The road was smooth for a few hours while we drove on the newly built Adama Expressway. Once we got off and onto secondary roads it got a little bumpy and busy, but nothing that I hadn’t seen in the past. We stopped at a restaurant where we had a delicious lunch and coincidentally met a team of researchers studying the endangered Ethiopian Wolf. After a brief chat and card exchange we resumed our drive.

We soon started climbing, and the Nissan Patrol’s aspirated Diesel engine seemed less than up to the task. Passing trucks became more difficult and I was starting to realize that driving at night would soon become unavoidable. I kind of wished I had booked a newer more powerful car, but the old Patrol would soon prove its worth in the deep jungle.

After a brief detour to the Park headquarters in the village of Dinsho we continued driving. We spotted some wildlife but it was getting too dark for any photography, not that I would have wanted to stop at this point. We soon left the tarred road for a bumpy and muddy track, going up towards the Sanetti Plateau.

It suddenly got cold, wet and too dark to see much. We had to climb up to more than 4000m (13,000) feet before we descended to about 2500m (8000 feet) to get to the lodge. After many hours we finally arrived, hungry, cold and exhausted. I liked what I heard in terms of soundscape but I was too tired to do any scouting, let alone unpack my gear for recording. I had a quick dinner and went directly to sleep in my hut.

Harenna Forest