In an effort to spare Kate, I would try to quietly get up in the middle of the night and creep to the bathroom after lying awake for some time hoping my intestines would magically start producing a chemical that would give the water running through them some substance. The bathroom door, which of course didn't close entirely, would creak loudly and I would flip on the light and fling myself atop the toilet seat with no small amount of athleticism, if I do say so myself. Seamlessly, with no time to spare, some liquid accompanied by noxious fumes that I would never have associated with my body would vigorously make its way into the toilet. It would have been nice if that had been a reasonably quiet, controllable stream, but no, this was explosive enough to rival cluster bombs going off. Sometimes even the rat-a-tat-tat of machine gun fire for a little variety. I tried in vain to quiet these unearthly emissions. There was no holding back. After the first go I thought "oh, screw it," and submitted poor Kate to the full arsenal angrily emerging from my digestive system. Although no person could have slept through the campaign my body was waging against the invading bacteria, Kate took the high road and never admitted to hearing a thing.
The nauseating fumes and burps created from my body's digestive campaign distracted me from what turned out to be a tad more disturbing: the flesh eating bacteria that had taken purchase on the outside of my right ankle. I had been wearing sandals a fair amount while at Tigrai and they had been wearing a small hole in my ankle. I didn't think much of it. Every other wound I've had on the trip has healed relatively quickly and I figured this would be the same.
One day, however, while bedridden with my Giardia class diarrhea, I noticed that my ankle kept sticking to the bedsheets. Upon closer inspection I discovered that my ankle was vigorously secreting pus. Now, in fairness to myself, I have to point out that I could not see the wound without doing some wild yoga moves due to its location. I figured I would put some Neosporin on it, cover it with a band-aid and call it a day, choosing to concentrate on my more explosive issues. The folllowing morning I noticed something quite disturbing when I removed the bandage: the skin had become necrotic around the initial wound and it didn't smell so well. Within 24 hours the necrotized tissue had more than doubled in size and rivaled the diameter of a quarter. Well that happened quickly, I thought to myself, while images of clumps of my leg skin sloughing off ran through my mind. People were suitably impressed when I revealed my reeking wound and nearly liquified skin (I thoughtfully waited until after breakfast), and some of the more sensible types urged me to go to a doctor for some proper treatment. I chose instead to pit the infection against a superdose of heavy-duty antibiotics followed by a week-long course of a different heavy-duty antibiotic. Take that flesh eating bacteria! Actually, I have no idea if it was flesh eating or not, but I have to admit that I was rather awed by the alarmingly rapid spread of infection. The antibiotics did the trick, thankfully, and now I have a nifty circular scar on my ankle, although I couldn't go climbing until it healed up because the wound rubbed against my climbing shoes.
I wasn't the only one in need of a medical trauma team, other people in the group were dropping like flies, as well. Two folks were diagnosed with typhoid, another was diagnosed with pneumonia, and pretty much everyone else had some form of vicious diarrhea. We were truly a sorry looking bunch.
We wound up having plenty of time to climb outside of Axum, however,
The back of BiRT and one of the climbing crags:
because Duncan and Lianna flew back down to Addis for our Sudan visas when the embassy opened again and the application process made the Egyptian visa experience seem like a walk in the park. I only managed to get in a couple of short bouldering sessions because of my ankle and missed the best rock we had seen in Ethiopia.
Emma trying to hold on to, well, not much really:
Juliet manages to find something that fits in her fingerprint grooves:
At the campsite, 
we braved more children;
These boys were probably the only well-behaved children in Ethiopia:
were interviewed and filmed for an Ethiopian national news story that ran several times on TV, print newspaper, and radio; Danny managed one of his few showers;
With the typical Ethiopian audience:
and we said goodbye to Steffi (an outstanding climber coming back for a portion of the Silk Route), Jase and Drew (my fellow enthusiastic North Americans who backed me up on correcting the Brits on proper English pronunciation), and David (on since the start in Cape Town and my Wolfberg accomplice).
Steffi, Jase, and David prepare for their long trek back to Addis:
