Day 13: Trip to Lake Wonchi

June 13, 2009 (Saturday)

Lake Wonchi, sitting outside a hut (no lie)

“The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all it’s parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.”

1 Corinthians 12:12

We decided to take a trip this weekend and JT suggested Lake Wonchi so we called up Girum, our Ethiopian friend, and asked if he wanted to come with us and then this morning we packed up our backpacks and caught a mini-bus to Abenet. From there we found another bus to Ambo, where our Ambo driver said he could take us all the way up to Lake Wonchi. We’re staying in these little huts - 2 with 2 beds and 1 with 1 bed. The beds are pretty small and we will be sleeping 2 to a bed. Let the cuddling begin.

Lake Wonchi is a big crater lake and our huts are at the top. We hiked down to the bottom and then some of us rode horses back up. Apparently a good tip here is 33% (or at least that is what our horse guides tried to make us believe) but I only had a few small bills so that’s what I gave him. He had insulted me earlier anyways, so I didn’t feel bad about not giving him an enormous amount of money. The lake area was very beautiful and it’s nice to get out of the city and breathe clean air and see something other than buildings and road destruction (!) and to just enjoy nature and relax.

The evening at Lake Wonchi was an experience! First when we got back from our hike/horse ride, we got some sodas and then went into one of our huts .We played a game called Fish Bowl (in the dark, mind you, because there was no electricity) which is a combination of catch phrase & charades, with one word answers and making noises as hints. It was hi-larious!! Definitely a game worth repeating. Then there was a campfire made for us, so we sat around that (because it was cold here!) and talked and played Never Have I Ever. There were like a gazillion stars out and it was just so amazing to look at them! When bedtime came, Allison and I were in one bed and Blair and Kate in the other in our hut. The beds were real little and scratchy, so Allison and I started out on top of the cover with her hammock under us, but part way through the night we were freezing so we got under the covers. The funniest thing that happened though, was as we were getting ready for bed, we were trying to figure out our door handle (because it was broken on the inside), so we had Allison go outside to see if she could open the door form that side when we unlocked it. But as we were trying , the inside handle came all the way off and Blair, Kate and I were stuck inside while Allison was stuck outside and we couldn’t get the door open! We started thinking we would have to crawl through the window to get out, but eventually Kate was able to reattach the handle on our side and Mark and Girum came and helped Allison on her side and we got it open. We ended up sleeping with the door slightly a-jar with a small table in front of it, in case someone tried to open the door while we were sleeping.