8,149 Feet Above Sea Level

I’d like you to notice what’s not being said in this photograph. Photos can’t speak, after all. Look closely. Do you notice my arm wrapped nonchalantly around Daniel’s leg? There was nothing nonchalant about that maneuver, but posed portraits lie. Nearly crawling to that spot at Daniel’s feet, not daring to look over the edge, I gave an ultimatum: Daniel could have the spot closest to the cliff only if I could hold his leg down.

When our friends Joe (PCV in Bekoji) and Laura (his fiancée) came to visit for four days, we knew hiking Soloda Mountain was the best way to show off Adwa. The mountain was important in the Battle of Adwa with Italy in 1896, and halfway up there is an old tank, left from the war with Eritrea. Daniel and I hiked as far as the tank last year, then stopped when our guides-by-default (children who refused to shoo) shook their heads. “Is it possible?” we asked in Tigrigna. “Magadi yallan.” There is no road.

It was a two-hour hike that first time. So when Joe and Laura, still recovering from a strenuous hike in Lalibela, said they wouldn’t mind a relaxing visit, we said, “Great! We hiked Soloda in two hours.” Our memories deceived us (it was probably 3-4), and we had forgotten we didn’t go to the top. And when you have three guys on a hike, they’ll find a way to the top. 

The third guy was Gebre, a friend of our sitemate Lauren’s. It was his first time up the mountain, but he insisted we could do it in an hour. He also insisted on blazing up the rocks and plowing through the bushes in a straight line. Trails? Who needs trails?

Americans, that’s who. After maybe the fourth hour, when we’re all covered in thorn scratches, and after Laura coins the phrase “whackingbush,” (because it was the bushes who did the whacking, not us), Gebre announced flippantly, “I am not tired, by the way.”

Two teenagers who insisted on following us (they chose the wrong pack to follow that day), also demonstrated their lack of exhaustion by stopping ahead of us, playing music on their phones, then shaking their bodies to the likes of Gangnam Style, Billy Jean, and I Got A Feeling as they waited for us. We also caught them doing push-ups in their apparent boredom of stopping for breaks.

There was too much crawling on this “hike” to fairly call it a hike. Too much rock-climbing and clinging, and sliding down dirt and rocks because it was too dangerous to stand fully upright. No one counted how many prayers we whispered, but I’m guessing we’d have lost count. But we know they worked. This is rainy season, and while it rained the afternoon before, and rained the afternoon after, somehow this Wednesday had six consecutive dry hours. The black clouds rolled in just as we reached the main road, exhausted. Had it rained, had the clouds covered the mountain’s peak while we were up there, we may not have made it back down. It was scary and risky and slippery enough in the clear sky on dry ground. What’s worse: we all knew we were risking our lives while it was happening, but we didn’t know how to stop it. Once you’re up the mountain, you’ve got to come down. Somehow.

I knew we were in trouble when my husband admitted it. Coming back down from the glorious mountaintop (which, yes, was probably worth it), we made the mistake of following Gebre’s lead. You know, the guy who wanted to take it in a straight line. He did the same going down, as we roller-coastered on our bottoms, sending rocks and more rocks down on our predecessors as we plowed. “Wonder why I wanted to be last?” Lauren giggled, as she sent avalanches down on the rest of us. Joe tried undoing Gebre’s mistakes. “We’ve got to keep left, guys, keep going left. No, Gebre, we’re not going that way. See the tank down there? Left!” Coming up Joe had spotted sheer rock-face cliffs that he knew were to the right of the tank. And we were way right. Gebre had us rolling on our bums straight for the cliffs we couldn’t see. (Thank.God.for.Joe.)

So when my normally we’re going to be fine husband shook his head and said, “I don’t know about this; this isn’t good,” I knew I could start worrying.

We never really found an actual trail, going up or down. Unfortunately, we think we may have thwarted the reforestation efforts of Tigray in the process. There were times we were completely surrounded by thornbushes and new treelings that lined the mudslides through which we tried forcing passage. Hence the need to kick and break them hard with our Nikes to get anywhere. “I don’t feel bad,” Daniel said. “It’s us, or this tree.” When that’s the case, the tree’s coming down.

Highlights:

- Daniel sat immediately beside a scorpion on a rock, just missing it. It was the second of two Laura spotted.

- At some point, whimpering, I unzipped my pants, told Gebre to look away, and thought I’d have to strip down. Something had slipped down my baggy jeans and got stuck in the tight calve area. I shook my leg, begging Daniel to take off my shoe. I was convinced it was one of the several black worms we saw, or a scorpion. It was just a rock.

- Mom, did you hear me call from the cliffs, “I love you, Mom!” when a friend asked for final words?

In all this, at least we got to quote Sarah Palin, bless her heart. We were able to say, “I can see Eritrea from my house,” once we reached the top.

You be the judge. Was it worth it?