Martin:
Such a pleasure to be driving a car that isn’t smoking like a volcano. And what's more one that actually moves forward when the accelerator pedal is depressed. It's now the only thing in the car that is depressed because we're off again. Out through the seemingly endless suburbs of Addis on our way to the Bale Mountains.
Because we wanted to rid Hector of the final vestiges of “dirty” fuel we don't fill up on the journey so we're almost empty by the time we arrive in Goba - our stop for the night. The town used to be the capital of Bale province but it appears Goba is now in a state of decline and there's no fuel to be had - primarily because there is no longer a petrol station anymore!
Neither is there fuel in Goba's growing upstart neighbour, Robe, 15 kms back down the road. In fact there's no diesel anywhere within the next couple of hundred kilometres. All the fuel stations are awaiting a delivery. So it's a bit of a tense night working out whether we continue and take the risk of running dry somewhere in the mountains or whether we should wait, possibly for days, until the promised fuel tanker arrives.
Luckily the next morning the tanker does arrive - and early enough for us to set off to Bale Mountains National Park.
There's stunning mountain scenery as we climb higher and higher. Eventually we reach the summit of Tullu Demtu - Ethiopia’s second highest mountain. We're on the lookout for the rare Ethiopian Wolf. He's supposed to live on the plateau around here, feeding on big-headed mole rats (serves them right for being big-headed I suppose), but he's proving elusive. We almost transverse the entire park searching for him and are thinking we're going to be out of luck when we spot something trotting nonchalantly towards us. At first I think it might be a stray dog. It looks more like a large fox than a wolf but sure enough this is him - the Ethiopian wolf. There’s hardly any time to get the camera out before wolfie's on his way. But I do get one half decent shot of him. He may not be big enough to scare Red Riding Hood but at last our luck in Ethiopia has changed. We've seen the wolf.
The next day we head towards the Kenyan border. Spending that night at Moyale ready to cross into Kenya early in the morning. To celebrate our wolf-spotting prowess Annemarie decides to try a local Ethiopian dish. She spends the night being violently sick – should have stuck with the pasta!