After two and a half hours of playing and watching, I was none the wiser. But apparently, we won. And no one was killed.
F O U R
It was several days later that I arrived in Mekele. Most of that time had been spent just getting there, driving back up into the Highlands and skirting the Danakil on its western side. I had entered Tigray, or Region Number One, as it was called on government issue maps. It was no surprise that this, the most northern Ethiopian region, had been given the number one because Tigray was where most of the national government hailed from. It was the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (or TPLF) who had kicked out the communist Derg regime back in 1991, with a bit of help from their Eritrean allies, and they weren’t going to let anyone forget about it. Sepia posters of TPLF fighters dotted the streets of Mekele, a rapidly growing town that the national government had been pouring money into ever since.
New roads were being built, a brand new airport terminal was going up to replace the tin shed that had done the job previously, and virtually every street corner could boast at least one recently constructed building. But most domineering of the work-in-progress was a giant monument to the fighters who had died in the struggle against the Derg. It looked as if it was modelled loosely on the Olympic torch, with a giant ball where the flame should have been. Still wreathed in wooden scaffolding, it subjugated the skyline from every direction. It was as high as a six-storey concrete apartment block and just slightly less attractive.
I had come to Mekele because this was the starting point for my journey to Dallol. The two towns are more or less linked by the constant flow of camel caravans carrying salt from the Danakil depression up here to the Highlands. This trade has been going on for many hundreds of years, and the salt was not merely a kitchen commodity. Bars of rock salt mined in the Danakil, which are commonly known by their Amharic name of amole, were used as a principal item of exchange in Ethiopia, instead of money, for more than a thousand years. The Italians are said to have found bank vaults stacked full of them when they invaded in the 1930s.
My plan was to join up with one of the caravans, since seemingly this was the only hope I had of reaching Dallol. But, by all accounts, this would not be a simple matter. Just turning up at Mekele’s salt market and asking around for a passage to Dallol was not going to work, I’d been told by several people in Addis Ababa and Asayita. The Afar’s usual suspicions of foreigners were writ large when it came to this jealously guarded age-old commerce.
Hence, my one hope of hooking up with a camel caravan lay in a man whose name I had been given by Valerie while in the southern parts of the Danakil. The man’s name was Bisrat.
I met him at his office in the centre of town. He was younger than I’d expected and dressed in a manner that on first impression made me dubious as to his suitability for the task. He wore a three-piece, pinstripe suit in fashionable dark blue serge. A figure less likely to have acquaintances in the Afar salt-trading community was difficult to imagine. With his expertly trimmed short black hair, and round black-rimmed glasses, Mr Bisrat looked more like a City of London banker. But, as I was soon to discover, looks could be deceptive.
After we had exchanged pleasantries, I put my request to him. His answer was immediate. ‘Yes sir,’ he said definitely. ‘Your proposed itinerary is familiar to me. I myself personally can take you there.’
‘Great news. Thank you.’
‘However!’ Mr Bisrat added, holding his index finger in the air. ‘It will be tough, Mr Nick.’ He emphasized the word with a frown as his index finger disappeared into a clenched fist. ‘But we can do it. We will do it, and it will be an honour for me to guide you.’
Quite apart from being a model of civility, his well-mannered charm a throwback to the old school of Abyssinian refinement, Mr Bisrat also transpired to be a master of disguises. The morning of our departure, he turned up in white chinos, a black leather jacket and a woollen scarf slung casually over his shoulder. His black brogues were so highly polished that I could see my reflection in them. He looked as if he had just had breakfast with a group of intellectuals at a fashionable café on the Parisian Left Bank.
On Mr Bisrat’s advice, we had decided not to try and join a camel caravan here at Mekele, but to drive the first leg of our journey to Berahile, a town just inside the neighbouring Afar region. Berahile was on the salt caravan route and also had a large salt market, but more importantly for us, it was where Mr Bisrat had several contacts who, he was sure, could place us on a caravan departing for the Dallol salt flats.
The drive to Berahile took all day. Our departure from Mekele took us up to and across a limestone plateau. We passed villages of sturdy rock houses and small enclosures of prickly pears, but for the most part the landscape was cultivated, every slope carefully lined with neat stone terraces designed to prevent the soil from being washed away when the rainy season came. The principal crop here was barley, Mr Bisrat said, but wheat, sorghum and teff were also grown. Teff is a fine Highland grain, used to make Ethiopia’s traditional injera bread, a flat, spongy concoction usually served as a sort of edible tablecloth: meat and vegetables being placed on top.
Here and there, we passed small plots of eucalyptus trees, striking in an almost treeless topography. They looked recently planted, and Mr Bisrat confirmed my impression. ‘This area was formerly covered in trees,’ he said, ‘but the people have cut them down. It is a clear-cut case of deforestation, Mr Nick.’
There were still some trees left on the far side of the limestone plateau, on slopes generally too steep to cultivate. The tarmac road had become a dirt track that wound its way down through the plunging mountainsides towards the Danakil depression. Villages here clung precariously to the inclines, their dwellings made of logs laid upright to form structures reminiscent of North American Indian wigwams. As we descended, the fresh mountain air faded away and the atmosphere became heavier. The lush foliage of the upper slopes was replaced by grey-brown thorn trees which themselves faded from the scene in all but the dry valleys that were scored into the precipitous landscape.
Berahile was marked on my Michelin map that covered the whole of north-east Africa, but its inclusion must have been a close call because there couldn’t have been more than a thousand people living there. I was reminded of a story told by Nesbitt about his meeting with an Afar Sultan. The Sultan had heard that Nesbitt was preparing a map of the territory he crossed and asked him if it was true that he was able to put all of the country on a piece of paper.
Differences between the Afars here and those I’d seen in the south of the Danakil were immediately noticeable. None of the men had Afro hair, few carried jiles on their belts, and not all of them wielded Kalashnikovs. Women and girls wore their hair in dozens of long thin plaits and necklaces of tiny beads in primary colours hung from every neck. Most of Berahile’s small boys had shaven heads but for a Tintin-like quiff right above their foreheads. Nevertheless, they were equally delighted when they saw a farang in their midst.
The town itself consisted of a few stone buildings surrounded by oval, Afar palm-mat huts and stick dwellings like those we’d seen on our journey down, only these ones were square. They were dotted about the slightly higher ground that hemmed in a sizeable wadi. The open, dry riverbed, more than 100 metres across, was like a gaping hole in the middle of town, an area unsuitable for building on because the river flowed with water for a couple of months during the Highland rainy season.
The sun was getting low in the sky when we pulled into town and the wadi was filling up with caravans for the night. Long convoys of camels, tied to each other from neck to tail, appeared at a stately pace from down the wadi, led by an Afar with a stick held across his shoulders. Donkeys trotted along in pairs beside them, trying to keep up. Each beast had a load of salt blocks lashed to either side of its rump.
Our first stop in town was at a compound surrounded by a low stone wall. Inside a stick house, we met Beléa Ashoba, a wiry man of about 50 with thick hennaed hair abo
ve a high forehead and a bright orange goatee beard. ‘This gentleman should be able to help us gain a position on a camel caravan,’ Mr Bisrat told me. We removed our shoes and took up position on a rush mat as a dark-eyed woman took a kettle from the small fire in one corner of the hut and served tea in tiny cups. Her multitude of plaits had been interwoven at the sides of her head, giving her a basket-like frame around her face. She was handsome, but just this side of beautiful.
Beléa disappeared as we sipped our sweet tea. ‘Does his red beard indicate he has made the hajj?’ I wondered. Although the Afar are Moslems, it was the first time I’d seen a suggestion that any had made the pilgrimage to Mecca.
Mr Bisrat doubted I had now either. ‘I think this is only for decoration,’ he said. ‘Beléa is on the lookout for a wife.’ I was surprised that a man of his age wasn’t already married.
‘He is, he has two wives and 17 children. But he wants a third wife, a young one, who can give him more offspring.’ Mr Bisrat made him sound like a one-man population explosion.
Beléa reappeared, shooing away the gaggle of kids that had gathered at the entrance to his home before joining us on the mat. He listened intently as Mr Bisrat explained the purpose of our visit.
The virile 50-year-old looked me over. ‘The journey takes three days from here,’ he told me. ‘It is arduous, even for us. After a week on the caravan, a man and his camels need two weeks to recover.’ He sipped his tea and stroked his goatee beard. ‘But a destination that is far in the morning is close in the evening,’ he smiled. ‘You will have to be trained in how to handle a camel. Our preparations will take two days.’
‘So we’ve made it, Mr Bisrat?’ I asked as we left Beléa’s compound some time later. ‘Yes, Mr Nick, this is fantastic news. He will take us.’
Over the next two days, Mr Bisrat and I busied ourselves preparing for our trip. We visited Berahile’s general store and bought Afar sarongs, which Mr Bisrat declared were more suitable attire than either my shorts or his chinos. Beléa seemed pleased with our decision, and he lent me a camelman’s knife, much smaller than the jile, which he said would complete my outfit.
On Beléa’s advice, I consulted the local medicine man on some of the dangers that I would have to face on the trip. He met me in Beléa’s hut wearing a black and white cap and carrying some Arabic books under his arm. Like Beléa’s, his hennaed beard was in the goatee style.
Snakes would be a serious problem, he told me, but he could prepare a charm that would protect me against them. I asked if he could also do me a side-order of protection against scorpions. He nodded sagely, flicking through his books. Then he took my name and that of my mother. This would entail a lot of hard work, he said. It would take him a day to prepare the charms and they would cost me 500 birr: 300 for the protection against snakes and 200 for the scorpions. Mr Bisrat knocked him down to 450 birr and we shook on the deal. I was surprised at the cost, nearly £40, but I’d be happy as long as this was the only time I’d be stung.
The following day, I was presented with a string of four small leather pouches, each scored across the centre with a cross and containing magical herbs and passages from the Koran. I should wear them around my neck at all times, the medicine man told me, inside my shirt so that no one should see.
The evening before our departure, I was introduced to the men who would accompany us to the Dallol salt flats and their camels that had just arrived in the dry riverbed after a few days of good grazing further up the valley. Osman, the chief camelman, gave me a brief rundown on the animals. Camels were kind and friendly creatures, he told me, and not to be feared. They should be treated with respect at all times. As long as I did so, a camel would follow me wherever I led it. There just remained the important commands for sitting and standing. To sit the camel down, I had to tug sharply downward on its rope while shouting, ‘Dee, dee.’ A recumbent camel could be made to stand by shouting, ‘Ha.’
We left Berahile at 6 o’clock in the morning, having saddled the camels and loaded them with straw and goatskins full of water drawn the previous evening from the town’s well in the middle of the riverbed. We followed the dry course of the Saba River, an imperial procession of about 30 camels with me at its head. Osman said he had never had a white man on his caravan before, so I could lead the way. He had been working the camel caravans since he was a boy, when he had to stand on a rock to load a sitting camel’s hump. That was more than 25 years ago.
The pace was stately and unhurried, the lead camel perfectly pacing itself just behind my shoulder, so that the rope that hung loosely in my hand was never taut. It walked so silently on its big padded feet that for the first half-hour I was constantly turning my head to make sure it was still following me.
Camels are better adapted to life in the hot desert than almost any other mammal, having developed exceptional ways of dealing with the two overwhelming imperatives of keeping cool and conserving water. For many animals these are conflicting requirements. Sweating cools a body because as the moisture evaporates it takes heat with it. People start to sweat when the outside temperature rises above the normal body temperature of 37ºC (98.6ºF), but the camel has its own, unique body thermostat. It can raise its body temperature tolerance level by as much as 6ºC (43ºF) before perspiring, thereby conserving body fluids and avoiding unnecessary water loss.
Their highly efficient kidneys cut down the amount of water in their urine, also allowing the camel to drink salty water; while their dung comes out in perfectly formed pellets that are so dry they can be immediately used as fuel for a fire like barbecue briquettes. Camels are also unique among mammals in having red blood cells that are elliptical in shape, rather than the round ones that everyone else has. They prevent a camel’s blood from thickening with a rise in temperature.
And even with all these amazing adaptations to cope with water shortages, a camel can also survive a water loss of up to 40 per cent of its body weight (human’s can afford to lose less than 14 per cent before the situation becomes critical), and can go for at least a week in very high temperatures without drinking. Then, when they do find water, camels can guzzle huge quantities – up to 60 litres – in a matter of minutes.
It doesn’t go straight into their humps, however, contrary to popular myth. The hump is not an emergency jerry can full of water so much as a larder where energy-rich fat is stored. This can be broken down in the body to produce energy, carbon dioxide and water, helping the camel to keep going for up to several months without food if necessary.
The human body is rather less well adapted, as I was finding to my cost. Even by 7 o’clock, the outside temperature was well above 37ºC (98.6ºF) judging by the gallons of sweat pouring out of my every pore. My shirt was drenched and my hair matted. Tipping water down my throat hardly seemed to make any difference. When I commented on the heat to Mr Bisrat, his reply was not encouraging.
‘This is nothing, Mr Nick. The heat will only get hotter as we approach the salt lake. And we are still to confront the Gara, a wind so hot they call it the “fire wind”. It is terrible, truly terrible.’
Two days into our trip, I was feeling significantly better. The distances we walked were not great, perhaps 20 kilometres or so at a time, and always in the early morning or in the evening. The heat of the day was passed resting up, in the shade of a thorn tree or beneath an overhang where the wadi cut through a solid rock face. Sweet tea was brewed on a camel-dung fire and hard crusty bread was produced from saddlebags to fill our bellies.
I had got the measure of my body’s need for water and I was finally, it seemed, drinking at the same rate as I was sweating. On my first day, I hadn’t been consuming enough, I decided, because just two hours into the walk I had reached the stage where I was almost constantly desperate for a pee, but whenever I tried to go nothing would come out. This was doubly annoying because each time I handed over the rope of the lead camel to Mr Bisrat, and stepped to one side of the trail to relieve myself, the camels would just pad on, and b
y the time I had given up trying, I was half-way down the caravan and had to run to reach the front.
On the second day, I drank more regularly and the continuous desire to pass water had receded. But I still did not appear to have got it right because I was always thirsty, even when my stomach felt bloated and stretched to its limits with so much water. I was drinking more water and half wondering whether I should be concerned about the feeling in my stomach, when we rounded the red sandstone walls of a canyon and came upon Assabolo.
Osman and his colleagues had broken into song, a haunting tune that ricocheted off the canyon walls. ‘We travel together, we help each other, we arrive together. One heart, one love,’ Mr Bisrat translated.
It wasn’t much of a village, there being just half a dozen palm-mat huts scattered on a ridge above the canyon floor, but it was certainly a significant spot for camel caravaneers. I’d never seen so many camels. Groups of them, some unsaddled and munching straw, others saddled and waiting patiently to shed their loads, were scattered all across the stony canyon. Further in the distance, where the canyon widened and disappeared into cliff faces that were just outlines of rock etched on to the desert haze, still more camels sat and stood and wandered around doing what camels do when they aren’t on caravan duty.
This was the last watering point before the salt lake, and all along the small brook that ran down the canyon men were busy filling goatskins before the final leg of their journey. I was relieved to be stopping because it was 11 o’clock and the heat was so intense I thought I could cut it into blocks and build a house with it.
Without thinking, I waded into the middle of the stream and lay down in the cool water, fully clothed and with my shoes on.
Going to Extremes Page 18
