As I mentioned in the earlier post, once in Bedele, the news came that our car had arrived at the port of Assab [1] and that I was needed back in Addis to arrange (read pay!) for its transportation to Addis. In addition, I had to meet the costs of the handling by the Ethiopian clearance agency and to deal with its registration.

After a few days we had gone through all bureaucratic processes that were not few but luckily, we had the assistance of the FAO to do it. I recall someone hearing my complaints about the inordinate amount of time the process took that told me to regard myself lucky as, if you were a private individual, you needed clearance from about thirty offices before you could leave the country!

Eventually we got the car and we left Addis after breakfast and drove slowly while I adjusted to it (no great feat!) and proceeded at a moderate speed through our usual way back to Bedele.

After several hours we started to go through a mountainous area before Jimma where the road twisted around with a few sharp bends. It was turning one of these that we met a bus cutting the corner and coming straight at us!

I was climbing the mountain so I could not have been doing more than 50 or 60 kph and I would say that the bus was not going fast either as we met almost on top of the hill. Despite this, it all happened at a rather vertiginous speed!

I slammed on the brakes while aiming towards the mountain wall, trying to avoid a head-on impact. Luckily, the bus driver went towards the steep cliff and crossed the bus in front of us. The result was that we hit it behind the front wheel. Luckily the side caved in and the car got rammed into the bus’ soft belly.

The crash was not too violent, good news as we did not have airbags! Quite angry I left the car and walked towards the bus to recriminate the driver for his recklesness. My anger boosted as we no longer had a new car!

The driver had wasted no time and he was already scrambling down the hill where it soon disappeared ignoring my shouting for him to come back up. He did not wish to face me so I forgot him and tried to solve the situation as fast as possible.

A few passengers were leaving the bus and a small crowd was gathering, luckily, sympathising with me. We decided that it was worthless to do anything about the incident and, while some of the passengers pulled from the twisted bus metal panels, I reversed the car and extricated it from the hole it had made on the side of the bus.

We could now see that our car had suffered from the impact. The front mud guard on my side (right) was bent and re-painted yellow, the colour of the bus! It also had a bent bumper and some broken lights. Not much considering what it could have been.

Once disengaged I thanked the passengers and drove off to avoid the people that were appearing from all over and the crowd that was gathering. Although the car was making weird noises, I drove on and only stopped after a couple of kilometres where we parked at a safe place and proceeded to pull the mud guard so that the tire would no longer rub against it.

After quite an effort we managed to free the wheel on the driver’s side but, despite this, it was clear that it was no longer aligned, and it produced quite a lot of vibration. However, we had no other option but to push on, so we did.

Because we could move rather slowly, we only managed to get to Jimma and there we spent the night in one of the hotels, I believe called the Ethiopia Hotel, belonging to the Government as most hotels were in those days. By the time we got to Jimma we had talked about the incident enough and had already gone through a thorough catharsis and we were no longer too worried about the incident as no one was hurt.

The following morning, after having as good a check on the car as we could and seeing that the tire was still undamaged, we departed for Bedele through the very rough road that, somehow, dissimulated the status of our wheel alignment! We still enjoyed the journey, particularly the spectacular valley of the Didessa river where we stopped at the bridge to enjoy the beautiful scenery and tried to spot the hippos that dwelled there.

We got to Bedele where everybody felt sorry for our now “former” new car and, luckily, I got a mechanic to do a good job straightening the metal bits and improving the wheel movement and alignment while patching up the missing plastic and glass from the lights. Eventually we got back to Addis where we interned the car and got it repaired by a great panel beater that worked overtime for us to get it as good as new again.

We enjoyed the car after this unfortunate start. However -and funnily-, its end was also accidented!

About a month before we were due to depart, I had sold the car to a newly arrived UN employee with the agreement to hand it over just before departure. Ready to depart for Nairobi on a Sunday, I went to see the buyer at the UN headquarters in Addis the Friday before to sign some of the documents required for the transfer and agreed to hand over the car the following day.

Leaving after the meeting I forgot that I had parked very close to one of the parking posts that held a chain to indicate the end of the space allocated for cars. So, I tried to reverse while turning the steering and somehow one of the posts got stuck between the front bumper and the body of the car!

I have no idea of how I managed that, but I was stuck and considering removing the bumper when one of the guards, quite amused, came to assist me. Following his instructions, I moved the car centimetre by centimetre but could not avoid damaging the wing and breaking one of the lights, again!

Aware that were leaving in less than forty eight hours, I drove straight to the panel beater that had done the previous job on the car who, luckily, did a great paint job overnight and I could hand over the car on Saturday afternoon. I excused myself for the broken plastic claiming that it had happened on the journey from Bedele and gave the buyer the money to cover the cost of a new lens.

[1] At the time Assab (now in Eritrea) was still part of Ethiopia.