Up and down
the road
While entering
Ethiopia we really felt we
crossed a border. As such, the border is almost non-existent. It’s
just a 10 meter long bridge. The landmark feels a lot more
ethnographical than purely geographical as once in Metema, Ethiopia,
not only the people are different, but there are also a lot more,
and they are everywhere. They were friendly people. While Reto did
the immigration’s procedure I stayed in the car and got my first
lesson of Amharic. I learned “give me pen“, which we later took for
something similar to “Hello“, and “Ameuseugenallo“, which means
“Thank you“.
The other remarkable thing about entering
Ethiopia is its green abundant vegetation. Fields are cultivated and
there are cattle everywhere. Big herds with lots of babies.
Everything, including wild life, seemed prolific here. But the one
thing we were really looking forward to was the ascent in altitude,
and consequently descent in temperature, towards Gonder.
At over 2000 meters, Gonder is a pleasant first
stop when coming from Sudan. The first day we
met Richard and Sasha,
the couple on the Enfield motorbike, and learned that Jason, the guy
in the BMW bike, had an accident. He broke his shoulder and was
flown back to Germany where he would be operated. We also met Kobe
and Lea, the Belgians traveling by bicycle, who had just decided to
stay in the city working for an orphanage and were moving into a
small apartment. In Gonder we visited the famous castles from the 17th
century, the Debre Berhan Selassie Church, which has some of the
nicest paintings in Ethiopia, and King Fasiladas Bad.
After a couple of days we headed North to even
higher lands: the Simien Mountains National Park. We spent a night
in Debark and the next day we entered the park with the compulsory
scout and his Kalashnikov. We do not really know what the purpose of
taking an armed scout is, but it seems cultural in Ethiopia to have
some armed men walking around.
The park is mostly
over 3200 meters so we
decided to take it easy that first day in order to avoid altitude sickness. We first visited the Simien Lodge, the first high standard
eco-lodge in the country, and then continued with the car along the
road to Chenek, the campsite where we had planned to spend the night
and a very good place to spot wildlife. There are three endemic
species in Simien: the Gelada baboon, the Walia Ibex and the rare
Ethiopian Wolf. We were extremely lucky that day. Having reached
Chenek early and after spotting a family of Walias on the cliffs
down below, we decided to continue along the road by car. We never
thought the road continued forever… finally we drove over 20 km and
went over 4200 meter passes with astonishing views. While driving
back, our scout suddenly told Reto to stop the engine.
A big herd of Walia Ibexes was walking towards us along the hill just next to the
road. I got off and went towards them hiding behind a rock. I ended
up about 5 or 6 meters from one. It was not impressed when it saw me
and just slowly walked away… A few minutes later we had another
surprise. Reto spotted an Ethiopian wolf walking on the road. They
are almost extinguished in this park, with the total population not
exceeding 50 in number. This one was limping, although once it
climbed the hill and we had a chance to see it well, we thought it
looked quite healthy.
Back in Chenek we spent the afternoon among
lots of baboons with their little ones and just relaxed for the
evening. They were still there the next morning, the baboons. I
could spend hours just watching them play, look for lice in each
other’s hair or simply eat fresh grass and seeds. That day the
weather was not appealing for trekking so we drove down to Sankaber
(another official Camp) and we worked on our web-site inside the
car. Given the low temperatures, about 5 C at night, we treated
ourselves with a cheese fondue that night! Unfortunately, it was not
so good. Probably the heat in Sudan had had its effect on it.
The last day in the park we did a short hike to
Michiby where we saw wonderful birds and landscapes, and drove back
to Debark taking two Basque (Spain) guys along. They also joined us
all the way to Aksum that afternoon. There were about 240 km but it
ended up taking us more than six hours… the piste simply goes up and
down the mountains and it’s obviously full of curves. The landscapes
though were very rewarding.
History
or legend?
Aksum is one of the many Ethiopian ancient
capitals. This one though was quite important as it st
arted being an
influential political and commercial center around 400 BC and
controlled trade on the Red Sea for about 1000 years. It also had
its own architectural style, which can be still seen today. The
legend says that it was the Queen of Sheba’s Capital around 1000 BC,
but then again, a lot of Ethiopia’s history seems to be ruled by
legends… That fact bothered me a bit… Most of the sights we visited
(we even engaged a guide) had multiple explanations with the
archeological one proving the legends not being true but being still
unable to explain many facts about most sites. Today the city is a
nice provincial town, where camels can still be seen on the streets,
women from rural areas selling their products in the market and
guides and souvenir sellers offer their services and products to
tourists.
Among the things to see in Aksum are the famous
stelae or obelisks, which were indicating the local rulers’ ancient
tombs. Only a small amount of tombs has been discovered, most sacked
by robbers so little is known about the burial customs or the
identities of the people buried. The stelae are in any case quite
remarkable. The tombs of Kings Kaleb and Gebre Meskel, a couple of
km away, built in pure Aksumite style were interesting too. We also
saw the Queen of Sheba’s Bath and Palace, although archeologists
proved that both were built at least 1000 years after her times…
In the afternoon we decided to drive further
north, to Yeha, another one of Ethiopia’s ancient capitals. Yeha is
older than Aksum. It is considered the birthplace of Ethiopia’s
earliest civilization 3000 years ago. It has Arabian influences but
the origin of its people is still under discussion among
archeologists. There are a couple of sites there. The Temple of the
Moon, which dates from the 8th to the 5th
century BC, is impressive because of its geometrical construction.
The stones used to build it are perfectly fitted together. There are
also ruins of what could have been a palace. Beside the temple there
is a Church from the 6th century. As it was late, Reto
asked if we could camp on the Church’s compound. It was Saturday
night. When we asked at what time was mass the next day, they told
us it finishes at about 2 pm… What they did not say was that it
starts at about 3 am! And mass in the Ethiopian Orthodox religion
means mainly singing!
After not much sleep we continued the next
morning (mass was still ongoing…) to Debre Damo
Monastery. The place
in on the top of a hill and the intrepid ones who want to visit
should climb the last 15 meters with a rope… As women are not
allowed, Reto was not either…(by me!). A lunch stop in Adigrat gave
us the feeling of the conflict with the very nearby Eritrea. Not
that the place seems dangerous but it is quite busy with soldiers
and UN vehicles. It was then time to have a look at the Rock-hewn
churches of Tigray. The drive there is quite scenic. The churches
date from the Middle Ages and are very difficult to reach, often
involving long treks as they are on top of hills. We thought they
would be similar to the Monasteries in Meteora, Greece, but these
ones are in a bigger area and most are impossible to see from the
distance. We could only see one far away and another one that is
quite easily accessible. That night we arrived to the pleasant city
of Mekele, probably one of the only virtually beggar free places in
the country. As in Ethiopia it is difficult to do wild camping
(there are people everywhere and foreigners are
potential pen givers…), we always looked for a hotel with a
compound where we could camp. It was not easy in Mekele. Most cheap
places either wanted to force us to pay for a room even if we did
not use it or could not provide basics such as running water at that
time. Finally we ended in a rather new and expensive looking hotel
and were allowed to stay in their nice car park. Dinner there was
good too.
Churches and foreign aid
Lalibela was our next stop. We decided to take
quite a scenic drive, half on asphalt and half on pistes, and enter
the town from the north. It took us the whole day as it was again
really mountainous (but beautiful). Even when it
might seem that the
roads are really out nowhere, there were still people everywhere…
And everywhere we were greeted with the traditional “Give me pen”
especially from children. At one village just north of Lalibela, we
saw lots of people gathering and handling bags with the inscription
“US AID”. We wondered if they were receiving food. It was certainly
not the time for aid as the wheat harvest was being collected and
the fields were already ploughed to start planting again. We found
remarkable that the land is really used in all its extension… The
methods though are as hundreds of years ago, ploughing with horses
or cows and collecting the harvest by hand. The animals are walked
to the fields (lots of them are on the few streets) and fences are
nowhere to be seen.
The churches at Lalibela are by far the most
impressive touristic site in the country. They are hewn out of the
rock, but not like in Petra, Jordan. Instead of carving the façade
of the churches on the side of the rock, the Lalibela-builders
worked the rock from up to down. They started carving a ground rock
downwards up to about 15 meters deep. Therefore, it is almost
impossible to make a picture showing this terrific art. The
corridors surrounding the churches seldom reach more than two meters
in width and therefore it is not possible to take the necessary
distance to make a good photo. The 11 churches were built in the 12th
and 13th centuries, during the reign of King Lalibela.
There are many theories about how many people were involved in their
construction, what is sure is that they are 100% Ethiopian work.
What is less spectacular than the churches
themselves is the usage that the Ethiopian Orthodox Church is doing
of them… Six months ago they doubled the entrance fee, to $23, which
in Ethiopia is about a monthly salary. We went to speak with the
leader of the Church in order to find out what is being done with
that
money. The answer was simply “It’s used to pay the priests and
deacons salaries”. Meanwhile, the streets of Lalibela are full of
beggars. When I asked if the church runs a school or orphanage, they
replied that they have a plan for a school but did not find a
sponsor for it yet. They did self-finance a hotel with 42 rooms for
tourists though, which should open in about six months… We were
shocked by the fact that they had the fortune to own these treasures
built a thousand years ago, and which they did not improve
whatsoever (the protective roofs and scaffolding where done by
Unesco) and all they do is overcharge tourists just to finance their
own club. Besides, among the 600 priests and deacons (many of these
are children and get very little money), there are no women. There
are about 50 women monks in the region, but they are also looking
for a sponsor…
Anyway, the churches are really used still
today. We arrived on the day of St. Mary and the Bet
Maryam church
was almost full of people praying. For us, it is
surprising how religious Ethiopians are.
We specially enjoyed the Southeastern group of
churches. As it is difficult to find the way that leads to them
through small passages and tunnels, reaching them is very rewarding,
specially Bet Amanuel. The famous Bet Giyorgis is by far the most
impressive, totally freed from the rock and in the shape of a Greek
cross. Unfortunately, we could not see two of the churches as the
priests who were supposed to have the keys were nowhere to be found.
We headed next Southwest to Bahir Dar on the
shore of Lake Tana. On the nearby Zege peninsula we visited the Ura
Kidane Meret church, which to our surprise has the shape of a huge
Tukul (round house). Its paintings are incredibly vivid. There we
also visited a very small museum set in an old Tukul, with ancient
utensils from daily life. In the afternoon it was nature’s turn. We
went to the Blue Nile Waterfall. As the fall is not so high, about
30 meters, I was teasing Reto that it was like driving two hours to
see the Rhein Fall in Switzerland… All there is there
to visit is
this geographical accident and an old bridge built by the
Portuguese. There are not even toilets for tourists, but an entrance
fee is demanded... The falls turned out to be better than I expected
and the experience was funny in any case, mainly because of all the
mini-hustlers trying to sell us souvenirs. They were mainly little
girls of 6 or 7 years of age. When they realized that we were not
going the buy anything, neither give them a pen, a Birr (Ethiopia’s
currency) or my hair clip just like that, one of them told us in her
serious but sweet voice “OK, you give me 1 Birr and I go away”…
We made it to Addis Abeba on a Friday night and
found easily the house of Reto and Edith, who would be our hosts for
more than one week. We enjoyed a week-end of not doing anything and
then worked on welding the aluminum frame of our pop-up roof, which
due to the accident and then the vibrations was starting to crack.
We also got some spare parts we did not find in Khartoum and worked
on our web-site. Mainly we e
njoyed the evenings out, at Martin and Alejandra’s and also with friends of Reto and Edith, who worked for
the UN or Aid Organizations as well. We learned a lot about how
things are done in these fields. Many of these insiders we met have
very critical opinions. It seems money is not the problem when it
comes to helping Africa, but mismanagement in most cases. Some
improvements have been achieved though. In Ethiopia it is
notable the increasing number of children attending school
for example, despite the fact that the population has grown about 50
% in the last 13 years. Many programs are targeted to educate women,
as educated women tend to have fewer children. Still the situation
of women in the country-side is not ideal… they work very hard, they
are beaten up by their men, etc.
Finally, and having stayed two days more than
planned, it was time to say good bye. We really enjoyed being in
Addis Abeba as for us it was a bit of a holiday from the trip. A
special thank you to Reto and Edith! Now it is time to discover the Omo Valley in the south of the country. We’ll keep you posted!
Till then, kind regards!
Victoria + Reto
Link to Travel Report
6 Ethiopia South
Ethiopia
North