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.
It's a two
hour uphill rocky scramble to get there. The sheer drops on all sides mean spectacular
views, but also potentially spectacular falls. “It’s the Ethiopian take on Riyadh’s Edge of the World,” I said later to my husband, “just a different colour palette.” Riyadh is situated
on a plateau and we too have breath-taking edge of world escarpment views.
It’s funny how
memories crystallise, building new associations between past and present. There
were things about this place that reminded me of a small island I’d visited off
the coast of Auckland called Ponui.
Firstly, it was
the donkeys. As you approach Ponui, they’re the first things you see, grazing
along the foreshore. Those who put up
tents in the same area might lift a tent flap first thing in the morning to
find a donkey or two staring them in the eye. Here we had mules not donkeys,
but they also grazed freely and also greeted us first thing each morning when
we opened the small door of our thatched mud tukul.
Hudad Lodge is eco-friendly. Beside our hut was our ensuite long
drop, not too dissimilar to Moonshine or Starshine, the names given to two of
the long drop toilets on Ponui. We had no power or running water, even more primitive than Ponui, but our tukul nevertheless had its own particular brand of rustic charm and comfort.
Then of course there
was the food. I remember the meals at Ponui with affection. The kitchen team
coaxed and cajoled the oldest and most temperamental of ranges into
producing mouthwatering meals. Most supplies were brought over by barge from
the mainland, but some was locally sourced. I remember a delicious cheesecake
made with mulberries, freshly picked from a gnarled old tree further along the
shore. At Hudad, all supplies had to be carried up the narrow goat track on the
backs of mules. The kitchen was small, dark and primitive. The head cook, oddly resplendent in white chef’s hat and apron worked inside the cookhouse.
Outside the sous chef
chopped vegetables. But like Ponui, Hudad’s
food was memorable.
The fresh coffee or buna was the best of our entire trip. Nor
will I forget the breakfast omelet, eaten overlooking the escarpment, wrapped
in a gabi and watching the morning unfold in front of me.
Ponui is a sanctuary
for kiwis. There’s a research and conservation programme in place and numbers have soared. Hudad Lodge too
is a sanctuary, but for a different kind of wild life. We saw Ghelada baboons
and many, many birds including kites, eagles and lammergeyers.
Last week, back in
Riyadh I was tutoring a young student. We were talking about literary devices
and I was using Tennyson’s poem Eagle as
illustration. As I read, “He clasps the crag with crooked hands,” I could see a look of total
mystification cross her face. “Here," I
said opening my computer to a photo, “ Look at this.” It was a Golden Eagle, the one I’d snapped at
Hudad Lodge, as I sat looking over the
escarpment with my early morning buna. She studied it closely, and then turned to me, smiling. “Oh,” she said, “Now I see.”
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.
Tennyson
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