Overnight in Debre Markos

The first of many Ethiopian bus journeys was upon us.  As would become tradtional, we rose painfully early and scooted off to the bus station before sunrise.  Locating our bus amid the chaos was easier than expected, then we just had to wait the required three hours for the bus to actually leave.

The journey was great, in the end.  The scenery is quite incredible, particularly as the bus passes through the enormous Blue Nile Gorge.  The canyon is immense and we had a fine view as the bus bumped and grumbled its way down the winding road into the canyon.  At one point, Niamh and I were standing up to get a better view, which drew the attention of the rest of the passengers.

'Ethiopia good?' came the enquiry.

'Very good!' we replied, to many smiles and nods.  Everybody was happy.

It took over an hour to get through the canyon.  The rest of the journey was straight-forward enough, although the scenery was never less than beautiful.  The Simien Mountains were visible for most of the trip, huge spiky mountains, almost carved in their appearance.

Debre Markos is quite a small place.  We took a little walk around, had some very nice injera-based food and a couple of beers, then back to the hotel for an early night.