It is November 2013 and I am off to Ethiopia for another plant hunting expedition. I had been in Ethiopia some yeras before en route to and fro from Yemen but had never stayed long enough to explore any of the country. This time I will be meeting 3 Dutch friends Rikus vanVeldhuisen, Wiebe Bosma and Leo vander Hoeven in Addis Ababa before we set of on the trip. The details of the itinery had been thrashed out at the E.L.K. Conference in Blankenberge and by lots of phone calls and e mails. Wiebe had been in Ethiopia before so we were taking some guidance from him about where to go. We had engaged the services of a travel company based in Addis who were to provide 2 vehicles and drivers/guides and the deal included all fuel costs and hotel and food. I set out from Heathrow at 17.00 hrs and arrived in Addis at 06.30 local time the next morning. So let the journey begin!!
Thursday 7th November
We all four eventually met up at the airport and were collected by a driver from our our operator and taken back to their office in the centre of Addis Ababa.
There we discussed our proposed itinery and waited for some temporary drivers to collect us for a trip out into plant country. Our tour proper would not start until tomorrow when our designated drivers/guides turned up with the larger vehicles. Anyway we set of and arrived at a location East of Mojo where we found Aloe pubescens and Orbea sprengeri. Next stop was a bit further along East of Soldere where we came across the ubiquitus Cissus quadrangularis and lts of plants of the unusual Calotropis procera.
We made or way back to Addis and booked into our hotel for food and to look forward to the next exciting leg of our trip
To be Continued :–