Bren and Jen were in Ethiopia, now Mexico.

This continues directly on from part one yesterday. Jen will post her stories over the next few days.

After Bahar Dar we travelled up to Gondar which used to be the capital of Ethiopia but is now a dump. It holds a few castles which were built by the Portuguese in the 17th century for another Ethiopian King but Gondar got under our skin after the relative quiet of the lakeside and we decided not to even bother paying the extortionate entry price to the castles. Especially since we are all British, I probably have older castles in my garden. Gondar actually reminded us of Harar with the levels of hassle and attempts to rip off foreigners so we were quick to leave.

One of the funniest and occasionally frustrating things about the trip was that all of us on the trip were veterans of dealing with attempts to overcharge and with hassle and bureaucracy in Ethiopia so on numerous occasions the local people were overwhelmed by this group of clued foreigners and at least once a day an argument would occur over a bill or entrance fee which we mostly won. We only paid tourist prices a few times throughout the trip.

We barely spent a day in Gondar before moving out, after the castles there was nothing else to see and we were all itching to get to the Semien Mountains. However Gondar was my first experience of Cipro, an awesome antibiotic that nukes your digestive system and clears up stomach problems within hours. Cipro is my new favorite wonderdrug! At the Semiens we all booked into the Semien Lodge, apparently the highest hotel in Africa at 3300 meters above sea level. It definitely comes in as one of the most expensive hotels in Ethiopia costing 100 dollars a night! The hotel was fantastic and in a stunning location although the food was very disappointing considering how much it cost. In the Semiens we got to see Ibex and Galada monkeys. The monkeys were the highlight for me. They travel in huge groups of several hundred individuals and are so calm you can walk within a meter or two of them before they get nervous. It was brilliant to watch them sitting eating grass (they are the only monkeys that live on grass alone) and interacting with each other. Monkey pictures probably account for half of the total pictures taken on the trip. The mountains were also spectacular and I really enjoyed walking through them. A few volunteers in Harar and Dire Dawa are doing a full trek through them at the end of June and I really wish I could join them. It would be a great adventure. I also should have brushed up on my geology. The Semiens were a geological dream and there were lots of structures and formations there that I had forgotten the name of. It is surprising what you do remember though.

We left the Semiens after two days gutted we couldn’t stay longer and spent a night in Debark. A small town which ironically had some of the best local food we have eaten and at a tenth of the price we paid at the Semien lodge.

Finally we took the longest car journey of the trip up to Axum and our last tourist stop before heading back to Mekelle. Axum was another great stop and a place that is massively overlooked by the rest of the world. Axum was the capital of the Axumite people from 600 BC onwards and ruled over a significant portion of East Africa and most of what is Yemen today on the Arabian Peninsula. They controlled Red Sea trade for 800 years and considered a great empire by the Romans, Greeks and Egyptians before falling to internal disputes and the rise of Islam. Archeologists keep digging in the area and find new fantastic discoveries all the time. Recently they found a huge slab called the Ezana Stone written in Sabaean, Ge’ez and Ancient Greek writing and it is considered as important as the Rosetta stone. Axum is also the resting place of the Ark of the Covenant (apparently) although only a single priest is ever allowed to see it.

The best monuments in Axum are the Stelae which are huge obelisks dedicated to the kings of Axum and like the Pyramids got bigger and bigger with each successive king. They can’t really compare with the size and majesty of the pyramids but they are pretty impressive and like Stonehenge you cant help but wonder how people 2000 years ago carried 520 ton granite slabs several miles from the quarry to the Steli fields. Some of these steli are 30 feet tall and are again monolithic. The best part was that a recently returned Steli which was stolen by the Italians has been completely restored and the scaffolding removed only a few weeks ago.

Axum itself is a pretty nondescript city, but considering it was completely burnt to the ground twice it’s no surprise that the only things left of this civilization is its stone monuments.

After Axum we returned to Mekelle and took a flight down to Addis. It was great to leave Harar and see the rest of Ethiopia. Ethiopia is a beautiful place and has a very long and exciting history and I have seen lots of evidence that if the current society can drop their mindset they can achieve fantastic things and work together successfully.

Posted on April 15th, 2009 under Ethiopia • Tags: Ethiopia, Travelling, VSO. • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback