SODERE HOT SPRINGS RESORT

The day before we left Ethiopia, we took a trip outside Addis Ababa to get a taste of rural Ethiopia. Tsehaywota hooked us up with a driver and Yoseph, from Compassion, went as our guide.  Our destination was Sodere Hot Springs Resort, about a 110 km or 68 miles east of Addis.  As we drove, we discovered the highway traveling east is the main route to Kenya and heavily traveled by diesel trucks.  We were glad we had an excellent, friendly driver, Sammy from Bama Tours.  We thought the name was pretty funny since we came from "Bama" fan country.

Even with an excellent driver, it was still quite disconcerting to see oncoming large vehicles as we constantly passed slower trucks on the road.  We passed the remains of a couple of major head on collisions and the fact that the van did not have seat belts made us feel a bit insecure to say the least. A few times we saw vehicles go off on the side of the road to avoid oncoming traffic.


It took us quite awhile just to get out of the city before we began to see the countryside. The first houses we saw were spread apart and still built out of blocks or sheet metal.

As we descended from Addis Ababa, which sits at about 8000 feet above sea level, to drive down into the beautiful Rift Valley, the rural houses looked like small round huts with thatched roofs.

We passed villages with small open-faced shops and melon stands along the roadside.

We observed farmers out in their fields stacking straw left from the harvest of the grain, Teff.  The large mounds were a beautiful golden color.

We saw farmers transporting their straw in carts pulled by small skinny, 13 hand, Abbyssinian Gala horses or on the tops of little donkeys.  Donkeys were often seen being driven along the side of the road carrying large jugs of water.  The horses trotted on the highway along with traffic pulling two-wheeled carts filled with people or farm goods.  A couple of times we saw old, bony used up horses standing lethargically along the roadside or in the road median.  Yoseph told us they are sometime left to fend for themselves when they are no longer of use.  People also were seen all along the road walking to a destination unknown to us.

We often passed farmers driving their herds of oxen or cattle.

So given what I have described, how long do you think it took us to drive the 68 miles to Sodero Springs?  If you guessed 3 hours, you were right!  Such a long drive required a bathroom stop in the beautiful city of Nazreth, a city of about 600,000 people.  Ethiopia does not have rest stops so we stopped at a nice hotel.  In exchange for their hospitality, we also stayed for coffee and sodas.

Not long after our stop we reached our destination.  Yoseph kept asking us if we wanted to buy soap and we kept thinking "Why in the world do we need soap?"  When I think of hot springs, I think of the mountains with a cold river running through it and hot springs bubbling up in it.  One just jumps in and swims in the mixture of hot and cold water.  So we passed on the soap and drove up to the springs.  A lady quickly told us that the men's area is separate from ladies so I had to go by myself.  I walked down some concrete stairs, bathing suit in hand, to a surprising site of three mostly naked females bathing with their soap under hot water spurting from pipes into a concrete structure. Too embarrassed to change into my bathing suit, I dipped my feet in the water a couple of minutes and hurried back up the stairs to sit under the shady trees.  Later, we walked over to the Awash river running next to the baths and were glad that we weren't required to get in it either.  I think I read it has alligators and hippos in it.

The resort also had an Olympic size pool but we declined swimming.  Later, I felt bad that we didn't offer to stay and swim so Yoseph and Sammy could enjoy swimming.  They probably don't have the same access to pools as we do in America.  They assured us that they didn't like to swim so that made me feel a bit better about our oversight.

The highlight of the resort though was monkeys!  There were monkeys everywhere, in the trees, on our van and trying to get in our van.  They were so cute.  We had some crackers so we fed them but quickly learned they would try and jump on you to snatch the entire pack!  One small child made the mistake of stepping on a monkey tail and 3 other monkeys quickly came to the monkey's defense as the child's mother quickly snatched her child up to safety.

Our second highlight of the trip was stopping in a field on our return trip to see a mother camel and her newborn baby.  The farmer and his nephews came up to see what we were doing and allowed us to take pictures for a few Bir.

On the way home, Yoseph wanted to stop at a nice resort on a lake for coffee.  The resort was gorgeous but overpriced.  They wanted 200 Bir each because we could only have coffee if we bought a complete recreation package.  Needless to say we took our pictures there and drove on.

Here are a couple more scenic pictures from our trip.

And finally, here are David, Sammy and Yoseph at a more accommodating hotel having coffee and cheering to a successful trip!