Plain sailing fuelled by a misunderstanding
Auto Adsense WPI’m on cruise control, motoring west along Ontario’s Highway 401 toward Detroit at a respectable 110 kilometres an hour when I first notice it. Speeders approaching in the overtaking lane ease off as they come up behind me, then creep up along side before accelerating back to a cruising speed that obviously would be of interest to the Ontario Provincial Police.
I stop for fuel and a sandwich, and walking back to the car realize why speeders are taking such an interest in me. From a distance the silver Chevy Impala rental car I’m driving has “the look� of an unmarked police cruiser, the kind seasoned speeders keep an eye out for.
In my youth, a retired highway patrol car was high on my wanted list. Those mid-’60s Chevs, Fords and Dodges had hot police interceptor engines, and with their vented dog-dish hub caps, sway bars and throaty dual exhaust, the base model units had ‘the look’ down pat.
Everyone has had incidents of mistaken identity out on the highway, which in the case of those pesky unmarked police “ghost� cars, can lead to surprise attacks on the pocket book.
My most memorable incident of mistaken identity occurred 27 years ago in Ethiopia while Ken Langley and I were attempting to set a speed record from the southernmost point of Africa to the top of Europe at North Cape, Norway.
After a harrowing, bandit-infested run through northern Kenya (which I’ve chronicled in this space), I horsed our 1984 GMC Suburban 2500 diesel through the ramshackle border post in the Ethiopian town of Moyale. Once cleared into Ethiopia we were met by Tim Cat, an employee of the Ethiopian Tourism Commission.
The gateway into southern Ethiopia at the foot of the ominous highlands had once been a thriving village. But when the pro-Soviet military government led by Mengistu Haile Miriam toppled Emperor Haile Selassie 10 years earlier, relations with Kenya deteriorated and the border was closed.
Diplomatic manoeuvring convinced the Ethiopian government to allow entry at Moyale if we agreed to participate in a press conference in Addis Ababa, the capital city. Our role was to extol the virtues of vacationing in Ethiopia, and as part of the deal we agreed to hire a tourism official who would travel with us the entire Ethiopian leg of the trip. I liked the idea of a local on board and Tim Cat, who had friends everywhere, proved a valuable asset.
The thousand-kilometre drive between the border and Addis Ababa took us through the northern part of the Great Rift Valley. Towns had gates at their entrances where military people examined our papers while Tim Cat enthusiastically explained what we were up to. He described how the bullet holes ended up in the side of our Suburban and showed off its then-techie amenities. Good fellowship, but not conducive to setting a timed distance driving record.
Nearing Debre Zivit, two hundred kilometres south of the capital, we prepared for the usual drill of producing letters of introduction, passports, insurance papers and the Carnet de Passage, a must-have customs document for our truck.
While the Simien Mountains are home to a great many species of mammal, including klipspringers, duikers, bushbuck, hyenas and jackals, it’s all about the big three species not found anywhere in the world outside Ethiopia (and two of which can only be found in the Simiens): the Ethiopian Wolf, the Walia Ibex, and the Gelada Baboon.
Rarest of all, the Ethiopian Wolf, also known as the Red Fox or the Simien Fox, actually has another home in the Bale Mountains in southern Ethiopia. Alas it’s now so rare that it’s close to extinction, and you will be very lucky to see one while on trek. Although it’s actually a wolf, it resembles a coyote in shape and size, with distinctive long legs and muzzle, which gives it the appearance of a fox. This is because it preys exclusively on rodents, so has evolved pointed ears, an elongated skull, a long thin face, and small, widely spaced teeth for seizing small mammals.
Also threatened with extinction, but sufficiently abundant that there is a good chance of seeing one from the escarpment’s edge, is the Walia Ibex, a species of wild mountain goat. In fact, the Walia Ibex is responsible for improving my once poor head for heights, and is also the reason the Simien Mountains were granted national park status as the last stronghold of this true mountaineer. Poaching and destruction of their habitat over many years has driven them to take refuge on the giant cliff faces of the escarpment edge, and the only way to see them is by peering over the cliff through binoculars in the hope of catching a blink of movement miles down. I remember doing this on many occasions, and was often rewarded with glimpses of a cluster of these remarkable animals in the most hair-raising of places.
More common, and most memorable of all is the Gelada Baboon, also known as the bleeding-heart monkey due to the distinctive red bald patch on its chest, and the lion monkey due to the male’s shaggy golden mane of hair. It’s extremely tame and peaceable and is unusual among primates in that it feeds mainly on grass and roots. Apart from feeding, its main activity is grooming. Each male has a harem of around half a dozen females, and individual harems often live together to defend themselves against groups of ‘bachelor males’ looking to take over harems of their own. The gelada is known to have a vocabulary of at least 27 contact calls, an unusually large number for non-human primates. Like the walia ibex, the gelada is also a great climber, and frequently plunges down the cliff face at the first sign of alarm.
4. Bird life
- Picture From Ethiopia
Ethiopian Progressive Forum ... "1930s in Eritrea Beni-Amir Tigre man from Keren, Eritrea Beni-Amir Tigre man from ..." · "Images of the Eritrean struggle led by the ...
- About Ethiopian Music
The Orginaly "Irikum" Video/Song from Ethiopia, not the (Everything will be allright)from Mike-E ;-)
- Commentator Ethiopian
Ethiopian Development Research Roundtable July 1-2, 2003 Hilton Hotel Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Organized by: Ethiopian Development Research Institute and World Bank Tuesday, July 1 ...
- Ethiopian History Of The Queen Of Sheba
Full text of "The Queen of Sheba & her only son Menyelek; being the history of the departure of God & His Ark of the covenant from Jerusalem to Ethiopia, and the ...
- Ethiopia Walta
An Ethiopian livestock herder in the rain (picture credit: ILRI/Habtamu). A one-day workshop on climate change in Ethiopia, organized by the Climate Change ...