I don't think Guma owned a watch because the previous night he'd tried to pick me up for the hyenas almost an hour early. I'd been too exhausted from the long travel day to go then, but tonight when he showed up 30 minutes early I was ready.

Harar has a weird relationship with hyenas. The tradition of feeding raw meat daily to hyenas, which by most sources dates back only to the 1950s, may have transformed into its present version from a yearly ceremony begun centuries ago during a famine. Hararis fed the starving hyenas porridge to prevent them from attacking humans, and continued to set out a bowl of porridge yearly to symbolize this pact. The amount of porridge left in the bowl later came to represent the success or failure of the year's crops. Sort of an Ethiopian Groundhog Day.

We strolled across the football field behind Tewodros Hotel, taking in the pleasant Harar evening. Guma was the first person I'd met in Ethiopia who spoke English fluently, although there were still misunderstandings. He agreed that directions to Babile's camel market were not clear in guidebooks, but also insisted that it was simple to follow the stream of animals from the main road, yet the stream hadn't existed.

As relieved as I was to find an English-speaker, I wasn't comfortable with the way he looked at me, or his insistence that we should have spent the day together to avoid some vague peril. Was he trying to assert his indispensability, or was it something more salacious? He said I should never have planned to hike in the Valley of Marvels alone because it was dangerous. He said the bus driver dropped me off in the construction camp instead of Dakata because Dakata was also dangerous. It seemed odd that none of this was mentioned in my guidebook. Walking along the dark path outside the old city's walls, I grew uncomfortable with his staring. Fifteen minutes later, we arrived at the feeding site and I gladly ended the conversation for a while.

The site was at Fallana Gate, with a younger hyena man rather than long-established Yusef Pepe. This hyena man almost seemed bored, and did not attempt to create any mysterious atmosphere in his relationship with the hyenas. They seemed like docile dogs being fed by their owner.

Even so, there was something intriguing about the feeding. The furry hyenas were surprisingly cute as they nosed curiously at the man's basket of food. But when a car pulled up with a tour group, their fangs glinted in the headlights, snapping at strips of raw meat. The hyena man alternately fed them from his fingers and off the end of a metal stick. The tour guides, familiar with the procedure, also took a turn feeding the hyenas and invited their guests to join in; I was too chicken.

The feeding lasted perhaps no more than 20 minutes, during which the flashes from various cameras never ceased. I paid Guma the agreed-upon 50 birr and he gave a portion to the hyena man. Until seeing the small crowd at the feeding, I would have sworn I was the only tourist in Harar. Afterwards, I still wasn't sure where the others I'd seen were hiding.

We walked back through the brightly-lit old city. At night, Harar was full of activity, with stores still open and street stands selling food. I wished I had a travel partner to visit with. Guma wasn't an acceptable substitute, as his overly-familiar behavior turned me off. He wasn't even that helpful in his capacity as an officially-licensed guide because of a collision with another pedestrian. He was so distracted soliciting sympathy for the small cut on his forehead that he couldn't help me negotiate for photos.

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