Mountains in Maychew
Me and Getachew
After 18 months, I finally managed a visit down to Maychew – less than 3 hours by bus south of Mekelle. There have been VSO volunteers working at the Technical College there all this time, but usually I see them fairly regularly as they come up to Mekelle on way to airport or just for shopping in the ‘big city’.
Apart from the fact I’d never been before, the other reason to visit was to climb one of the hills around the town. So Mike, Getachew and I ll got up far too early for a Sunday morning (6am) for the walk up Bekura.
View of Maychew from Bekura
It took us about two and a half hours to get to the top (around 3100m), making our own path up. There is a path but its very long so we decided to take the short steep route instead.
Maychew is known for being where the Italians finally defeated the Ethiopians in 1936 and there was lots of fighting in the hills around here during the TPLF fight against the Derg in the 70′s and 80′s. Because of this you still need to be a little careful where you go walking around Maychew, there are still mines and other unexploded munitions – we saw plenty of (used) shell casings on our walk up, where the farmers had ploughed, but Bekura is considered free from mines unlike some of the other nearby hills.
Whilst in Maychew I was hoping that I’d be able to get shower – we haven’t had any running water at home for more than two weeks – our water meter was taken away by the water board for repair and still hasn’t been returned. Our enormous collection of buckets and water bottles have kept us going, but now we’re even starting to empty these out. Unfortunately, no luck getting a shower in Maychew, the water pressure was too low during the my stay – so looks like I may have to wait until I’m in Addis next week. I will make sure I definitely get a shower before I fly home 
