Ethiopia:
Travels of a Youth

Ethiopia: Travels of a Youth is a CD-ROM book that takes you down the highways and byways of Eritrea and Eritrea during the late 1960s when I lived there with the US Army. This book has over 75,000 words and 440 pictures along with 11 videos and 11 sound tracks (with over 60 minutes of music).

It was October, 1967. I had recently completed nine months of Swahili training and several more weeks of communications intelligence training. Being in the Army was only my work. I was about to begin a two-year romance with an ancient land and culture. A year in Viet Nam sandwiched itself in the middle, but it only acted as a separation in a budding romance with Ethiopia, it only piqued my interest and desire.

I was initially drawn in by the physical splendor of the high mountains and deep valleys, the cool plateaux and scorching deserts, the poor agriculture land and the rich treasures of the Red Sea. Only later did I begin to study the ancient culture and tenacious people.

Living in the country, I was able to leisurely wander the land in times of both excitement and boredom. I began to learn about a place and a people, their greatness and their shortcomings. I came to know and not know, to like and dislike, to appreciate and to look for more. In a word, I was in love. And like many budding love affairs, I suspect I didn't know it at the time. But I do now.

Ethiopia: Travels of a Youth tells the story of that romance. As you read it, I expect that you'll learn new things and have new feelings about the place, the people, and the author. For travel is as much a journey into the depths of the traveler as it is through a foreign land.

Each chapter of this book is a snapshot of a valley, a road, a city, a place. Some chapters (like "Cycling Python Valley" and "Leaving Ethiopia by Sea") recount single experiences. Others (like "Asmara to Nefasit" and "Matara") are composites of many experiences.

This site includes introductory text to all chapters and appendices of Ethiopia: Travels of a Youth. You can get to any chapter from the Table of Contents. The preview also includes the entire text and graphics for the chapters listed below to give you the feel of the book. This preview does not include any of the videos or sound tracks in the book. You must buy the full version to get all the graphics, videos, sound tracks, and the remainder of the text.

You can preview the following chapters and the graphics appendix. The list following the buttons gives some details of each item.

• Table of Contents is the entire contents of the book. All links work but they all go to abbreviated chapters, except for those listed here. Feel free to browse around.
  
  
• Index is really the first of three files that make up the index. On the CD-ROM each entry has a link that takes you the location of the term in the text. This feature does not work here. The index is here in the preview only to show you the wide range of topics covered in the book.
  
  
• Asmara to Massawa by Road is the introductory chapter to several chapters that describe main road between Asmara and Massawa and its side highlights. This chapter has a special map. When you click on a road or railroad on the map you are taken directly to the chapter or place in a chapter that describes that road or feature along the road. The "A Walk in Asmara," "Asmara to Karen," "Where are We," and "An Archeological Triangle" chapters all have similar maps with links built into them to help you move to specific text.
  
  
• Debra Damo describes a 14-hundred-year-old monastery and its frightful vertical climb to get to it.
  
  
• Ghinda to Massawa describes driving the Asmara-Massawa road between these two towns.
  
  
• Northern Cutoff describes my drive down a safe but very off-limits road north east of Asmara. The only rain forest I ever encountered in Ethiopia (maybe the only one in all of northern Ethiopia!) sits hidden from the sun on the north side of a ridge along this road.
  
  
• The Graphic List appendix lists thumbnails of almost all graphics in the book. When you have the CD and you click on any graphic you go directly to where that graphic is in the text. In this demonstration, you only have thumbnail views of all pictures in the book. This file downloads many small graphics and can take a significant amount or time to load all files from the internet. So please give it time to load.
  
  

Read the entire review in the August, 2000 edition of the Tasmanian Numismatist. Search for Ethiopia from the top of the page to get to the review.

If you have any questions or comments about Ethiopia: Travels of a Youth, click here and send them to me. If not it is not time to ...