A Trip to Remember

By Victoria Inganji

I will never forget a recent trip I took to Ethiopia’s Menagesha forest, for an event knows as the Suba-Fores Runt. The trip is known as the Hash Harriers, and occurs once a month and allows you to camp in the forest weekend. Menegasha is only a three hour drive from Addis Ababa, making it an easily accessible escape from the crowds and traffic of the capital city.

The trip, sponsored by St.George beer, was attended by a number of foreigners as well as locals that registered for the run. According to event organizers, the April 21st event was the 1249th run to have taken place in Ethiopia.
Towards the end of that week I received a phone call from a good friend of mine, ‘Sharon.’ She informed me about a trip she had heard about called the “Hash Harriers,” and said that we should meet the organizer of the trip, Robel, at the Lime Tree Restaurant, to discuss the expenses and everything we would need. I arrived at the restaurant about 30 minutes before the two of them and sipped a macchiato as I waited for them to join me.
When they eventually arrived, Robel explained everything that was to happen. “All you will need is about 50 birr to register, and then transport, food and drinks will be taken care of,” he said. “Except accommodation. If you decide to stay, you’ll have to pay a little extra, about 20 birr.” He then asked us, “You both do drink beer don’t you?” Sharon and I answered at the same time “Of course” and then giggled, knowing that we were about to have a great time!

Robel told us both that he would be traveling the next day, and would be returning the following Monday, and we were to meet him at the site. He assured us both that we’d be taken great care of, given the fact that we were “virgins,” newcomers to the trip. He said, “Don’t worry, my sister will be there with the second group that will be leaving on Saturday, and it’s not her first time, so she’ll be there if you need anything.” After the discussion, we had lunch and headed back to work.
Everyone who’d registered for the trip was meeting at the Hilton Hotel by eight a.m. We left Addis at exactly 8.30.

Surprisingly, getting there was fun because I got to meet and chat with a couple of people. One was British, another Mauritian, and another who was Ethiopian. We talked the whole way down, to the point we didn’t realize when we arrived. When the bus stopped we jumped out and took our belongings with us before heading out for the run.
Most of us started off walking towards the campsite that was about 3 kilometers away from where we parked the bus. At the campsite, some of the members of the group decided to leave their bagsand carry on with the trip, but silly me I decided to carry on with my heavy bag. It had been extremely tiresome, so much so that I almost gave up in the middle of my adventure in the forest. You wont believe that at some point I was actually asking myself, “Did I come here to have fun or to lose weight?!”
I was also being bitten by a number of ants. They crawled up my trousers, shirt and even areas “I need not mention.”

All in all, the walk of about 15km altogether wasn’t that bad because it had been such a long time since I’d walked through a forest and been surrounded by beautiful nature.
Upon arriving at the campsite, we finally met the other members of the group that had traveled the day before us. I saw two white pick-up trucks surrounded by many of the participants demanding their beers. People grabbed at them and drank them down as fast as they could, though there were plenty of crates still intact.
The members of the Hash Harriers, including Robel, told the group, around 50 of us, to form a circle. We all started singing and blabbing all sorts of songs, and the members told the “virgins” to join the middle of the circle so they could welcome and congratulate us for joining the ‘Hash trip.’

Even most of the newcomers took a little too much to drink. We continued to sing, dance, and make dirty jokes, pouring drinks on each other, etc. I honestly hadn’t had so much fun in a very long time, and I thought to myself that such a trip is a wonderful way of meeting new people and a perfect excuse for someone to take off from the city.
I even shot the whole party trip with my video camera because it was such a great experience!

We had our lunch at about 1.30 pm, but by that time, most people were practically blurred and fuzzy. We mingled around, laughed and made plenty of jokes before most of us headed back to the city at about 3.30pm.
“We didn’t leave for home just yet though…we made a point of stopping by a ‘drinking point’ on our way from Menagesha.
We took off from the bar, by about 6.00pm that evening, and the same bus dropped us off at the Hilton. Most of us went our own way from there, but the experience I had with my new friends will be one I’ll always remember.•