On April 25, 2006 we endured a five-hour bus trip back to where it was January 1, 2014. When we got to Hawassa, we went to the Blue Nile Hotel that we had stayed at before.

The concierge remembered us and gave us the energetic half-hug that men in Ethiopia give to their friends. We checked into our rooms, went for supper and then to the beach; but once again we were too late and it was closed.

In Addis, we had been given the phone number of an Ethiopian who lived in Hawassa. We found him, and, after having a dinner together, we walked back to the hotel and he showed us the clubs that we should visit that night. He would not join us however, and wished us luck in our club-hopping.

Hawassa is not a large city and the clubs are located along a few streets that are close to one another.

Hawassa is the capital of the Southern Nations, Peoples and Nationalities of Ethiopia. It is located near Lake Hawassa in the Great Rift Valley. The streets have large sidewalks and are paved with cobblestones. There are horses everywhere; our friend told us that they are common in Ethiopia and most rural farmers have at least one.

One of the streets has the Church of St Gabriel as well as a monument to the Sidama people. The church is a famous pilgrimage site. The Sidama monument is a stone spiral tower in the middle of a roundabout with pictures depicting various stages in life and cultural practices of the Sidama people.

Some pictures are 20 feet high showing elders, warriors, priests, mothers, farmers and herders, in blues and reds and greys. It is magnificent. There is a staircase leading to the top of the monument.

We got to our rooms and decided to take a 20-minute nap. We closed our eyes, and then it was 3am, and our plans to go clubbing were put off to the next day.

We were coming close to the end of our holiday, and woke up feeling refreshed. We decided to spend an extra day in Hawassa before making our way to Moyale.

We wanted to book another night’s stay in the hotel, but we were told the owner did not allow us to rent the room. We found out that we weren’t being given the rooms because something was wrong with the water pump.

So we moved to another hotel, and then made our way to the beach. We finally got there before it closed. There was a cobblestone street on one side of the shore; on both sides of the street were hotels and bars.

At the tables closest to the shore, you could hear the sound of the lake. Huge marabou storks walked around looking solemn, serious, and unperturbed. They were unhurried and unconcerned about the humans around them.
One of the marabou storks walked slowly down the cobblestone path. It stopped at a crossroads. It looked to the left and to the right, and decided which bar it wanted to go to. It then turned and walked into the bar.

We then went on a boat ride. We put on our lifejackets and sat down then noticed there was a table in the middle of the boat.

“Can we drink on the boat?” one of us asked.

“Yes,” was the reply.

“Ok, amber sost (three),” he ordered, and then changed his mind. “No, sidist (six).”

We set off, and enjoyed a soothing experience; the ride over the water was relaxing.

When the beach closed, we made our way back to the hotel and got ready for a night out. We were meeting our friend from the previous night. He told us that speaking English would draw unwanted attention, but said we could speak Kiswahili since most people would just assume we were speaking Somali.

In Ethiopia, a lot of the dancing is in the shoulders. We tried to keep up, but eventually had to sit down and take turns. The songs sounded familiar as they had been played in all the clubs and buses we used.

Afterwards, we went to an Ethiopian cultural restaurant where a live band was playing. We ordered some Ethiopian wine that was spicy, but we hardly noticed it.

We went to yet another club and continued partying. The night ended and we took a taxi back to the hotel. I closed my eyes briefly, and then it was morning.

We left Hawassa on January 4. The plan was to reach Moyale that night, cross the border with the first rays of the sun, and get back to Nairobi on January 5. However, it was impossible to get from Hawassa straight to Moyale.

A stop at Dilla was necessary. When we got to Dilla, we went to the Tourist Hotel in town. That is its name. It looked lovely with a huge front garden, and large spacious rooms with verandas, at a cost of just 115 birr ($6) for the night.

In the morning, we got on the same bus that had brought us from Moyale on our journey to Addis Ababa. The conductor gave us a hearty salamno. He shared his cake with us and made sure we never got lost or left behind. We got to Moyale around 5pm, only to discover that on weekends the border closes early, and thus spent one more night in Ethiopia.

We got to the Kenyan border too late to get a bus to Nairobi. At the border, some AP policemen were talking about how they had spent the previous day transporting a group of Ethiopians for deportation, and there had been shooting as they drove towards Moyale at about 4pm.

They did not have enough firepower to shoot back, and they had more than 40 foreign nationals whose safety was their first concern. Our safest bet was therefore to travel to Isiolo with the policemen.

Before we left, we went to have lunch. Chicken and ugali were my first meals back on Kenyan soil.

The police truck was a small lorry. The officers sat at the front, and we along with one policeman and some stranded travellers got in the back. The back had a convertible roof that consisted of a heavy fabric draped across the metal bars at the top.

When pulled down, it could cover the sides and form a wall to keep out dust and cold. It was never closed however as it would obstruct the view of the policeman who sat at the back keeping watch. On the floor of the truck were sacks of maize.

The road was bumpy, and, with no windows, we were able to enjoy the scenery of Moyale. It is a mountainous region and greener than I had expected. It was easy to imagine this place looking like this, with the same huts, 100 years ago.

There was no wind to blow the dust away and it would hang in the air for kilometres. I had to close my eyes to keep the dust out. All that was left of my senses was hearing and feeling, the dust having choked off my sense of smell. Every once in a while I would open my eyes and dust would get in, and then I would have to blink as hard and fast as I could.

We got to a stretch of good road and watched a beautiful sunset. The sky was in bands of colour — blue, purple, and red. And then darkness, with a view of the vast expanse of the heavens. I saw the stars in all their majesty.

When we got to Marsarbit at 8.30pm, the sacks of maize were unloaded.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful and we got to Isiolo where we were able to catch a bus at 3am. Kindly conductors did not throw me off their matatus in spite of me being a mass of dust. I finally got home at 11am, and slept for the next 24 hours.