Mr. & Mrs. Vandebilt + kids

Even though we were starting to hit our groove in Addis, we had an opportunity to travel south through Ethiopia with Jim and Marion. We spent a day driving from Addis Ababa to Yabello, where they will base their mission work out of. We rented a van loaded up the truck and hit the road.

It only takes about 30 minutes to be completely certain you are out of the city. The scenery changes quickly from a rather modern and bustling city to the country side. There are villages and small communities every few kilometres and still quite a few people. We drove through early in the morning so the streets were busy with people getting up to travel to work or to market.

After leaving the outskirts behind we hit some countryside. There are young boys and girls herding cattle and sheep. No matter how remote we feel there are always people walking around. We passed through quite a few small towns and each one is just busting with people.

We stopped for lunch in Hawassa. Hawassa is a fairly major city as far as Ethiopia goes and a stark contrast from Addis. The streets were wide and clean, there were very few people in comparison and quite a lot of nature. Hawassa sits on a huge lake. We went down near the lake to visit some of Jim and Marion’s friends. It was so nice to be back near water again.

Between Hawassa and Yabello it becomes quite rural, and I mean African rural. It seemed as if it was right out of a story book. There were grass and mud huts surrounded by cacti fences. Little children running around mostly clothed. Women carrying huge bundles of sticks and water for what must have been kilometres. Sometimes the bundles of wood would be at least 5 feet around.

One of the most surprising things about driving through Ethiopia was that there were always people around. To me it felt as if we were miles from anything but you would always see people out walking or a random hut.

As much as I never look forward to the ‘travel day’ because it can be stressful and tiring I always find that those are the days I end up being blown away. How scenery changes from city to city or country to country always impresses me and Ethiopia was no exception. This was our first chance to see real Africa and it was amazing.