Yabello, Ethiopia | 9 April, 2007 | $5.68
Due to our extra day in Turmi driving around dirt tracks for five hours in search of a bull jumpers we had to make up time. We quickly made our way back East toward the main road at the town of Yabello—a nine hour journey. Along the way we did spare some time to stop at a village named Machekie, where we saw interesting houses and swarms of children. One of my travelmates had grown bored with the landscape a few days prior and spent our long car rides watching The Colbert Report on his iPod (it would still be a few months until the iPhone launched). As we drove through the dusty terrain the silence would suddenly be pierced by a sharp laugh completely out of context. I couldn’t help but wonder what our driver thought of us before going back to staring out the window, waiting for a glimpse of a traditional house or a beautifully-adorned woman.
I’m not sure if Yabello is much of a town because we only saw our hotel which sat directly beside the main road to Addis. The pool room with a painting of dogs playing pool and shiny UN SUV were shocking contrasts to our three nights in Turmi.
There are a few lonely photos of of the road to Yabello in the gallery.