Northern Ethiopia trails
It’s been a little quiet on here recently because both of us have been travelling northern Ethiopia and doing the tourist thing. We had a great time and pictures will eventually go on facebook although very few of them are from either me or Jen as neither of us has a camera at the moment so the pictures were mostly taken by the. Having said that there are some great snaps and mostly I couldn’t have done better with my camera anyway.
We travelled around by car with two other couples who despite being much older than us were great fun. Peter and Ivy were based up in Mekelle and all the organizing and planning. Glynnis and Seamus are based in Addis and flew up to Mekelle with us.
We started in Mekelle which is right in the far north of the country and regional capital. It holds several NGO’s and lots of volunteers but very little else. It was much bigger than Harar which was surprising as Harar is often cited as Ethiopia’s third city and I was under the impression it’s pretty big by Ethiopian standards. However Mekelle doesn’t have any real history or attractions so all we really did was catch up with other volunteers and collectively moan about work (or lack of it).
The trip really kicked off with the car driving down to Lalibela via a fantastic unpaved road snaking through the mountains. The journey was a bumpy nine hours but the scenery made up for it. Lalibela on the other hand was amazing. It’s a small town, 2600 meters up, which holds eleven rock hewn churches which are carved directly out of the bedrock. Most of these churches are monolithic (made from a single block of stone) and the stonework was pretty impressive. Even stranger was that they were all built under one king (predictably called king Lalibela) who was trying to build the ‘New Jerusalem’ in the 12th century. Although not on a par with Angkor Wat the churches are fantastic and surprised me with their detail. Carving out eleven churches, some of them huge and with several floors, from solid granite must have been hard work.
Lalibela was also were Jen tried Tej for the first time. Tej is a potent honey wine which I personally find disgusting but Jen seemed to love, depending on the strength it can be up to 35% alcohol. Coincidently this was also the most drunk I have seen Jen for a long time and she spent the evening practically kidnapping street children and giving away pieces of her jewelry to strangers.
The next stop was Bahar Dar, a tourist town which is situated on the huge Lake Tana and source of the Nile. We paid a visit to a few of the islands on the lake and looked at a few of the monasteries based on them. They couldn’t compare to Lalibela though and I have to admit I got bored after the first one. The artwork was good, but really they were just very big tukels. We also got to see hippos on the lake although at a distance.
The big attraction of Bahar Dar however is the Blue Nile falls just outside the town. Or at least it was the big attraction until the government built a hydroelectric power plant next to the falls and diverted 70% of the water. I have no problem with HEP (actually I think its great) but why they decided to ruin one of the best waterfalls in Africa when there were other locations along the river the plant could have gone I have no idea. Apparently they are going to close this particular plant within the next few years and move it upstream so commonsense will prevail eventually. As it stands the Blue Nile falls are still pretty impressive and certainly the biggest waterfall I have seen in person. We also got to catch up with a few volunteers based in Bahar Dar who we trained with as well which was fun.
Another highlight of Bahar Dar as we were leaving was to see a village called Awura Amba. It’s unusual for Ethiopia in that it was a community set up by one man thirty years ago. They have given up the Orthodox Christian church and Islam (although they were eager to tell us they still believed in a God) and every member of the community is equal. They provide their own schools and have communal farming and weaving as well as a care home for the elderly and sick and regular town meetings where everyone has one vote. They have a strong work ethics and it was a massive refreshing change from the rest of Ethiopia. The people looked happy and proud, in the weaving buildings I have never seen so many Ethiopians working at once! Everyone was busy.
Part two will go up tomorrow; having proof read it I think a four page blog is a little excessive so I have split it.