Escape from Wendo Genet

Lake Langano - the 'colour of English tea'. Tempt me some more Lonely Planet.
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Desperate to get out of Wendo Genet shit springs on the Sunday, we started to ask the other residents for lifts. As the richer half of Ethiopia tend to stay at the resort people weren't quite as friendly as usual but we finally managed to secure a lift to Shashemene with a coach load of guests.

They were meant to leave at 11am but at 12.30 there was still no sign of them. We should have taken the warning when I asked the driver where they all were, to which he replied, "doing their final programme - praying". Now to let your prayers overrun by one and a half hours you've got to be pretty keen.

Heaven - well nearly

Hallelujah - we made it out!
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We settled onto the bus, Chris weighed down by the luggage on one seat and me spread out in relative luxury on the seats behind. Before I knew it one of the passengers had come to talk to me, at which point the penny dropped. A devout Christian. A born-again Christian.

My mind started whirring, waiting for the inevitable questions about whether we believed. Would they want us to recite the Our Father as proof? Would we have to stand up and sing a hymn. As Chris sat in front trying not to be sick (an aversion to religion?) my mind raced back to my flirtation with religion, trying desperately to dig up the Hail Mary (easy - how could any Catholic girl forget that) and any hymns. 'Peace Perfect Peace' and 'Kum bah ya' waited in the wings but, I thought, the piece de resistance would surely be 'you've got to give your love to Jesus' sung to the tune of Match of the Day. Now what born-again Christian to not LOVE that! They must have felt the religious vibes emanating from me as they decided to take us all the way back to Addis instead of dropping us off in Shashemene.

We stopped off for lunch in Lake Langano, which had been our other option for the Wendo Genet weekend and the one, looking at the lake, which we should have plumped for. We had been put off by the LP, which touted it as the 'colour of English tea' - muddy then! In reality it was absolutely gorgeous and so relaxing. No rain either!

On our way into the restaurant we were stopped by one of our passengers who told us how glad he was that they had had the opportunity to share the 'good news' with us. Us too! Sitting down with him and the earlier chap for lunch, they were visibly shocked by the news that we had lived together for 2 years before marrying. They nearly fell off their chairs when we told them that homosexuals could enter into a civil partnership in the UK. You don't talk about homosexuality here as it is practically illegal. You certainly don't talk about it to a born-again Christian.

Despite their efforts to convert us it was a journey from heaven - well how couldn't it be with all that praying and 'thanks be to God' going on? Every few minutes someone would come up the aisle with sweets or chocolate and I had such a sugar rush that I did almost mistake it for a religious experience. However, it had been slightly embarrasing when, on getting on the coach in the morning, Chris (feeling jaded still after the previous day's harrassment and not willing to tolerate any further attempts to rip us off) barked at one of our hosts 'how much?!' when the guy had offered him a banana. He had mistaken him for one of the touts that gets on before the bus leaves and I was just waiting for him to jump on the guy.

Our Christian friends put us safely back in a taxi back to the hotel in Addis, where we are enjoying anonymity again.