The home we'd visited was only about 15 minutes from Aterow, Mulay's favorite camp. We flipped when we saw a mob of gelada baboons hovering near the site, but they ran away well before we got close.

The giggly cook at Aterow

Nina grows more concerned about her onward plans.

Mulay considered the Aterow cooks to be the friendliest and best at their jobs. We soon witnessed an extended dose of one sweet cook's giggling as she poured us some tea with our arrival snack. Completed in 2006, Aterow camp did not yet have a shower.

Nina was now in a serious tizzy about getting to the Simien Mountains for her subsequent trek. Without the convenience of flying directly to Gondar, she needed to figure out a way to go by road. Mulay adored Nina and hated seeing her worry, so he left to make some calls at the nearest phone—a good hour's walk away.

We were left with instructions for greeting our fifth group member coming from Lalibela. Jochen felt poorly and went to lie down. I alternately dozed in the fading sun and read Paul Theroux's Dark Star Safari. On a nearby boulder, Nina and Jodie jabbered extensively about their respective boyfriends. According to Mulay, we were a very fast group, thus we had loads of downtime each afternoon.

Now joined by Jess, waiting for dinner by the fire

Jess was another young Aussie from Melbourne, currently living in Johannesburg. Like Jodie, she was speeding through Ethiopia before meeting a guided multi-country backpacking tour in Kenya. She'd hoped to meet us in the morning, but when inexplicably forced to deplane in Bahir Dar, she crammed in a brief visit to the nearest Lake Tana monastery instead before flying to Lalibela to meet the TESFA-contracted driver.

The giggly cook demonstrates drumming to another

After Mulay's critique, she is relieved of her duties

The giggly one drums instead while the others dance

Mulay loves dancing the most!

Mulay returned without much good news for Nina, and announced that Jochen was skipping dinner. The meal lived up to expectations, with savory tomato, potato and spinach stews served over rice. Sitting on the floor around the fire, we downed a few St. George beers and warmed up enough to remove our coats.

Conversation turned to the subject of divorce. Mulay told us it was very rare in the region, often because there aren't many other options out there, but also because breaking up a family when there's farm work to be done seems foolish. Yet, it turned out two of the cooks at this camp were divorced single mothers. One had even been divorced twice! Demurely, she told us that she didn't like the first one, didn't like the second one, but she was certain she would like the third one.

We needled Mulay about missing out on traditional shoulder-dancing the previous night—after we'd been promised, and saw so many comments in the Wajela guestbook about it, please, Mulay, please! Laughing, he relented and said that even without the "expert" from Wajela, every Ethiopian was capable of shoulder-dancing.

Comically, Mulay first had the shy twice-divorced cook drumming a beat on an empty plastic oil jug, then dismissively deciding she wasn't good enough, quickly passed the jug to the giggly cook. She happened to have a sweet singing voice as well, so the music was completely taken care of. I couldn't figure out how she made up a song, or if she was singing something traditional: what words would I possibly sing if put on the spot to accompany a "traditional" American dance?

Mulay got everyone clapping along, critiqued the other staffers' dancing and then whipped everyone into a frenzy shouting along with his popping shoulders and snapping neck. He called us up one by one to try it out. Guffawing at each other's renditions, Nina and Jodie discussed the American reputation for dancing prowess.

"EVERYONE LOOK AT NANCY!" Mulugeta screamed over the music. "SHE'S PERFECT!"

But then Jess showed off her skills—double-jointed skills. The jarring neck pops and shuddering shoulders came naturally to her, and she managed to keep rock-still below the waist the entire time. It was a moment for ferengi pride.

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