Mulay warned us he'd be waking us at 7:30 sharp. Due to our early bedtime, I was up long before he was. We were invited to sign a guest book at each camp, and were thrilled to see Brad Pitt had visited in 2004 when Mequat Mariam was the sole location—pre-Angelina and baby Zahara.

The staff set up our lovely breakfast table outside on the sunny cliff edge, serving tasty scrambled eggs and rather dense pancakes with a locally-produced crystallized honey. Every night they asked our breakfast preference but with a large group, we always opted to share both dishes. Smiling staffers wished us good morning. Tea or coffee appeared before we even asked.

While I trusted the praise I'd heard for TESFA, a small part of me had worried of finding locals gussied-up in pseudo bush gear obsequiously bringing us cocktails on a platter. Instead, the well-trained Mequat Mariam community treated us as family, happy to teach us Amharic and share the differences in our lives.

The walk was rockier than the previous day's. Hanna from the Addis TESFA office had described the paths as "boulder-strewn," which sounded rather more romantic than it was. It was hard to find a flat spot at times and my feet frequently rolled out from under me. Of course, I was the only one klutzy enough to fall down.

By the second day, I still hadn't gotten used to the kids. I'd noticed their apparent love of tourists and complete lack of guile, yet after Gondar and Harar it didn't seem possible they could really be sincere. But the more kids that approached with warm smiles, hands outstretched only to touch and not to beg, imploring to be photographed, just to see a shot of themselves, the more enraptured I was of the experience.

Due to the crowd growing every time Jodie raised her camera, she eventually began arranging a posed group photo, creating a roar of children running from all corners to be included.

Kids freaking with excitement over seeing their photos on Jodie's camera Each child needed to say "hello" and hear it back. Each child needed to say "chao" and hear it back. It was almost unbearably cute, and was definitely a theme of the trek.

I'd misunderstood what supplies would be available where, and had been under the impression that we would be wandering in and out of villages prepped for trekking groups throughout this hike. Unprepared, I ran out of water early in the day and relied on sweet Jodie to share a bit of her extra.

I was completely parched by lunchtime and disappointed to see lunch was injera and shiro wat...I probably wouldn't have enjoyed that anyway but having only soda to wash it down with and no prospect for water for another few hours, I had to abstain. Even less appealing, the injera had been folded up into itself to fit into the container and looked like a big brain. With mild distaste, I watched Mulay's hand thrust into the thick center and retreat coated with shiro.

At each lunchtime we received "fresh" donkeys (as the literature described) and a new local guide. I loved our grinning guides from Mequat Mariam but welcomed the new ones from Wajela. After a pleasant rest in the shade, while no one but Mulay touched the injera, we pressed on.

Mulay was quite fond of British English, and charmingly told Nina that her countrymen were "custodians of the language." It was sweet, if not just a little misguided. A clipped "press on!" quickly became one of the group's phrases. Quite unfortunate that Mulay so dearly loved Nina's English but Nina couldn't be bothered to correctly pronounce any Amharic names and words. Her pronunciation of Lalibela as "lollyBEE-la" grated on my nerves and I doubted she ever properly thanked anyone with ameseganalehu.

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