Trekking with Simien baboons
Formed around 40 million years ago, the Simien Mountains feature Ethiopia's tallest peak, 4,550m Ras Dejen. In this World Heritage Site visitors can trek among troops of gelada baboons.
Words and photography by Olly Beckett
The road from Gondar widens when it reaches the town of Debark and low-rise buildings appear either side of it. Perhaps the grandest of these buildings is the Simien Mountain National Park office where we paid for a guide and gunman. The latter was a requirement of entry and a guide could not also be a gunman. Impressive job creation, even if this part of Ethiopia felt perfectly safe from other humans. But then the gunman was here to protect us from rampaging baboons.
The effects of altitude in the Simien Mountains are insidious. We hadn't realised quite how high up we were until we climbed the few steps from the car park to Limalimo Lodge. At 3000m above sea level this was about as high as any mountain lodge I'd ever stayed at, and yet the peaks around us were not, in early spring, covered in snow.
It wasn't just the lack of oxygen which made me pause outside the entrance to the lodge. From here I had an incredible view over the Simien Mountains. On a clear day (which this was and which there often are) you can see for many, many miles over the dun-coloured, almost entirely treeless terrain through which plunge dozens of mid-sized Grand Canyons.
After a freezing cold start to the next morning we followed our guide and gunman out of the lodge and on to the plateau behind. Barely-trodden paths threaded between brittle trees and close to perilous cliffs. The Simien Mountains are a World Heritage Site, thanks to both its spectacular landscapes and wildlilfe. UNESCO's listing mentions ibex, a rare type of goat, wolves and the Gelada baboons. I was still struggling in the thin air and was glad for my guide's patience as I stopped to admire the view. But what a view.
The mountains here rise to 4,550m but, because of their latitude and aridity, rarely see snow. Cliffs rise up to 1,500m in height and it was at the tops of these that I often paused to take in breath and panoramas. Before we'd walked more than an hour my guide spotted some fuzzy creatures scuttling across the ground.
For the most part these fluffy monkeys ignored us, although a large male (they can grow to 75cm in length and 18.5kg in weight) usually posted himself close to where we stood so as to keep an eye on his tall primate cousins. Although there was barely a breeze up here, even that seemed to disappear whenever they looked directly at me, such was the strength of primeval connection.
As is usual in encounters such as this it was the playful youth which delighted us the most. They skittered about the dusty ground without the foraging cares of their parents, their sole aim in life seeming to be having fun - and causing a nuisance - at all times. I hadn't wanted to hope too much that I would actually meet any baboons but, by the end of the day, I had seen so many that I'd lost count. Although Gelada numbers halved between the 1970s to 2008, here in this national park they are protected and they are not thought to be of particular risk from extinction.
After a brief rest at the lodge guide and gunman took us back out into the cool mountain air. We had, by now, enjoyed our last meeting with the baboons and so instead hiked to a forested promintory where the steep drops down to valleys far below induced feelings of vertigo. Down there I could see the road I would be taking tomorrow, a gruelling full-day hot and cramped bus journey to Shire, close to the border with Eritrea.
For now, though, it was time to indulge in Limalimo's luxury for one last time. First there was the delightfully cold drinks on the terrace which seemed to float in the sky, so high was it above the landscape below. And then there was wat (a flavourful stew) with injera (a grey flatbread made from teff). Out there, somewhere, the baboons would be sitting around and chatting in sophisticated vocalisations, before preparing to sleep up high on 1500m cliff ledges.
