Monkey see, monkey do

I.  Monkey see

Meet Dinkinesh.  She lives in the Ethiopian national museum.  In the English world, we call her "Lucy," but who knows what name she actually went by.  It was so long ago, and all we have are these bones.

In truth, the upright skeleton is a best guess!  The actual bones we have are displayed flat on a shelf, and there are not a lot.  When I look at them scattered out like that, I can't believe this is the most famous hominid skeleton ever found.  There are other skulls in this museum far more haunting, showing human-like skulls with really big canine teeth, and the early stone tools they used.

Visiting these fossils and seeing how many different species of monkey-human type things there are, and in how many different places they have been found, I was more confused than ever.  What happened to the Asian homo erectus?  How do we draw any straight family lines through all these potential ancestors, and whose interests do these narratives serve?  There is a lot more digging to do.

II.  Monkey do

Nairobi, Kenya, has a bad reputation in tourist guide books as a dangerous place with not much to see.  I beg to differ.  True, you can be stuck in traffic and surrounded by chaotic crowds for a long time.  But our friend Jeff suggested a nice little refuge in the city. "Let's go the monkey park," he said.  I was expecting a little zoo full of monkeys.  But no:  It is a public park, with a little lawn, and monkeys are crawling all over the grass like squirrels waiting for people to feed them.  So we went and bought peanuts from a cart stationed there. 

"Hold out only one at a time," Jeff said, making a fist shape, "or they will try to snatch all of them."

"Are they going to bite me?" I asked, holding out an outstretched hand, palm up.  I was going to put a nut in the center and bend down to feed the fuzzy little guys.  One of them was a protective mother with her child clutching her tight around the middle.  They looked at me with big eyes, backing away slowly.

"They don't bite," Jeff laughed. 

And so I watched Josh put one nut in his fingertips and hold it out to the monkeys.  Before he had time to bend down, those little mammals had jumped onto his back, climbed onto his shoulder, and grabbed the nut from his hand. 

Others then did the same to me, and I was not even holding any nuts!  I got a bit freaked out at the sudden monkey onslaught.  Those little monkey feet are really grabby, almost ticklish, and I was just a ladder for them.  They made me open my fist and then gave up.

Eventually, one took a liking to Josh and sat on his shoulder for a good while.  Clearly, Josh is a more confident monkey ladder than me.  But the last laugh is mine, because while I still look somewhat respectable, his shirt is now covered with tiny footprints!  It looks like he's been mud wrestling with kindergartners.

Inadvertent Ecotourists

Post by Josh.

I love nature and hiking. Several of our trips in the US were to the National Parks to camp, hike, and climb mountains, and a few of the destinations on our wander around the world were set up to explore distant natural settings. Thailand was the first of those - we went on a three-day trek in the northern hill country around Chaing Mai. I was expecting to be traipsing through ancient jungles, far from the influence of modern man. Instead, we spent most of our time threading our way through the dense network of trails that connected the fields, farms, and villages of the Thai hill tribes. These groups maintain their political and cultural separation from mainstream Thai society, but their motorbikes, cell phones, and modern clothing made them seem pretty similar to what I had seen in other towns. The nature that I saw during our walk was highly cultivated - nothing that could really be called wilderness.

In Ethiopia, I figured we would try the whole 'wilderness adventure' thing again. The Simien Mountains, in the north of the country, were advertised as a playground of dramatic volcanic ridges, twisted into fanciful shapes by erosion and blanketed by one of the richest ecosystems in the country. The park was also divided into a cultural reserve, with traditional villages and farms, and a separate nature reserve which allowed us to focus on uninhabited nature. I was pumped to explore the place. Until we found out that you are required to hire an armed guard, and a guide, and probably pack horses and a horse handler and a cook to enter the park, and that they expect you to stay there for five or more days while we only had three. Guidebooks, however, also mentioned another mountain park in the south of the country - the Bale Mountains - where you did not need a guard and where you could hike between a network of camp lodges set up by a German NGO.  Reassured, we headed south.

It wasn't until our first night in the lodges that I realized that we weren't even in the Park itself, but instead in a protected area of the mountains set asides for tourism. We had again become unwitting EcoTourists and spent the next three days wandering amongst the hillside farming communities of the local Oromo peoples.

Maybe Thailand had tempered my expectations, but I actually wasn't let down by this. Maybe it was because of the incredibly rich landscape, which felt like a bizarre tropical Eden and filled my head with all sorts of emerald green Ethiopian pastoralist fantasies. It still feels fresh and exotic to see horses grazing in mossy fields lined with banks of tropical flowers, or to encounter herds of goats amongst thyme and juniper bushes at treeline. We saw a cave and waterfalls, a colony of Colobus monkeys, and got to hear the whimsical cry of the endemic Abyssinian Catbird. At every turn, local farm children were there to wave at us from over rustic fences or offer us shy hellos as we passed them on the herding trails. The forest felt as though it had been shaped by generations of farmers and herdsmen in gradual and subtle ways, so while it never felt wild to me, it always felt rich and coherent.

We ended up sharing the lodges with a group of four French people who introduced us to the card game 'Bang!' and two Germans, Hans and Joerg, who worked in a local town and offered to host us the night after we left the mountains. Joerg runs an example farm, trying to promote the mechanization of Ethiopian agriculture, and offered to show us his fields before we left. Perched above the edge of the Great Rift Valley, his farm gave us the animal sighting experience that the settled mountain hike had not - we saw bounding antelope, brilliant blue, yellow, and lime green birds, and a pod of about 16 baboons wrestling and foraging in a fallow field. It was a surprising end to our hiking adventure, but demonstrated again that we don't have to find 'wilderness' to experience the awesome animals and environment of an area.

Tea thyme

Winter is coming...

In the southern hemisphere, that is.  We are not south of the equator yet, but are already experiencing the seasonal shift.  Here in the Bale mountains of southern Ethiopia, it is getting colder.  The rainy season has just begun and some beautiful plants are blooming.

This thing is the Red-hot Poker and it is now one of my favorite flowers.  You cannot eat it but it is used as medicine.  I like how it stands out so strongly against the vivid green moss and grass.

And another local bloomer here is thyme.  When we asked for tea at the first rest stop on this two-night trek, they gave us water steeped with dried plant stalks, sweetened.  We had no idea what we were drinking but we knew it was amazing.  Then as we climbed higher in altitude to the African alpine forest, we saw the wild thyme growing everywhere, and recognized it as the tea we had been drinking.

We got here from Addis Ababa via a couple of minibuses to the small town of Dodola.  In Dodola, a shopkeeper befriended us and showed us a good place for lunch.  We had berberi, which turned out to be injerra with lots of tangy sauces, veggies, and cheese.  We ate it with our hands, except hose two bites that our host put directly into our mouths with his hand.  How could we refuse?  He said it was a sign of great friendship.  After, he took us on a walk to see some waterfalls, and Josh took the opportunity to have fun with some local kids.  He pulled his shirt tails over his head and acted like a leaping monster.  Needless to say, they loved it.

But like I said, we are not in the southern hemisphere yet.  I have never been there but will cross that frontier on Tuesday when we reach our next stop: Nairobi!

Time Zoning

I gave back a phone that we borrowed from Getu, one of our hosts here in Addis Ababa, and told him, "I think the time is wrong."

He said, "No, it's Ethiopian."

The clock said 3:50 pm.  My watch said 9:50 pm.  I knew that Ethiopia was in a different time zone from Egypt, but only one hour.

"What do you mean Ethiopian time?" I said.

"Yeah we have a different clock." He explained. 

"How is that useful?" Josh asked.

Getu sat up.  "OK tell me.  If God made a day with two parts, one nighttime and one daytime, why should we cut it in half?  The day should start at one."

"I don't get it."

"No, the thing is, you have the day starting at six.  Why six?  You see?"

"Oh!" I said.  "You start the clock at sunrise?"

"Yes of course."

So that is how we found out that there was no need to adjust the clock on Getu's phone.  To some Ethiopians, sunset and sunrise are the 12 o'clocks, so our nine pm was indeed 3 pm to him.  Also, by the Ethiopian calendar, it is the year 2007.

We were already losing track of days on this trip, but now the time is becoming arbitrary as well.  What next?!

See Less, Live more

Post by Josh

I grew up obsessed with the ancient world, building castles and cathedrals out of whatever I could and taking classes on Greece and Rome and Harappan India whenever I could. When we were setting up this trip, Hammad and I laid out several anchor destinations and built our route around them - Angkor Wat, India, Istanbul, Rome, Egypt, Machu Picchu, and Aztec Central America - all places with famous ancient cultures and impressive ruins. This is what gave our blog its title of Ancient Roads. And we are now a bit more than halfway through the route of our travels, having seen more than half of our anchors, and they were all pretty cool. The most recent, Egypt, lived up to its awesome reputation and was chock full of ancient roads.

These places, however, have not been the coolest part of the trip. Sites with lots of tourist hawkers, entrance fees, overloaded infrastructure, and sketchy guides have been the most aggravating things we have seen. And even if an ancient site is standing in pristine condition, all it is is mute stone. It may be a beautiful place, but it does not have much meaning without the stories and histories that let us know why it was built and who lived there. It is impossible to understand what is important in what we see without outside information. Guidebooks and signs help, but only if you already have some background information.

What is most interesting is dealing with actual, living people. And they don't even need to be in a mythic ancient site. We had more fun and learned more hanging out with the Östlunds in their Stockholm living room than wandering through the breathtaking but impassive fields of Bagan in Myanmar, where nobody could answer the 'why' questions we asked. Our time in Budapest was made by the wily Brazilian and Telluride friends we had there more than the gorgeously preserved architecture and excellent museums. And in Egypt, our experience with the Pyramids was frustrating and lame compared to touring a much less impressive temple in Luxor with a good guide we met through CouchSurfing.

We've been using CouchSurfing consistently in Africa, and it has made a world of difference. It makes it harder to set our own agendas and see all the sites recommended in the guide books, but instead we get taken out to the Mediterranean coast of Egypt for a weekend or invited to an Ethiopian wedding - things that we would never get a chance to do if we were still staying in hostels and trying to figure everything out on our own. We get to live with and like locals, which is much more the point of travel. See fewer tourist destinations but see them with more explanation  so they can truly come alive, and spend the rest of the time in an Addis Ababa cafe, full of expressive Ethiopians and Kenyans as Liverpool tries to regain the lead from Chelsea. Now this is real and quite unexpected cultural experience.

Dos and Donts of Ancient Egypt

Do bring a student ID card - you get discounts at almost every site.  It doesn't matter that neither Josh nor I are students any longer, and in fact I don't even have a student ID.  I used my Washington DC public library card and they gave me the discount.

Don't use large denomination bills.  Taxi drivers and such won't give you correct change, and will keep the remainder as "baksheesh."  You'll also need small coins to tip the guards and stray kids at museums who will otherwise not let you through or may pester you relentlessly.

Do let the little kids that are asking for money have some fun with you.  They have good senses of humor when you ask them their name.  Josh and I ask them for help (where is the closest ATM?  Can you sing a song for us?) before giving them any sort of tip.  They like having a job.

Don't go it alone.  When you are visiting these places with a local, the hasslers will approach them first and far less frequently.  But if you go alone, you will be targeted.  They will tell you the pyramids are closed, or that they can let you in for a fee, or find a way to climb, or that it is too far to walk, until you don't know what to believe and end up buying whatever it is they are selling.

Do visit the temples that you have never heard of.  The pyramids at Giza and temple of Luxor were far less interesting than Medinat Habu, the latter being a funerary temple for Ramses III.  So many of the bigger ones are in bad shape or riddled with tourists and obnoxiousness, and their contents are in Museums anyway (which may be better to visit).  But we went to Medinat Habu on the West Bank of Luxor, which was basically empty, had tons and tons of detailed hieroglyphics and statues, and felt hallowed.  It is not far from the Valley of the Kings which we skipped.

Don't ride the horses at the pyramids.  That is the best way to be captive to your horse owner, and to have a sore butt while not being able to concentrate on the pyramids at all, since you are spending all your effort just to steer and avoid minibus traffic.

Do take time to wander the streets and see stuff that is not really historic, but living and local.  We ran across an alley with a canopy of festive LED garlands and rope tassles and flowers, where children were playing and horses were having lunch.  We also went shopping for pants and found the Facebook store, which sells nothing you'd expect.

Don't eat the Luxor street cheese.  'Nuff said.

Cairo Spring Break

We were slightly sad about missing Easter in Rome, what with the huge audience and blessings and fanfare.  But as soon as we landed in Egypt, we learned that Easter is a huge national holiday here, too,  It's called Sham el Nessim, and though it is not about Jesus' ressurection, it does herald spring, involve mackerel, and give people time off work.

Our host family in Cairo was using this time off to head to the beach on the North Coast of Egypt, and they invited us along.  We were initially reluctant, since it did not fit our idea of an Egypt trip, and we had not seen the museum or pyramids.  Plus, this is what Lonely Planet said about the North Coast:

"This is where well-to-do Cairenes and the top brass of Egypt’s military establishment now come to escape the oppressive city heat of the summer. It’s so busy here that when driving past, the only glimpses you’re likely to get of the ocean are through the skeletal structures of unfinished holiday villages."

Unless you come in April.

We stayed two days on the beach in El-Hamam city, about 50 km west of Alexandria.  There are no fake pyramid decorations or hieroglyphics or King Tut masks anywhere.  Just families and friend groups hanging out near the water.  For us, it was a great opportunity to relax in a gorgeous scenery while seeing how Egyptians take their holiday.

They ate breakfast at noon, lunch at six pm, and dinner at midnight.  We had Bedouin food with lots of tahini and tomato and fenugreek and eggplant.  There was fish and baklava and fûl and olives and cheese and lots of warm, hearty flatbread.  They slept in close quarters and stayed up laughing and joking around.  Josh taught them the card game Egyptian Rat.  They tried to teach is a game they called Estimation, but it was really hard and then we realized it was Bridge.  We all ran into the cold water together during a day with an extreme riptide and felt so alive, pushing against the current and the temperature and running back to our towels with brain freezes at the end.  I tried asking the men patrolling the beach with uniforms and guns to take a picture with me, but they must have been confused why an "Arab" was asking for this.  The sand was not tiny square grains like the beaches I am used to. It was white and fine and each grain was spherical, making it really pleasant to grasp and knead.  And of course, it was awesome to see old women wearing flow robes and head scarves sitting on beach chairs while their sons brought buckets of ocean water for them to put their feet in.

The whole time in Turkey and Italy, we had not visited any of the Mediterranean beaches for which they were famous.  I think that Egypt's beaches may be even better.  The only hard part is driving there, across the desert road (speed bumps sneak up on you!) and checkpoints without falling asleep at the wheel.  (Kudos to Josh for driving all the way back to Cairo and not losing his mind with all the aggressive drivers and pedestrians swirling about.)  We still have not done the pyramids yet, but I doubt they will be this idyllic.