255 km, 8267 km from Cape Town

MARKET DAY

Donkeys and donkey cart after donkey cart were passed by. Black hawks and vultures were common. A hornbill was spotted. Glossy blue starlings flew in arrow formation. At Lake Tana we caught a boat to see the source of the Blue Nile. Sitting gutting a fish on a papyrus boat we saw a magnificent African fish eagle which gave its unmistakable cry. Several other fish eagles also flew out over us near the papyrus beds calling to ea ch other, the cries which tell one they are unmistakably in Africa. Eyes, forhead and nostrils of hippos were also spotted in the shallow lake right near the exit to the Blue Nile. Their kind must have seen thousands of humans on papyrus boats bobbing by on fishing and lake trafficking business. Our guide told us Tilapia, Nile perch and cat fish exist in the lake. At a tour site of a lakeside village we found ‘touch me not’ acacia, which closed their leaves at the most sensitive touch. Swallows swarmed out of the trees and papyrus at the landing whilst a small blue kingfisher sat commandingly on a bare branch. Our guide pointed out a small, brown, stiff legged hammerkop in the reeds near the water. At our accommodation, some species of black loeries were squawking noisily in the palms whilst mousebirds, with their long pointed tails, hustled between fruit trees. There were mangos and coffe bushes growing side by side in the compound area where we parked our bikes.Tomorrow we may be surprised again by wild and domestic life in Ethiopia.