Crater Lake

Yesterday, I went on a little excursion with some Volunteers that were in town for the day. They asked me if I wanted to come along with them to visit Crater Lake, which is just a few kilometers outside of Butajira. I had heard volunteers before say that going out to the lake was worth it so I though why not? It will be nice to get out of Butajira for a couple hours and see something different.

            We took a 10 minute ride on a bajaj (little blue taxi) to get to the lake. At first when we told the driver to take us to the lake he had no idea what we were talking about and explained that there was no lake. After some more explanation on our part he understood where we wanted to go. I think he was confused because of how far out it was. Once out of Butajira the scenery is very rural. There are no cement houses or gates to the compounds. The only homes in site were traditional mud huts and mud homes surrounded by fields of corn, teff, and a beautiful mountainside. When the drivers dropped us off we soon encountered trouble. Being ferengi (foreigner), the drivers tried to charge us triple the normal price. We were arguing for a few minutes and the argument soon escalated. This was the first time I had ever been in such an ordeal so as it was all happening I just stood in shock. My Amharic isn’t at a level yet where I feel comfortable arguing with locals. I had no idea what to do since the men got angrier and angrier. Before we knew it children had come to surround us and watch. The drivers even stopped a man riding on his motorcycle as he drove by to explain to us that the price they were charging was correct. The men started shouting and voices of the children surrounding us yelling, “Money money money, give me money” was very overwhelming. I started to think that maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea for me to tag along and I wasn’t sure how we were going to get out of this situation. Finally, we gave them a little more money than we ought and just walked away. The men were still shouting since they thought we should have given them more, but as we walked away they eventually left us alone. What a great start to the afternoon.

            As we started the walk up the hill to the lake all five of us were still in shock and didn’t know what to think. The girls did let me know that this has happened to them before and in such cases you just have to give them the money or if they don’t take it leave it on the seat and walk away. 

            Since the lake is in a crater formed thousands of years ago you have to walk up a hill to get to it. As we started walking up I stopped and took a minute to take in the landscape. It was a little past 3 pm at this point and the sunlight was perfect. There were some clouds in the sky and a cool breeze so the temperature felt great. In the distance I could see the magnificent highlands. What made the scenery even more perfect were the rays of sunlight getting through the clouds and casting shadows all along the mountains. It was beautiful and the words I have written and pictures I have posted cannot do what I saw and felt justice. As we arrived at the top of the hill I was left speechless at the sight of the lake. It was deep into the crater so we couldn’t reach the lake, but the water was a beautiful deep blue. At this height we could see past the lake and for miles out. The valley beyond the crater was gorgeous. Since we have been out of the rainy season for just a couple weeks now, everything is still green and lush. Between the different shades of green from the trees and grass, the perfect blue sky, the yellow fields of teff, and more mountains and lakes in the distances the scenery was spectacular. There were also mud homes dispersed in the valley and along the hills with herds of cattle roaming and eating grass.

            At one point I thought how amazing it would be to wake up every morning with this lake and the view, but then I looked more closely at the children and the few homes around me and saw that this is rural Ethiopia, where children are malnourished and families do not have enough to eat. How can so many people be suffering in such a beautiful place? Thus far I have mostly been in cities of Ethiopia and though I have seen homeless people, this may have been one of the first times that I got to see what life is like in the really rural areas. Even though there were power lines going through the valley, the traditional houses that we passed along the hill did not have electricity or running water. You could see the malnourishment of the children who walked alongside us. The patches of white/gray in their fading hair showed me this. Some of them only had shirts on and were running around in their bare bottoms. One young boy, Jamal, who acted as an informal tour guide was covered in mud and dust and had no shoes, but that did not stop his excitement at showing us around the lake and guiding us to the cave we were told we had to see.    

            We had been told that there was a man who lived in a cave that we had to go see. None of us knew what to expect, but our curiosity led us to follow Jamal. We walked around the lake and further up into the hills. At one point I thought maybe he hadn’t understood where we wanted to go because the walk seemed to take forever. After walking up the final hill though we reached a gorge where what lay below was invisible with the trees and bushes that covered it. We followed Jamal down into the gorge along a path. The scenery changed completely and it now felt like we were in a jungle. Barely any sunlight could get past the trees and the air felt very moist. The path led straight into the cave. What we found inside were three elderly men and three elderly women, each sitting with their respective gender at opposite sides of the caves. There was grass laid out in the cave. We asked if we could come in. We took off our shoes and walked inside where we sat together and introduced ourselves. They were drinking bunna (coffee) out of small, wooden goblets and chewing chat. (Chat is a mildly stimulating green leaf that you chew for several hours. It is very popular in Ethiopia but the leaf is illegal in the United States). Chat ceremony is usually a social thing. People gather in a room, grab a few branches, and pick the leaves off one by one and chew them. So we had walked into the cave during a bunna/chat ceremony.

We didn’t stay long as night falls early here. We took the dirt road back to Crater Lake, first walking through a field of corn and flowers and then down a rocky hill. We got to see the sun beginning to set and catch one last look at the scenery. Foreigners often have a misconception of Ethiopia as a very hot, desert like environment. Though this is true for some parts of Ethiopia, a huge part of the country is covered by lush greenery and huge mountains. I was so happy to get to see this part of Ethiopia more closely. Even though Butajira is situated in a valley surrounded by mountains, it is still a good sized town and I don’t get to see the rural areas unless I step out of the city center.

How did we get home? There are mini buses that pass along the main road all the time, so when we reached the road we flagged down a bus and hopped in. It cost each of us 5 birr to get home, four times cheaper than what the bajaj drivers had tried to charge us!