Has anyone here spent time in Ethiopia?

CalGrave

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 27, 2007
Messages
112
Reaction score
4
Location
California
Hello, some time ago I had a topic about this. I appreciate all of the help they that the citizens here were able to give me. Since then I have researched a great deal about African politics, customs and have a general idea about how I can incorporate it into my story. The scenario of the story is a future post apocalyptic world with a few sci-fi elements.


Now, on to my main question. A group of six people fly into edge Ethiopia
all skilled soldiers and survivors but have no outside support other than radio. Although its the future, most technology they have access to is modern by our standards. No one has been in the country for years and once they arrive in Africa they have no translator for the local languages, other than someone who speaks a bit of French. Due a powerful warlord's interference, "outside" languages are being phased out because he wants to unite the continent under one language, but they might get lucky and find a few English speakers among those who resist him. They are briefed on the basic situation of the continent but are mostly ignorant of the specifics and know very little of its history. Their primary objective is to get to Addis Ababa following this path in order to get to the kid:

http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/5466/ethiopiagt2.jpg

All they have are a few ancient maps. They'll eventually pick up a guide and "convince" him to help. But for the first half they're own their own, they only know that he's in the city. They have to make the trip from the starting location, as well as go all the way back to the drop off point to extract.

Now my problems is that I would like an idea of what the terrain and weather would be like if they took the path pictured above. Originally when I started I ignorantly assumed it would just be a whole bunch of jungle, but since then after looking at photos I have a much more accurate idea of what the country looks like and how to describe it. But for authenticity I'd need the opinion of someone who's been there.

Major landmarks, wild animals, any major obstacles, weather conditions, and most importantly how long the journey to Addis Ababa would take on foot and by vehicle would be very valuable to me. Anything that I could describe in a book that would be interesting would be of a great deal of use.
 
Last edited: