Wondo genet

Today our excursion took us to hot springs several miles out of Hawassa. The drive was quite interesting because it was a different tribal area than our previous trips to the countryside. We saw many very colorful cotton fabrics hanging out to dry or for sale at local markets. Also, the huts (which I didn't get due to fast moving van) were charming. They are round, thatched huts, but the sides were also thatched with three or four rows of shorter thatch making the hut look like a fancy haircut.

Of course there were the usual donkey carts, and cows and goats roaming everywhere. When we got the the hot springs (admission 30 birr (approx $1.50), we were approached by a tall man speaking English who offered to take us up to natural springs in the hill. We said yes and I'm happy we did.

His English was pretty good and he knew all the birds, animals, and plants along the trail. We saw a number of birds and got some plants id'd (prominent among them for me, the flame tree and also the ubiquitous wild eggplants which are not eaten but used for snakebite). We also saw a Colombo monkey in the wild! 

The trail took us up and up to one hot spring with 185 degree water -- hot enough to boil eggs or cook potatoes. I remembered the springs in Thailand where they sold eggs boiled in the springs. Up a little higher was the Haile Selassie (jamaica) waterfall -- a small pond and waterfall used once by the emperor. Tomasyn and Abraham both took showers in the warm spring. Us women...it appeared that modesty standards may have made this verboten, at least for Adanach, although I did see an older woman (i.e. my age) naked in a cold pond earlier on the trail. Naked young boys and older women, no girls. 

Back in Hawassa, we took the crew to lunch at the Time Caffe, where the internet worked consistently and the club sandwich was a site to behold. 

Although stuffed from our lunch, we sent Adanach and her brothers off with Abraham to visit the youngest Aunt on mother's side and we took a bijaj to La Dolce Vita, the best Italian restaurant in all of Ethiopia.

We tried the local wine...not terrible, not great, and shared a pizza (same as wine).

Our bijaj driver was a very sweet business student at Hawassa university. Unfortunately he ran out of gas in the middle of the road and had to stop traffic to refill the tank.