Comparative Christmas Vacation II

We continued our comparative experience, heading to Filoha to see the hamadryas baboons. It was a shock to move so quickly into the hot, dry climate in Awash National Park after freezing in the Simiens, but we were excited to be able to see the hamadyras immediately after spending time with the geladas.

Geladas and hamadryas baboons have similar social systems comprised of multiple levels. The lowest level, the unit, is generally made up of a leader male, multiple females, and offspring. In both species, multiple units come together to form a band and bands can come together to form what has been called a herd or a community.

Geladas and hamadryas are different in a number of important ways. For example, gelada females remain in their natal units for life while hamadryas females will move in and out of units over time. Their diets are also vastly different. While geladas are limited to the highlands of Ethiopia by their grass diet, hamadryas (like all baboons) are opportunistic and will eat anything they can get their hands on. Luckily, the hamadryas at Filoha have a pretty natural diet consisting mainly of palm fruits, roots, and acacia seeds,   

At Filoha it was time for Megan, Sam and I to host our guests: Laura from Anubisland and Elizabeth from Geladaland. Both of our guests were shocked by the heat (despite this being the coolest time of year), both coming from much cooler climates. 

Each morning we got up before sunrise, drank a quick cup of coffee and had a snack before setting out to find the hamadryas. Like geladas, hamadryas sleep on cliffs at night to stay safe from predators - lions and leopards here. 

Of course Teklu helped play tour guide, demonstrating the hamadryas data collection process and sharing details about the park. 

The baboons were being great sports about all the photos being taken, resting in their units as the sun came up and tolerating some nice close-ups. Laura and Elizabeth were welcomed right into the band.

 

Later in the mornings, the baboons moved off the cliff to find food...

...and we moved onto to seeing more of Awash National Park. One day we went on a walk to the hotspring 'swimming pool' near the Filoha Outpost.

We saw many of our friendly neighborhood warthogs on the way. 

And enjoyed a nice hot swim at the oasis before heading back to camp.

Another day we went to the other side of the park to see the deep gorges of the Awash River. 

It was very different landscape compared to the Simiens, but beautiful nonetheless. 

Next we took a break from our 'working' tour and headed south onto a short vacation for a New Year's adventure.