Chapter 7
Trip to Assab
In January my boss organized our trip to Assab. He helped to convince his director to permit the participation of my family, too. We travelled by a long-cab Datsun pickup. This trip has been an experience never to forget.
Up to the national park we knew the route, but after it sights were new. That 540-mile distance can be divided to three equal legs. First one is to the fork, where the Dire Dawa and the Assab road divides. Second leg is from the fork leaving north, until mountains near Djibouti are reached. The third leg follows the valleys of those mountains.
The country along the second leg is almost empty and it is flat, there is only one peculiar cone of a mountain. It is in the middle of the whole route from the capital to the sea. This cone is visible from about 80 miles. Around that place there is a settlement of afar, named by other people danakil, meaning nomad ones. They are naturally beautiful people, but very characteristic, especially men. They were head-hunters until about the Second World War.
They use similar gabby as the Amhara, but they do not need any trousers under it, as their climate is hot because of its altitude. In their desert land there is a depression 270 feet below sea-level. That arid land is the hottest place on Earth, peak has been measured at about 130 degrees F. Their desert can boast with an endemic beast, wild ass of Ethiopia.
Our route followed a course south of that depression. But climate has been out-of-order for an unknown reason, as on that land, where rain falls as rare as every second year, we made our trip in a lasting slow rain.
Something extraordinary must have happened as once we saw a group of ostriches of more than a hundred individuals, whereas ostriches are seen always not more than five in a group.
We drove further and spent the night in a very small town in an awfully unimportant hotel. Our sleep was short and we drove on in the morning. At sunrise we sighted the mountainous country. It looked frightful. Up and down serpentine roads, through salt pans and never to pass another car, except a couple of deserted ones hanging overhead on steep slopes as they ran off the road. But, anyhow, this last leg of our trip has been beautiful.
The second day we reached our goal. Being January weather was good, temperature only 87 degrees F. During summer it is 125 degrees F with 100 percent relative humidity from the sea. The town was a real Arab one and dirt was plentiful everywhere. It might be different now that it is not part of Ethiopia, it belongs to Eritrea, a separate country, and traffic is reduced.
I do not think, of my proposal about the planned maintenance site there realized too much. The company did not have money and, when one year later FIAT 363 trucks – called "addis makina” (new car) – would begin to pour in by freighter ships, all the maintenance work they would spare for the capital, here only necessary checks would be done. There was no possibility to get people of the plateau to work here, only a back-to-back system of three months would do.
On the beach my family collected as many treasures as possible. My son even caught – and, as they survived, he took them to the capital in our flat – some hermit crabs. Besides we bought five turtle shells, too. Later I would give three of them to the Wildlife Conservation Office, and one of them is with us now in our house.
On the backward route in one of the small villages we got into a wedding accidentally. The son of the local party chief had his wedding. Bekele has been caught by them and seated, and he would not let us out of this event, and we had to take place with him under the tent. Ethiopian hospitality is really great. So far I managed to avoid eating from any of their national food, as was afraid of getting some sickness. Now it was impossible. When our hosts saw that we were inexperienced, they would help us fold and eat the food, injera with many kinds of wat.
It might be peculiar, but not one us had any troubles from the food. I even liked it so much, that any time after I would have the possibility of eating their national food, I would do it.