Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Getting There & Away
Frequent minibuses serve Dessie (Birr8, 30 minutes). Two buses leave daily for Addis
Ababa (Birr110, seven hours, 6am).
Bati
POP 18,400 / ELEV 1502M
The little town of Bati, 39km east of Kombolcha, is renowned for its massive
Monday
market
( 9am-3pm)
, which attracts up to 10,000 Afar, Oromo and Amhara, and even
some traders from Djibouti. It's Ethiopia's largest after Addis Ababa's Merkato, but it far
eclipses the capital's for interest and exotica. Within the market is an old
gallows
(dating
from the emperor's day) and on the other side of town are the livestock and chat markets.
The town has some extremely obnoxious guides (one tried very persistently to charge us
Birr600 to look at the gallows on a Sunday) and while they're not mandatory now, they
might be in the future.
If you want an early start,
Vasco Tourist Hotel
(
0335-530548; d Birr100)
is the
pick of the bunch.
Two buses and many minibuses serve Kombolcha daily (Birr17, one hour) and five
buses head to Logiya (Birr70, four hours).
Menz-Guassa Community Conservation
Area
Truly off the beaten track, the 98-sq-km Guassa Plateau has one of the smallest but best
protected Afro-alpine habitats in Ethiopia. In fact, it's been a locally managed natural re-
source management area since the 17th century. The most notable wildlife are the three
dozen Ethiopian wolf (best seen 6am to 7am and 4pm to 7pm) and the many gelada mon-
keys (see the boxed text,
Click here
)
. There are also some leopards, spotted hyenas, ser-
vals, klipspringers and honey badgers. The locally common Auger buzzard (one of many
raptors) and endangered Ankober serin are two of 114 bird species.
