Roger Rambler        page 4          Roger Rambler Class Page

Ethiopia is the only African country never to have been colonized.   The rainy season lasts from April to September.  The Blue Nile Falls is fed by Lake Tana.  Ethiopia contains the upper part of the Blue Nile.  Ethiopia has been known to Europeans for a very long time.  In the 5th Century B. C., Herodotus, a Greek historian, wrote about Ethiopia. 

The mountainous terrain causes some problems for Ethiopia's development.  Road building in the highlands is extremely expensive.  Ethiopia has a huge population.  The country is about 20% larger than British Columbia.   The population is 75 million, while that of B.C. is only 4.3 million. The Ethiopian Rift Valley  is quite dramatic and poses difficulties in food distribution during times of emergency as well as enabling farmers to get their produce to market.  Oryx gazelle graze in the Awash National Park in central Ethiopia.  Would you say that this plant would be adapted to a wet climate or a desert climate?   Seeing as we are still in Past Triple T, I suddenly ache to see the Serengeti.  I realize that while I am in Past Triple T I should take advantage of the magnificent herds of wild animals roaming the plains.

The journey from central Ethiopia into Kenya was arduous but worth it.  Kenya Travel Pictures   It took so long that I was afraid that all the animals would have been killed off by the time we got there.  When we arrived on the edge of the Serengeti, I fully understood why the Maasai refer to the plains as Serengeti, for it means endless plains in the Maasai language.  The serengeti straddles Kenya and Tanzania and is 60,000 sq. km. in size.  I realized how ignorant I was when I could not see a single animal up close. Standing in the welcome shade of a baobab  tree, I glassed the horizon with my binoculars and was stunned by a horde of wild herbivore.  Lake Turkana

I soon learned that they were on their annual migration.  After a strenuous hike under a scorching African afternoon sun, we came close to the migration and thankfully found a bunch of baobab trees   and made camp for the night.  While I'm on the subject, you can ingest a few   baobab comments .   Baobab trees form a gathering place.

It was a good thing that I glanced up.  In an acacia tree, a leopard was sprawled out and was looking me straight in the eye.  He had been dashed difficult for me to spot but I am sure that I was not difficult for him to notice.  My next fright came when I encountered the world's most dangerous herbivore.  The Rhinoceros    Rhino info  Cheetah    Wildebeest and zebras often hang out together.

One must not forget a most useful creature, birds that clean up after the lions have eaten their fill.  Vultures.   Wildebeest and three little birds.

We soon entered Tanzania without noticing it.  I had begun to lose track of time.  The only sense of time, that we had paid any attention to was the onset of the wet season but some thing was on the horizon and it could prove to be more than difficult, perhaps even disastrous.   The situation stemmed from an incident on May 1, 1950, when there was a demand for Kenyan Independence, which was ignored by the British Colonial Secretary, who visited Kenya about a year later. 

There seemed to be only one thing left to do. With the wisdom of foresight, which of course is really the wisdom of hindsight,  I lost little time in going into a fast forward mode.  I advanced from 1952 to December 12, 1963, the date of Kenyan Independence.   That being said, I admonish myself not to  forget the children who were abandoned  during the Mau Mau uprising.  

George Adamson & lion cubs        cheetah       hippopotamus

I should have my head examined.  I allowed myself to be talked into venturing on an expedition into a hot spot in north-eastern Ethiopia.  It was a hot spot for two reasons.  Read on, if you dare.

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