4/14/19
Today we drove to Makele. We had a juice in the morning (Can you see that one of the culinary themes of Ethiopia, besides injera bread is the fresh squeezed juices, usually a mango avocado mix). Enroute we stopped at a random town for lunch for tasty juice and local food. Also on the way we visited a rock-hewn church (Wukro Chirkos) in Tigre. The church was completely carved out of rock: no wood or rock added. A cool old priest showed us around, but at the end of our visit there was a little problem with the "guide", trying to scam us. We could hear Lou, our guide, in a heated discussion with him, telling him she was going to call the police. He threatened us and threw rocks at the truck, so we made a quick getaway. Something we all discovered in Ethiopia, is that often you'll get a nice person coming up to talk to you, saying they want to practice English or get to know a foreigner, and they offer to show you around their city, but then at the end, they ask for an exorbitant amount of money for their "guiding" services.
Our hotel in Makele used to be very fancy, but now is very rundown. We had a nice dinner at a pizza/traditional restaurant.
4/15
We broke into groups of 4 and hopped into Land Cruisers for the trip into the famous Danakil Depression. On the steep way down, we stopped for traditional Ethiopian coffee and had a lunch in a small town in a strange cook shack. We then drove down into the depression. It was through rugged mountains on the way down, and then miles upon miles of old lava flows. It started getting HOT! So we rolled up the windows of the land cruisers and by some miracle, they had air conditioning! I didn't know any vehicles in Africa had air-conditioning, let alone in Ethiopia. The temperature, according to the forecasted weather was at least 107F! At one point, we left the main road, and so we were just driving in sand, without a road at all. Our driver, Aqui, stepped on it, and we rallied around the sand, going really fast! We were fish-tailing around in the sand, as if it was snow. "Buckle up" our driver said! All the different land cruisers were speeding around across the landscape as there were no roads. Good fun! We saw a couple of gazelles hiding in the rare shade, but mostly it was lava rock and sand everywhere. Eventually we made it to a very rough 4WD road over lava rock that was to lead us to the Erta Ale Volcano base camp. From camp we could see the smoking cinder cone in front of us.
We had a nice dinner and then left at 7pm to hike up in the dark, in the light of the moon. It was still SUPER hot. Even as we got to the summit, it felt pretty warm. From the crater rim of Erta Ale, we descended into the first crater to peer into the 2nd crater, but all we could see is smoke, not even a glow of red.
Erta Ale is famous because it's one of 5 or so volcanoes that have a permanent lava lake in the crater, meaning you can pretty much be guaranteed to see lava. The other ones are Erebus in Antarctica, 2 different volcanoes in Vanuatu, one in the Congo. While Kilauea volcano in Hawaii is one of the most active, it for example, isn't always erupting or always having a lava lake. Unfortunately for us, in 2018, there was an eruption from the flank of Erta Ale that considerably lowered the lava lake level (by over 100 feet or so). This means that instead of the lake being right at the crater rim, so that you could easily see the lava, the lake is way down at the bottom of the crater, which makes it tough to see it because, there is also quite a lot of steam and smoke at the moment being funneled out of the crater. If you want to see some cool photos of what it often can look like check out here:
https://www.google.com/search?q=erta+ale+lava+lake&sxsrf=ACYBGNQOsFp4YgVB0Th06AWxovlXBN8GlQ:1567792851671&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjZhYXA47zkAhVNoZ4KHf3DDvAQ_AUIEygC&biw=1276&bih=645
We hiked back up to the crater rim, and descended a few feet to an area where some lava rock had been cleared away. We slept just out in the open air on mats that camels had carried up. It was windy, so little rock windbreaks had been constructed. But it was warm the whole night, and I never once needed a blanket.
4/16
We woke up at 4:30am to hike back up to the rim. Smoke was still billowing out, so again we couldn't see the lava lake far below. We watched the sunrise from the rim, which was nice. When daylight approached, we saw that we were in a crazy lava (relatively recently formed) landscape. The lava was so fresh looking that from higher vantage points, it still almost appeared to be moving. We then had a six mile hike down to the vehicles and breakfast in the rising heat. I have to admit I felt quite a bit of disappointment b/c for many years I have wanted to visit Erta Ale and it's famous lava lake, but it just happened to empty out a considerable volume of its lava before we arrived.
After breakfast we drove to Lake Afrera, which is very salty, so it is very easy to float in. And when you'd force your feet down deeper, the cooler water felt so nice! But the water on the surface wasn't very cold. Lake Afrera sits at -335 ft below sea level. We rinsed off in a fresh-water hot springs draining into the lake. It was a quick soak b/c the water was hot, but nice to get the salt off. We had lunch at an Ethiopian truck stop/salt miner place. According to a thermometer, it was 101F in the SHADE! I was definitely feeling the affect of the heat, and didn't feel so great, but it was likely a combo of getting hot in the hot springs and then having a beer instead of a cold soft drink or water with my meal. One of the crazy things was that when I picked up my beer bottle after the meal to put it in the recycling, the beer bottle felt hot. It's a weird sensation, b/c even in the summer where I usually am, an empty beer bottle doesn't feel hot b/c glass tends to have a cool sensation. This beer bottle felt like it'd been in a warming oven. We were in an oven!
We then drove back up through the desolate landscape to Abala town, which is higher up (I think like 4000ft), so it was rather refreshing, and I definitely perked back up. We stayed at a guesthouse there.
*Some notes on Ethiopia that I wrote in my journal: The power often goes out. Wifi hardly works. In the villages, most houses are thatched roof, made of sticks or mud/manure. Farmers plow their fields with oxen. Donkeys, goats, and camels are all on the road everywhere. Much more than cars, and you have to constantly swerve around them if driving on the road. There are quite a lot of horse-drawn carts. Little coffee shops and shoe cleaning places are everywhere.
They don't use the Gregorian calendar, so it was 2012 while we were there! That means we were 7 years younger!! They speak and write in Ahmeric, which are letters way different than our roman letters. Their liturgical language is Ge'ez. If I'm remembering right, they have 13 months in their calendar.
We were there during lent, which they take very seriously. Everyone is fasting the entire time of lent, which means no meat, milk, butter, and eggs. So we were basically vegan while we were in Ethiopia, except in larger cities where you could find some things like eggs or tuna in a can or fish by lakes. The meat sections of the markets were completely closed during lent, so you couldn't buy any meat. And there is not a single supermarket in the whole country! They do have places called supermarkets, but they are just small little stores, the largest being about the size of the store inside a small gas station and the smallest being about the size of a walk-in ATM stall. You just walked up to the window, say you wanted some cookies and, they'd grab them off the shelf. So yea, not a lot of variety. And as far as cooking, we could obviously buy rice, lentils, beans, and pasta. But in the dry season, vegetables were also limited, so mainly we had potatoes, tomatoes, onions, and peppers to work with. Occasional cabbage and avocados.
4/17/19
We left our guesthouse at 4:30am to drive back down into the Danakil Depression. We drove by some long camel trains carrying salt back up to the mountains, as salt mining is a big industry here. We dipped below sea level and sped along a giant salt flat, reaching speeds of 120 kph. We drove past a huge gathering of camels where local guys were loading bricks of salt they had mined to be carried by the camels up into the mountains (we were supposed to visit this place later in the day, but b/c of events to be discussed later, we did not).
We eventually arrived to the geothermal area of Dallol, known as the "colorful area". We hiked up a hill of old geothermal activity that had unique sulfur and salt formations...a very Martian landscape. We eventually arrived to colorful area, which was absolutely STUNNING! The brightest of yellows and greens that you could hope to see in nature. It almost seemed fake. Little pools of bubbling hot sulfuric acid and tiny bubbling vents. It was so beautiful, and in a rather large area, so we spent a lot of time visiting it, despite the rising temperature of the day. It was hot 100+F. I haven't been to Yellowstone in a long time, but I wonder if this was more beautiful. Definitely more stunning than the beautiful pools in Rotorua, New Zealand.
When we arrived back to the Land Cruisers, the drivers dumped water on us to refresh us and we got into the vehicles and cranked the AC. We were all feeling refreshed and very happy.
The next part is an account copied and pasted from my email (Titled: Events in Ethiopia) to my family after the tragic incident that unfolded next.
Hi Mom, Sue, Bro, and friends following our African overland adventure.
Of course, after we had found the body and Kelly was determined to be dead, we had a long somber drive back up to Makele. The group of us in our Land Cruiser (Me, Elisha, Mike, and Wes) tried to process what had happened. While it was a great tragedy, we weren't as affected emotionally as others, since we did not know her well. Yet, I still felt very connected b/c I was involved in the search, and I went through a lot of "what-ifs" in my mind.
Back in Makele, we stayed at a super fancy place. We got juice as a snack, then we had a group meeting about the tragedy, and then we went as a group to a very delicious local buffet.
4/18/19
We were supposed to be leaving today for Lalibela, but the group voted to not move on and instead have an emotional recovery day in Makele. This wasn't such a bad idea as our hotel was very nice, and we were all mentally and physically exhausted. Elisha and I hung around in the nice room for a while. Internet was even pretty quick, so I got to listen to a few songs from Josh Ritter's new album "Fever Breaks". The group went out to a burger place (Makele is a bigger city, so you could find meat) for lunch. After lunch, Elisha and I walked to a palace, had a juice, and walked to the post office. For dinner, we went out with some friends to a really nice traditional restaurant, and we ordered a huge plate of injera with many different dishes on it.
Today we drove to Makele. We had a juice in the morning (Can you see that one of the culinary themes of Ethiopia, besides injera bread is the fresh squeezed juices, usually a mango avocado mix). Enroute we stopped at a random town for lunch for tasty juice and local food. Also on the way we visited a rock-hewn church (Wukro Chirkos) in Tigre. The church was completely carved out of rock: no wood or rock added. A cool old priest showed us around, but at the end of our visit there was a little problem with the "guide", trying to scam us. We could hear Lou, our guide, in a heated discussion with him, telling him she was going to call the police. He threatened us and threw rocks at the truck, so we made a quick getaway. Something we all discovered in Ethiopia, is that often you'll get a nice person coming up to talk to you, saying they want to practice English or get to know a foreigner, and they offer to show you around their city, but then at the end, they ask for an exorbitant amount of money for their "guiding" services.
Our hotel in Makele used to be very fancy, but now is very rundown. We had a nice dinner at a pizza/traditional restaurant.
4/15
We broke into groups of 4 and hopped into Land Cruisers for the trip into the famous Danakil Depression. On the steep way down, we stopped for traditional Ethiopian coffee and had a lunch in a small town in a strange cook shack. We then drove down into the depression. It was through rugged mountains on the way down, and then miles upon miles of old lava flows. It started getting HOT! So we rolled up the windows of the land cruisers and by some miracle, they had air conditioning! I didn't know any vehicles in Africa had air-conditioning, let alone in Ethiopia. The temperature, according to the forecasted weather was at least 107F! At one point, we left the main road, and so we were just driving in sand, without a road at all. Our driver, Aqui, stepped on it, and we rallied around the sand, going really fast! We were fish-tailing around in the sand, as if it was snow. "Buckle up" our driver said! All the different land cruisers were speeding around across the landscape as there were no roads. Good fun! We saw a couple of gazelles hiding in the rare shade, but mostly it was lava rock and sand everywhere. Eventually we made it to a very rough 4WD road over lava rock that was to lead us to the Erta Ale Volcano base camp. From camp we could see the smoking cinder cone in front of us.
We had a nice dinner and then left at 7pm to hike up in the dark, in the light of the moon. It was still SUPER hot. Even as we got to the summit, it felt pretty warm. From the crater rim of Erta Ale, we descended into the first crater to peer into the 2nd crater, but all we could see is smoke, not even a glow of red.
Erta Ale is famous because it's one of 5 or so volcanoes that have a permanent lava lake in the crater, meaning you can pretty much be guaranteed to see lava. The other ones are Erebus in Antarctica, 2 different volcanoes in Vanuatu, one in the Congo. While Kilauea volcano in Hawaii is one of the most active, it for example, isn't always erupting or always having a lava lake. Unfortunately for us, in 2018, there was an eruption from the flank of Erta Ale that considerably lowered the lava lake level (by over 100 feet or so). This means that instead of the lake being right at the crater rim, so that you could easily see the lava, the lake is way down at the bottom of the crater, which makes it tough to see it because, there is also quite a lot of steam and smoke at the moment being funneled out of the crater. If you want to see some cool photos of what it often can look like check out here:
https://www.google.com/search?q=erta+ale+lava+lake&sxsrf=ACYBGNQOsFp4YgVB0Th06AWxovlXBN8GlQ:1567792851671&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjZhYXA47zkAhVNoZ4KHf3DDvAQ_AUIEygC&biw=1276&bih=645
We hiked back up to the crater rim, and descended a few feet to an area where some lava rock had been cleared away. We slept just out in the open air on mats that camels had carried up. It was windy, so little rock windbreaks had been constructed. But it was warm the whole night, and I never once needed a blanket.
4/16
We woke up at 4:30am to hike back up to the rim. Smoke was still billowing out, so again we couldn't see the lava lake far below. We watched the sunrise from the rim, which was nice. When daylight approached, we saw that we were in a crazy lava (relatively recently formed) landscape. The lava was so fresh looking that from higher vantage points, it still almost appeared to be moving. We then had a six mile hike down to the vehicles and breakfast in the rising heat. I have to admit I felt quite a bit of disappointment b/c for many years I have wanted to visit Erta Ale and it's famous lava lake, but it just happened to empty out a considerable volume of its lava before we arrived.
After breakfast we drove to Lake Afrera, which is very salty, so it is very easy to float in. And when you'd force your feet down deeper, the cooler water felt so nice! But the water on the surface wasn't very cold. Lake Afrera sits at -335 ft below sea level. We rinsed off in a fresh-water hot springs draining into the lake. It was a quick soak b/c the water was hot, but nice to get the salt off. We had lunch at an Ethiopian truck stop/salt miner place. According to a thermometer, it was 101F in the SHADE! I was definitely feeling the affect of the heat, and didn't feel so great, but it was likely a combo of getting hot in the hot springs and then having a beer instead of a cold soft drink or water with my meal. One of the crazy things was that when I picked up my beer bottle after the meal to put it in the recycling, the beer bottle felt hot. It's a weird sensation, b/c even in the summer where I usually am, an empty beer bottle doesn't feel hot b/c glass tends to have a cool sensation. This beer bottle felt like it'd been in a warming oven. We were in an oven!
We then drove back up through the desolate landscape to Abala town, which is higher up (I think like 4000ft), so it was rather refreshing, and I definitely perked back up. We stayed at a guesthouse there.
*Some notes on Ethiopia that I wrote in my journal: The power often goes out. Wifi hardly works. In the villages, most houses are thatched roof, made of sticks or mud/manure. Farmers plow their fields with oxen. Donkeys, goats, and camels are all on the road everywhere. Much more than cars, and you have to constantly swerve around them if driving on the road. There are quite a lot of horse-drawn carts. Little coffee shops and shoe cleaning places are everywhere.
They don't use the Gregorian calendar, so it was 2012 while we were there! That means we were 7 years younger!! They speak and write in Ahmeric, which are letters way different than our roman letters. Their liturgical language is Ge'ez. If I'm remembering right, they have 13 months in their calendar.
We were there during lent, which they take very seriously. Everyone is fasting the entire time of lent, which means no meat, milk, butter, and eggs. So we were basically vegan while we were in Ethiopia, except in larger cities where you could find some things like eggs or tuna in a can or fish by lakes. The meat sections of the markets were completely closed during lent, so you couldn't buy any meat. And there is not a single supermarket in the whole country! They do have places called supermarkets, but they are just small little stores, the largest being about the size of the store inside a small gas station and the smallest being about the size of a walk-in ATM stall. You just walked up to the window, say you wanted some cookies and, they'd grab them off the shelf. So yea, not a lot of variety. And as far as cooking, we could obviously buy rice, lentils, beans, and pasta. But in the dry season, vegetables were also limited, so mainly we had potatoes, tomatoes, onions, and peppers to work with. Occasional cabbage and avocados.
4/17/19
We left our guesthouse at 4:30am to drive back down into the Danakil Depression. We drove by some long camel trains carrying salt back up to the mountains, as salt mining is a big industry here. We dipped below sea level and sped along a giant salt flat, reaching speeds of 120 kph. We drove past a huge gathering of camels where local guys were loading bricks of salt they had mined to be carried by the camels up into the mountains (we were supposed to visit this place later in the day, but b/c of events to be discussed later, we did not).
We eventually arrived to the geothermal area of Dallol, known as the "colorful area". We hiked up a hill of old geothermal activity that had unique sulfur and salt formations...a very Martian landscape. We eventually arrived to colorful area, which was absolutely STUNNING! The brightest of yellows and greens that you could hope to see in nature. It almost seemed fake. Little pools of bubbling hot sulfuric acid and tiny bubbling vents. It was so beautiful, and in a rather large area, so we spent a lot of time visiting it, despite the rising temperature of the day. It was hot 100+F. I haven't been to Yellowstone in a long time, but I wonder if this was more beautiful. Definitely more stunning than the beautiful pools in Rotorua, New Zealand.
When we arrived back to the Land Cruisers, the drivers dumped water on us to refresh us and we got into the vehicles and cranked the AC. We were all feeling refreshed and very happy.
The next part is an account copied and pasted from my email (Titled: Events in Ethiopia) to my family after the tragic incident that unfolded next.
Hi Mom, Sue, Bro, and friends following our African overland adventure.
We just returned from a trip to the Danakil depression, the 5th lowest point on the planet, and the supposedly hottest inhabited place on earth: And confirmed today on Wikipedia
| Hottest inhabited place | Dallol, Ethiopia (Amharic: ዳሎል), whose annual mean temperature was recorded from 1960 to 1966 as 34.4 °C (93.9 °F).[26] The average daily maximum temperature during the same period was 41.1 °C (106.0 °F).[27] |
It is also home to Erta Ale volcano, one of only 5 or so volcanoes with permanent lava lakes (Mount Erebus outside McMurdo being one).
We are now resting comfortably at 7500ft in BY FAR the nicest place we've stayed.
This email is mostly for the mothers who tend to worry a lot. Feel free to send it on to other family members that you think may be interested.
We had a mostly great trip to the depression, but tragedy of the worst sort struck our group at the very end: A woman from Australia passed away on our tour to the depression. There is a chance you will see news on the event that happened to our group, and I wanted to let you know that is was a quite preventable tragedy and that Elisha and I are fine and were never in danger. Unsure of how the media may report it, we wanted to let you how the tragedy unfolded. In the recent past, the area had been politically unstable, and in fact, in 2012, a few tourists were killed by rebels, which is why a tragedy involving a tourist may make the news. The area is now deemed quite safe politically, and thus, this is actually one of dragoman's (our overland company) first trips to the afar region.
Yesterday, we left the village we were stay at 430am to drive down once more into the danakil, to a place near dallol, famous for its sulfur hot springs and amazingly colorful thermal activity. It was indeed amazing, and Elisha says it would have been the highlight of her trip, were in not for the tragedy. As one of people on the trip said "Sorry Yellowstone, this puts you to shame" Anyways, after a stop for breakfast, we drove through the giant salt flat and arrived at the little mound of of hot spring activity. According to my watch, we were at about -340 ft and the top of the mound was basically at sea level.
We started our walk with our guides, scouts, and fellow overland travelers at about 8:30 in the morning. It was already hot (probably high 90's). We spent nearly 2 hours really enjoying the "colorful area" as the guide called it, and everyone was having a great time. When we arrived back down to the the landcruisers, our drivers met us with bucket showers to pour over our heads and body. The 4 of us in my landcruiser hopped inside and we all felt good and refreshed. The dragoman tour leader, Lou, came by to ask if we'd seen Kelly. We said not recently, but didn't think much of it b/c she had turned back early and we did have a convoy of 8 or so landcruisers, so she must have been in one.
As we were getting ready to leave, I watched as a frenchman from another tour collapse about 100m from the vehicles. I grabbed water and pretty immediately jumped out of the vehicle and ran to him. He was still with it (AOx4 in wilderness medicine speak). I gave him water and some guides who had come running poured water on him and prepared to help him to the AC landcruisers. He told me there were 2 other people collapsed up the trail and to go help them. I immediately thought one must be Kelly. I ran up the trail at nearly full spring and came upon and older gentleman who was awake, but completely disoriented. I tried to cool him off and get him to swallow a bit of water before more guides/scouts arrived at the scene. I told them to carry him down to the cars as soon as possible to cool off. He was probably 800 or so meters from the car (on very rough terrain). I continued sprinting up the trail to look for Kelly. By this time, Kelly's good friend Jodie, and Wes (and American from Georgia who Elisha and I have friended) joined me and said Kelley was definitely missing.
Early into the colorful area, Elisha and I had come across Kelly and she said she was turning around b/c she wasn't feeling well due to the sulfur fumes. Elisha and I both remember the interaction because we had both noted how much bright yellow sulfur she had on her shoes from tramping around, and I can even remember checking out that she was wearing Merrel shoes. So I ran to this last place I remember seeing her when she had turned around and began searching. I envisioned she probably had gone off the trail a bit and tripped or fell (it was rugged terrain) or passed out from the heat, or was resting against a rock that would provide minimal shade. I asked other tourists and guides if they had seen her, and they had not. After a quick, at running pace, look, I realized we'd better organize a better search, so I started heading down. I came across the older french gentlemen who was still awake but completely disoriented. The locals were trying to help him walk. I told them to lie him down and carry him flat, using the method they teach in WFR. I also called for salts and someone brought a salt mix that I helped him slowly drink. After a few minutes, with some salt, he revived and knew his name and where he was again. We carried him to a land cruiser, got the ac cranked up, and I stayed with him for a bit, getting him to slowly drink the salt solution.
In the meantime, some folks had organized a search with vehicles to drive around the mound. With the remaining few, who were capable to be in the heat) still at the trailhead, I organized a fanning out search group in the area I thought she was most likely to be, just based off of getting off of the trail while hiking back. It was Elisha, Wes, Lou, another guide Nick, and myself. Our search covered about a 45degree section of the mound, but guides, scouts, and drivers were search in other areas that amounted to close to a 120 degree section of the 360 degree mound. But most of the backside of the mound, would have been highly unlikely that she would have gone bc she would have had to walk right through the bubbling sulfur area, plus Elisha and I had seen her on the trailhead side of the main tourist areas and no guides or tourists had seen her go back. By this time, I estimate the temperature was about 105-107F as the high for the day was predicted to be 107-109F. Elisha and Lou turned back at one point b/c they started to feel unwell in the heat. I searched and searched and searched, but eventually had to turn back as I feared getting sick up on the mound and being the next patient. During both of my searches I was so sure we'd find her. The terrain was rough but not necessarily many places that a large person would go unnoticed. I had with me water and saline solution and an electrolyte mix. I was preparing in my mind what I had learned in WFR and how to treat, and as time went buy was thinking CPR.
But when I turned around, I lost a lot of hope. In my mind we had covered so much of the area, often twice with no luck. Where could she be? And at this point time was running out as temperatures soared. We didn't have enough people or resources. I was one of the fittest people in the group, but I was approaching heat exhaustion. Supposedly the army had been called, but they never showed.
I headed back to the land cruisers to cool off and rehydrate myself. At that point Jodie basically called off the search and Nick and Lou (the dragoman leaders) went to look briefly in one other area. At this point, we were definitely at risk of causing other problems, which is why it was called off. Our driver could hardly walk when he came back, and I had to pour water on and feed water to another driver who collapsed upon reaching the trailhead.
Awhile back, Elisha, usually binoculars had noticed what looked like a person way off in the distance in the salt flat direction. Completely opposite of the hot springs mound. She was mostly dismissed at that point b/c how could she have gone way out there. Complete opposite direction and the posse of 4x4s would be easy to spot from the salt flat. Eventually she was able to convince a couple 4x4s to go out there. One came back quickly and reported that it was a post Elisha had seen (it was indeed), but one, for some reason went farther, and came upon Kelly.
It rushed back to get help, leaving Ferdinand and Leonna (from Holland) at the scene to mark it. The landcruiser, when it arrived told us she was dead. I still had hope, knowing the driver likely wouldn't know the difference between passed out and dead. They loaded people up in the 4x4 to rush back to her. I decided not to go b/c in our group we have an elderly woman who is a doctor and 2 ICU nurses in their 50's. None of them had been able to help with the search due to lack of strength in the heat, but they could go by car, and I knew they would know to perform CPR and due what they could.
We waited anxiously at the trailhead for 15 or so minutes before driving out into the salt wasteland. Our drive parked at a far distance, but we saw her body loaded up into the back of the landcruiser. When the bystanders came back, they said she had passed away.
It was a long 4 hour drive back to the city of Makele, but it was good to talk to our friends (Wes and Michael) in the landcruiser. I was definitely struggling with it all. She had just been here, and now she wasn't. It hadn't seemed serious at first (I was sure I'd find her just off the trail) and now she was dead. I felt sad and even cried some, but at the same time, I had other thoughts, like "will the overland trip still go on". She was one of the people on the truck I knew the least, and I had only just learned her name. Yet it still also struck close to home.
I went through what ifs and all that. I got tears everytime (and still have them now), when I think how she told Elisha and I she was feeling bad due to the fumes and was heading back. Later as we continued into the colorful zone, I would find out there were hardly any fumes, she was just feeling bad. Why didn't I ask her if she had water, ask her if she needed help down, or called a scout over? I'm trained to notice that stuff. I can make a lot of excuses (i thought it was the sulfur bothering her, I'm not used to dealing with people as out of shape and obese as she was when I'm out in the wilderness, and I didn't quite know the toll that heat could have), but in the end I should have at least done something at that point. Mainly, both Elisha and I remembered that she was cheery and walking just fine. We had asked her about the route across this one sulfur area and both paid attention to her shoes. She was walking fine and appeared normal at the time.
I thought if she had only tripped in the rugged area and injured herself or knocked herself out, we would have found her quickly. Or if she had sat down when she got off the mound, we would have found her. Instead, for some reason (heat hallucination or whatever), she walked at least 1km in the salt flats away from the mound and 4x4s, no doubt exhausting herself.
The overland tour is quite hands off. The truck drives us to places and then we can join the local tours or not, but we are pretty much free to be independent. But I was upset the overland tour operators or the local operators hadn't suggested and reminded of the buddy system (I had Elisha in my sights at all times and would have been there if she collapsed or got disoriented). Kelly had 2 good friends she was traveling with. One also turned around early (she said later she had been dry retching), and the other was quite fit and had continued on with the tour. So many things had to go "right" for the tragedy to happen, and they did.
We had a meeting at the hotel last night. The nurses said they can't confirm the cause of death until the autopsy, but we all of course suspect heat stroke and dehydration. The day before we had done the volcano hike, which would have been really exhausting for someone in Kelly's physical fitness. She was probably still recovering from that, maybe had diarrhea like others in the group that would speed of dehydration. who knows?
At the meeting, her friend Jodie, spoke very eloquently that everyone did the best they could and gave all they had and she was so thankful as were Kelly's family and friends back home. Jodie said we shouldn't think about what-ifs and that Kelly's favorite place was Africa, so it is proper her spirit is here. We learned she is an artist and some of her best paintings ($10,000 a piece) were of Africa. We were told her body was being taken to the Australian embassy in Addis Ababa and then she was going to be repatriated back to Australia.
Lou and Nick told us Dragoman would fully reimburse us and send us home if we wanted (most on the trip are only traveling the ethiopian portion). Dragonman and the Australian embassy offered us professional counselors if we should want them. The group all went out for a group dinner last night, and it appears as though everyone is going to continue, even Kelly's 2 close friends. They said it is what Kelly would want. We are staying an extra day in Makele to process and recover. Everyone is exhausted from the heat, dehydration (despite drinking probably 5 liters of water yesterday, only peed once after breakfast), lack of food during the search, and mental exhaustion. So we will head to Lalibela tomorrow and will make up a day sometime later.
Anyways, for the moms, Elisha and I are fine. We stay together and take care of each other and are sure to let each other and others know if we're not feeling well. We also try our best to stay hydrated and eat well. I know you worry about us being in a far-off place, but a tragedy like this could have easily (and probably does) occur in Santa Catalinas outside of Tucson.
Love,
T&E
Of course, after we had found the body and Kelly was determined to be dead, we had a long somber drive back up to Makele. The group of us in our Land Cruiser (Me, Elisha, Mike, and Wes) tried to process what had happened. While it was a great tragedy, we weren't as affected emotionally as others, since we did not know her well. Yet, I still felt very connected b/c I was involved in the search, and I went through a lot of "what-ifs" in my mind.
Back in Makele, we stayed at a super fancy place. We got juice as a snack, then we had a group meeting about the tragedy, and then we went as a group to a very delicious local buffet.
4/18/19
We were supposed to be leaving today for Lalibela, but the group voted to not move on and instead have an emotional recovery day in Makele. This wasn't such a bad idea as our hotel was very nice, and we were all mentally and physically exhausted. Elisha and I hung around in the nice room for a while. Internet was even pretty quick, so I got to listen to a few songs from Josh Ritter's new album "Fever Breaks". The group went out to a burger place (Makele is a bigger city, so you could find meat) for lunch. After lunch, Elisha and I walked to a palace, had a juice, and walked to the post office. For dinner, we went out with some friends to a really nice traditional restaurant, and we ordered a huge plate of injera with many different dishes on it.
1 comment:
The best and worst kind of day.
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