Tuesday, January 4, 2011

At Home


the lady was a discreet but strong presence... no way you could pass her by
Photo ©Ioana Muntenescu/NABU

The first photographic proof (2009) of lions living in the afromontane rainforest in the Kafa region, Ethiopia!

Mild & Wild





Intermezzo/ Respite
At sunset you sink in on the Guest House veranda after a day’s work and the landscape unfolds itself in front of your eyes. In the evening light clouds become prolongations of the mountains. The sinking sun crossed the boundaries between the creations of the earth and those of the sky. In mellow times like these the eye and the mind wander freely.

New Horizons
Driving south from Bonga, the afro-mountain cloud forest gradually makes way to the savannah vegetation. The dry marks on the road show us we are the only travellers in this region in the last 2 months, since the last rainfall. We feel privileged, maybe even a bit nervous, but we want to go as far as possible into the new land. We curiously look around hoping to spot some gazelles or even a lion. Our car cuts its way through high grass and we feel like explorers, breaking new paths… It is, after all, a child’s dream. The wilderness we dreamed about is not fighting the lion, but discovering the way, going as far as you can, seeing as much as the landscape offers you. And imagining the lion nearby.


Where lions hide by Jan Schormann

After a 110 km-drive and a drop of 1800 m in altitude we get 10 km close to the Omo river. We know that beyond this river there is another world, another language, different people. But soon we are faced with some road obstruction. We indulge in spending a bit more time at this natural border that makes us head back. We are happy, free and still curious. It is one of the best mixtures of feelings.
On the way back we stop and take photos of the flowers growing in the middle of the road, actually, everywhere on the road. Small, blue flowers that match the yellow grass of the savannah and the dark brown earth.
PHOTO to come: by Jan Schormann

We are winding our way through the savannah. The early afternoon clouds cast their shadows over the mountains: wide shadows resting calmly in the mountains’ lap and intensifying their green.


Caress from above by Ioana Muntenescu

This landscape is both wild and mellow: wild by contrast with the populated, fruitful, agricultural Kafa; wild because we don’t meet anybody and we don’t know what to expect; and mellow thanks to the travelling clouds above.

Clouds & Roots




The white cloth people in Kafa wear around their neck, on their shoulders is rooted in the milky texture of the local fog...








During our travellings we also encountered the mountainous cloudy fog from Wacha town and its happy, proud wearers.