Take a Hike Across Ethiopia’s Simien Mountains

Hauling yourself up a stony path, the air thins with every breath. Ribbons of mist weave past and a vulture circles overhead. Just when you think your legs can’t take it anymore, you reach the top.

Your guide warns you not to step any closer to the edge. It is the most terrifying sensation—and one of the most rewarding. All around similar hills rise like turrets in the valley below, with sheer drops for sides, and it is hard to take in the scale. With these majestic cathedrals of rock—and not another soul as far as the eye can see—it’s obvious why they call this the Roof of Africa.

The Chinese-built roads make the three-hour drive to the base camp at Sankaber an easy whiz through lush pastures and past goat herds weaving their way across the road, oblivious to traffic. Soon the roads give way to dirt tracks, and after leaving the final village, the real adventure begins. It is unimaginable to contemplate this stretch without an SUV, as you lurch from side to side through unfathomably deep mud, on a number of occasions jolting within a hair’s breadth of the precipitous edge.

Once on foot you pass trees covered in lichen as wild thyme perfumes the journey. Blue salvia plants illuminate the pastures. Sitting contentedly in a neat circle, are three gelada baboons—found only in the Ethiopian Highlands.

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