of Sheba’s home, and saw (from across a chasm) the famous flat-topped mountain where in past times Emperors imprisoned their male relatives to prevent insurrections. The only entry/exit to the amba-top prison was via a 100ft rope up a cliff. Back in Addis the attempted Coup was past history and within 24 hours we were teaching again as if nothing untoward had ever happened.

Editor’s note: The whole story about the coup and the walk are in ‘Excitements in Ethiopia’ by Daphne available from Amazon.

Local family

Gelada babcon

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