Wordsworth spoke about “emotions recollected in tranquility” as the
basis of writing. I’ve been doing quite a bit of this lately, seated on my
patio enjoying the early morning shade of oleander, date palm and
bougainvillea. Here’s what today’s tranquility threw back at me. A little bit of New Zealand in Ethiopia. Hudad Lodge meets Ponui Island.
“You have to be
careful,” a friend had said before we’d left Riyadh, “ Don’t walk around at
night. You’ll fall off the edge.” I
didn’t fully appreciate the truth of her words until we arrived. Hudad Lodge is
perched on a small plateau at the very top of Abuna Yosef Mountain in the
Northern Ethiopian Highlands.
