Some Basic Info

Our general itinerary has everybody arriving into Ethiopia on Tuesday night (1/13) or very early Wednesday morning. We will then head immediately to the northern regions of Tigray and Amhara. We'll be in the country for about a week.

As I learned in my previous trip to Ethiopia the topography is not at all what I had imagined. The country is mountainous and the terrain we saw was truly stunning. In my first trip our elevation never dropped much below 5,000 feet and we crested one highway pass at 10,000 feet. As a result the weather is not as hot as one might expect. In fact it should be pretty cool at night.

I was there in the rainy season, so things were lush. However the rainy season is brief so it should be very dry now. It will be interesting for me to see the contrast. From a water perspective though, I should point out that there is generally plenty of water available below the surface. Even in the rainy season, river beds were frequently dry. I think that technically makes them washes (i.e. "the dry bed of an intermittent stream"). Much of the challenge for Ethiopian agriculture given the short rainy season and the hilly terrain is to capture as much water as possible when it comes.