Ethiopia

Leaving Rwanda was a huge wrench but the excitement and anticipation of travelling in Ethiopia helped to ease the pain. Imagine my delight, on arrival at Addis Ababa, to discover I was only 53 and travelling with my 18 year old daughter. Ethiopia follows the Julian calendar so we had now entered the year 2005, 7 years behind our own Gregorian calendar. The New Year had been celebrated the previous week on 11^th September. Our arrival in Addis was at night and the first thing to strike us was the number of homeless people we saw sleeping under arch ways or just under polythene sheets on the pavements and of course a far cry from the cleanliness of Kigali.

We had two days to explore the sights of Addis, which only became capital of the country at the turn of the last century, so we used a taxi driver recommended to us by previous VSO travelers to show us the sights. Addis is the third highest capital in the world at 2,500m. Our first port of call was to the top of Mt Entoto which had been designated as the capital site but it was too cold and difficult to access so it was decided to move lower down to Addis Ababa( meaning “the new flower”) At the top we were shown round the octagonal church of Raguel and the church of Marium where  Emperor Menelik11 was crowned Emperor of Ethiopia in 1889. Unfortunately the panoramic views of the city below were shrouded in mist. We also visited the tomb of Haile Selassie, Emperor until 1974, and then the ethnological museum, part of the university, which gave us an informative picture of Ethiopian culture and history.                                                                           

On Friday we took an early morning flight to Bahir Dar where we immediately set off on 30km journey along a dusty track to the Blue Nile falls which, arriving at the end of the rainy season, were at their most spectacular. In the afternoon we took a boat trip on Lake Tana out to one of the many islands where we walked through dense vegetation to visit a church, Betra Mariam, which was famous for its wall murals.

The next day we set off by road to Gondar, a 160km journey this time on a road which was asphalt and well maintained. Gondar was the imperial capital from 17^th-19^th centuries and we were able to visit the compound of castles, which are still under renovation, where the various emperors lived. Nearby we visited the Water Palace, which is still used to celebrate the Ethiopian epiphany and where worshippers still plunge into the chilly water to reenact the baptism of Christ.

Another early start the following day, took us off into the Simien Mountains where at Debark we had to pay to enter the National Park, pick up our guide and our armed escort. This is a UNESCO World Heritage site and although the weather still made the views hazy we were presented with some amazing and dramatic scenery. Many peaks are over 4,000m with Ras Dashen at 4620m being the highest mountain in the country and 4^th highest in Africa. We booked into the highest hotel in Africa and set off on our first guided walk along the escarpments through the families of Gelada (bleeding heart baboons) and watched the lammergeyers (vultures) soaring around us. It got much colder towards the end of the day and we were pleased to see the log fire which had been lit in the main lodge and even happier when we were given hot water bottles to take to our beds.

The next morning we set off for a longer walk and covered more of the escarpments, unfortunately the mists never really cleared to allow us to get good photographs of the spectacular views.

We left in the afternoon to head back down to Gondar where we spent the night before our flight the next morning to Lalibela, named as the new Jerusalem by King Lalibela in the 12 and 13^th centuries. We visited 11 different churches all hewn out of solid rock and now acknowledged as one of the wonders of the world and all of the churches are still in use today.

The next morning we set off on mules and then by foot to reach the church of Ashetun Mariam at the top of the mountain with spectacular views en route to be shown some of the treasures of this tiny church. A break at lunch time took us to a new restaurant which is partly owned by a Scottish women who had previously gone out with an NGO and decided to stay ( seems to happen quite a lot!), again the situation and views from the many seating areas were breathtaking.

In the afternoon we had a long and precarious drive to reach the cave church Yemrehane Christos, considered to be the finest example of its kind in Ethiopia, and after a fair hike up the mountainside is totally not what you expect to find inside a cave.

When we arrived back in Lalibela, the village were busy preparing for Meskel (the festival of the discovery of the true cross). We had the opportunity to see the locals dressed in their traditional costumes and the clergy dressed in all their finery. The next morning before we left we were able to watch the burning of the cross and then a short flight later to Axum we were able to witness their burning ceremony, which was being held at a later time.

Axum was the seat of the empire from 200BC to 700AD, which extended from the Red Sea to Arabia and was part of the main trading route with India and China. It had its own coinage, alphabet and notational system and was considered to be one of the 4 great powers of the ancient world. In the middle of the town we saw the “stelae” (the largest single pieces of stone erected anywhere in the world) and the site of Ethiopia’s first church. A chapel within the church compound is believed by Ethiopian Orthodox Christians to house the Ark of the Covenant (the original tablets of Moses on which are inscribed the 10 commandments) but they are not available for viewing. We then visited the site, which is said to have been the Queen of Sheba’s palace.

Our final destination was a trip to Yeha, Ethiopia’s first settlement, which dates back more than 2,800 years where we saw the remains of the temple dedicated to the moon god and where there is currently some extensive excavation going on. This temple is the oldest building in sub Saharan Africa.

The final day of our Ethiopian adventure took us back to Addis where we had some time to explore the streets and shops and spend the remaining Ethiopian Birr before our long journey back to the UK. We have only visited a small portion of this beautiful country but it has been a truly amazing experience with dramatic scenery and a wealth of history and culture to absorb and I would highly recommend that this goes on the “countries to visit” list!