Wondo Ganet isn’t terribly far from Shashemene. The road is the same smooth road from Addis and I hear this road can take you straight to Kenya! On both sides you get to appreciate the wonder Nyame’s creation. The landscape changes considerably. It’s just open field, fields of tef, cindi (wheat) and piccolo (corn). There are circular natural homes with thatched roofs that often have a pointy object at the very peak. In Maharishi architecture this is very important as it focuses energy, this can be seen throughout Ethiopia. There are young girls carrying large bundles of sticks on their backs the way the women of Entoto carry the bundles of eucalyptus. Sometimes there are collections of houses surrounded by hedges. Some houses have been decorated with paint, some say ‘welcome’ on them, others have geometric designs reminiscent of Zulu design. I also saw some tombstones like those on display at the IES that I described. They had pictures painted on them of a person, sometimes it was a person atop a horse with a sword, which reminds me of the pictures i have seen of St. George here. Yes, a smooth road until you get to an intersection which separates the way to Wondo Ganet and that to Awassa. There was a sign turn left to Wondo Ganet, 14 km. Ha! 14km. When you visit Ethiopia you will notice that people sometimes get teens and ties mixed up. That is, you might have to say four-zero when you mean 40 because 40 and 14 sound similar and people often get them mixed up, hence the saying of the individual numbers for clarification. Well let me tell you, I fear they have made that mistake with that sign because trus’ di I when I say, that 14km feels like 114! The road to Shashemene has made you thoroughly spoilt and makes the unasphalted road to Wondo Ganet slightly annoying. Bump bump bump! Somehow land cruisers manage to speed their way through this area, leaving a cloud of dust so thick sometimes we had to crawl to a halt because we could not see in front of us. Sometimes it’s a truck to your left, a horse-drawn cart to your right and you in the middle. There is a section of winding road on the side of a mountain that reminds me of tv shows I’ve seen of people driving on the coast in Cali. To your right and down (way down) is grass of varying shades of green, more traditional homes. The view is really beautiful so it makes up for the road. But then the road gets really really rough. There is mostly red dirt in this area and you can’t go more than 5km/hr. Up up up you go. There are some false banana plants lining the road. There are homes in this area so neighborhood children can keep pace with you, going so slowly. Some are selling papayas, others, guavas, some aren’t selling anything at all. Just as I thought I could bear the bumping no longer we spotted the blessed sight of a light blue sign with white lettering. It had 2 arrows, one pointing left for Wondo Ganet hotel and restaurant and the other right to the springs.

We went left so that we could take a sit down and eat properly. We went up the path leading past the hotel and we parked. The area is really beautiful with several tall, trees with overhanging branches. Their roots are thick and there is one tree that sits in front of reception that would take several people to encircle it, so thick its base. There is another path which leads to the restaurant. It is lined with beautiful flowers. It looks out of place though, with its spaceship-like architecture. You can sit on its roof and enjoy the view of the mountains in the distance. My hosts said that the food at the restaurant wasn’t that hot so we made sure we were prepared. We had packed dabo (baked that morning!), fruits, peanuts and peanut brittle and a roasted barley snack that is particularly popular here. We then sat on some stumps that partially encircled a tree. On the tree the staff had put a little garbage can. We got our food out of the vehicle, unwrapped our dabo and got some cookies out and water. Then we had an uninvited guest. A little monkey decided it would join us for lunch. We tried shooing it away at first, it backed up then moved forward again. The people at reception called out to us and said “dabo, dabo, dabo!” oh it wants dab huh? We gave it pieces of dabo and it ate. Then its friend or cousin or something jumped on the vehicle and tried to go inside! After getting it off of the vehicle it joined us too. 5 min later there were no less than 7 monkeys around us. They had been in the large trees. Some were still there. Some were small and brown-grey. Some were large and black and white. The black and white ones are called Guereza and the brown ones I believe called Vervet, so look that up so you can see what I am talking about. I myself had never seen monkeys that close up. I watched them, it’s interesting how human-like they are. We gave them bananas. They peeled them, ate the inside, put the peel down and wiped off their hands in some cases! Other times when we had already eaten part of the banana they ate what was left before throwing way the peel. I watched them eat orange. They took the wedge ate the inside of the orange and took out the white skin; the part that I eat myself apparently is not good enough for them. They didn’t spit it out either, they used their hands to take it out and put it down. They ate our peanuts, they didn’t too much care for the peanut brittle, oranges, bananas and dabo and were looking expectantly as if they expected us to give them some water and a glass. The brown ones were more polite than the black and white ones. They would just come up to sitting on their rump and look at you, sometimes crossing their hands. The largest of the Guereza came over and we could not shoo it away at all, it even tried to grab some food! Well I snapped some photos while they were there. Afterwards we packed up all the food and put it back into the vehicle. My host wanted to take some pictures of them. Well let me tell you, after the food was gone, so were they. I don’t mean they weren’t on the ground anymore, I mean we couldn’t even find them in the trees! It was like they completely disappeared. So, no photos for her unfortunately. After taking a little tour of the grounds we set off for the springs.

The springs are a stone’s throw away from the restaurant, we parked got out and went to the entrance. It costs 5.25 Birr to get a private room, I don’t know how much for the communal place. The manager got the key for my room and unlocked it and gave me a small bar of soap. The tub had already been filled and the water was still going. At the bottom of the tub is a large wooden plug. You can take this out and let the water run out and opt to take a shower or you can just sit in the tub. I closed the door, removed my clothes and stepped into the tub.
Just as quickly, I stepped back out.
Obviously I was going to have to do this gradually; the water was scalding!!!!! I put in one foot at a time and ever…so….slowly…I lowered the rest of my body inside, oftentimes having to start over because I just couldn’t take the heat. About 5 min later my whole body was immersed in the water. Aaah! The water felt great. I spent about 30-45 min in Wondo Ganet’s healing mineral waters. The water is channeled from the mountain, I hear further up the mountain the water is about 10 times as hot. They channel the water into about 5 or 6 private rooms, an outside area, one side for men, one for women, where the water comes through pipes and off the rocks onto you. There is also a large pool you can go swimming in. when people need healing, they stay for a number of days and take the baths everyday for the duration of their stay. I let the water out of the tub and took a shower in there, washing my hair. I felt really good when I finally emerged. We all did. We then hopped in the vehicle and off to Awassa we went.