Mountain Nyalas
No rain in the morning, the first leg of the journey is very similar to yesterday afternoon, lot of people with horses, beautiful saddles and whips, flat landscapes dotted with huts.Then we start climbing towards the mountains, the landscape becomes more breathtaking step by step, the first trees of Hygenia abyssinica appear followed by forests of juniper trees.For people like us, born close to the alps, the feeling is as being back home up in the mountains, the landscape, the trees, the climbing tar road and more then everything the air, thin and chilled.Very relaxed Moorland chats are everywhere, peering in and out from rocks and boulders while several flocks of Black headed siskins feed on the open patches.We even spotted a Yellow fronted parrot and the strange Thick billed raven..Slowly the forest leaves room to open plains ploughed by streams and rivers.We went on foot to have better looks of two brilliant Ethiopian endemics the Wattled ibis and the Blue winged goose together with flocks of White naped pigeon, while walking around we met a bunch of kids that told us that they knew a place nearby where we could see an owl. We followed the kids and to our surprise we found a gorge 20 mtrs deep with the river roaring down in a beautiful waterfall.We climbed down the gorge and we saw the owl, it was a bit far but we did not approach not to disturb it but still was nice to observe a Cape eagle owl staring at us from the middle of a juniper tree. Just entering Dinsho we saw our first Rouget’s rail, another Ethiopian endemic and eventually our first Mountain Nyala, a small herd of females crossing the river and entering the scrublands nearby.Dinsho lodge was a beautiful place, once, now it is run down but still in a beautiful forest.We headed for a walk before lunch and to our surprise we saw more game then we could ever imagine. Menelik’s Bushbucks, Mountain Nyalas, Mountain Reedbucks were virtually everywhere.In the woodland we could approach them quite easily, the junipers hiding us, the lush of the forest was stunning, and shortly we understood why, raining started pouring on our headsWe had another good sighting of Yellow fronted parrot and a stunning Abyssinian Catbird and went for a walk in the afternoon, a walk that was soon ended because of a big storm of rain and then hail.It rained all evening so we cooked some pasta and berberè in the room.