Green Tire Beach Adventure

Unfortunately it’s been a couple of weeks since my last post because there wasn’t a whole lot of stuff going on.  I believe I last left off that we were going to go to Lake Assal and Green Tire beach on 16 June, but that didn’t happen.  We were unable to secure transportation, so Camp was the place to be.

On Friday 14 June, April and I went with the MWR trip to Le Kokeb Ethiopian Dinner and Dance show, which is a restaurant in Djibouti City.  Normally the trips are full, but for whatever reason there were only 5 of us.  The food is served on a platter to share with everyone and you eat with your hands using a bread like substance.  The bread itself is pretty sour, but eaten with the food is delicious!  I was thankful that Leah had introduced me to the Ethiopian restaraunt in downtown Milwaukee before I came here so I already knew what I was in for.  It was just like back in Milwaukee!  The dancing was fun to watch, but after a couple of dances I think we were all tired and ready to go.

Sunday 16 June was Father’s day and being a holiday, the Morale, Welfare, Recreation (MWR) staff put on a Father’s Day bingo event!  We each got 6 cards to play 9 different games.  The theme of each game was the letters to spell out fathers (so the first game to get bingo was an f, the second game an a, so on and so forth.)  Unfortunately I didn’t win at bingo (got close a couple of times), but I did win a Djibouti t-shirt in a raffle drawing.  It was a lot of fun and I almost fell like I was back at Potawatomi. For dinner we headed back into Djibouti City and returned to La Fontaine.  It was so good the first time, we had to give it another go.  This time we must have missed something in translation, because we thought we ordered the same thing as before, but this time in addition to the yummy plate of food we were expecting, we also got a plate of grilled chicken and beef.  Unfortunately it came to our table as we were already full on the other food, but I had to give it a try.  It was so delicious!!  I was mad I didn’t have more room. We got the leftover food wrapped up to go and gave it to some Djiboutians on the street.

The following weekend I had a whole lot of nothing planned, which was just fine by me.  I needed a day to relax and not be anywhere at any appointed time.  I did take in the move “Side Effects” at the theater.

So now I get to the point where I have finally made it to Green Tire Beach.  Yesterday, Sunday 30 June, about 20 of us took the trip.  After a stop at the Casino Supermarche (don’t get excited it’s not really a casino, but a grocery store), to pick up food to grill at the beach we were on our way.  Might I say first however, how nice the store was.  I almost felt like I was back in the States or at least minimally somewhere in Europe.  I didn’t buy anything, but it seemed so clean and out of place for what I have seen of Djibouti thus far.  It took about an hour to get to the beach.  On the way there we played a fun name game.  Somebody starts by naming somebody famous like Oprah Winfrey.  Then the next person has to name someone using the first letter of the last name from the person before like Whitney Houston.  So on and so forth.  That kept us entertained for quite awhile. It always seemed so easy until it was your turn then your brain went blank!

Finally we saw the green tire thus marking our turn towards the beach!  The sand is course with sharp rocks and shells.  A group of us headed straight away to take the hike to the place where we were going to go jumping into the water.  It was quite the hike over uneven, sharp lava rock.  The water was an amazing color of blue.  I had to stop sometimes to just take it all in. I was pretty hot and looking to cool off, so it wasn’t too hard to talk me into jumping.  When standing on the little ledge and looking down it seemed kind of scary, but then you do the jump and look up and realize it wasn’t that far at all.  Then you feel silly for ever being scared, until you get out to do it again. I jumped from a higher point the second time and it was just as fun.  The jumps were probably about 15 to 20 feet.

Nearby was a dormant volcano that I wanted to climb.  Myself and three others took the adventure.  The guys headed out first and looked like they were making decent progress, so myself and Aimee went up next.  Unfortunately I took a path that had a ton of loose rock.  At one point I wasn’t sure I was going to make it up or go back down. The adrenaline took over and I powered through to move away from the loose gravel to a little bit more stable (not much) rock and made it to the top of the volcano.  What an amazing view!!  It was interesting to see the inside of the crater and take the walk around the entire rim.  The breeze was wonderful as well!!  We knew heading down would be a challenge with the loose rock, so Aimee and I took our time.  Some if it down on our butt, some if it side stepping.  I was happy to be back down at the bottom.  We headed back and when we got back to the jumping spot I gladly jumped again to cool off before we made the long trek back to the beach.  At the beach all I wanted was some water or Gatorade and a sandwich.  I didn’t go swimming at all, as my legs were still wobbly from the climb and hike.  It was good just to sit down and relax,  Around 5:30 it was time to pack up and head back to camp.  We stopped at a scenic overlook and caught a beautiful sunset.  All in all it was a great day.  Not sure what the next adventure will be, but you can be sure it will be a blog post!