15 PLACES VISITED: 1) Bahir Dar, 2) Lake Tana Monasteries, 3) Ura Kidhane Mihret,, Bahir Dar, 4) Blue Nile Falls, 5) Lalibela, 6) Lalibela Rock-Hewn Churches, 7) Gonder, 8) Debark, 9) Simien Mountains National Park, 10) Adi Arqay, 11) Aksum, 12) Adwa, 13) Takatusfi Cluster of Tigray Churches, 14) Debre Damo Monastery, 15) Yeha (Cultural Site), Makale Airport, Addis Ababa Airport.
12 OVERNIGHTS: 1) Room at the "Manuhie Backpackers Lodge”, Bahir Dar (Elev 1786m), 2) Bed at the home of Mulu, Ura Kidhane Mihret, Zege Peninsula, Lake Tana (Elev 1788m), 3-4) Room at the "Manuhie Backpackers Lodge”, Bahir Dar (Elev 1786m), 5-6) Room at the “Bete Abraham Hotel”, Lalibela (Elev 2404m), 7-8) Room at the “Jantekel Hotel”, Gonder (Elev 2113m), 9) Dorm Bed at “Sankaber Camp”, Simien Mountains National Park (Elev 3202m), 10-11) Room at the “Africa Hotel”, Aksum (Elev 2149m), Aksum, 12) Addis Abba Airport & Ethiopian Airways Flight ET342.
2 RUNS: Ura Kidhane Mihret (Lake Tana), Gonder.
25 MONASTERIES/CHURCHES VISITED: LAKE TANA: 1) Debre Mariam Monastery, 2) Entos Eyesu Monastery, 3) Kibran St Gabrael Monastery, 4) Azewa Mariam Monastery, 5) Ura Kidhane Mihret Monastery, 6) Betre Mariam Monastery. LALIBELA: North Eastern Group (5 Buildings): 1) Bete Medhane Alem (Christ The Redeemer), 2) Bete Meskel (The Cross), 3) Bete Maryam (Our Lady) and 4) Bete Denegal (The Virgin), 5) Debre Sina-Mikael (Archangel Michael), 6) Bete Golgotha (Golgotha). South Eastern Group (6 Buildings): 1) Bete Gabriel (Archangel Gabriel) and 2) Bete Raphael (Archangel Raphael), Bethlehem (a bakery), 3) Bete Merkorios (St Dimtrios), 4) Bete Amanual (Christ), 5) Bete Abba Libranos (St Libanos, Rock of Africa), 6) Bete Giorgis (St George). TIGRAY (Takatusfi Cluster): 1) Petros e Paulos (St Peter & St Paul), 2) Bete Mikhail (Archangel Michael), 3) Medhane Alem Kesho (Church of Healing & Priests). AKSUM: 1) Abune Pentilion Monastery (St Pentilion), 2) St Mary of Zion New Church, 3) St Mary of Zion Old Church, 5) Debre Damo Monastery.
2 UNIQUE WILDLIFE: 1) Buck Deer, 2) Baboon.
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: It is official. Our arrival date into Cairo EGYPT is targeted for Saturday 20 August 2016 instead of the original 12 August 2016 due to our detour in GUINEA and some bad weather in DRC when I was off the truck. Our last official OASIS night will be 20 August and I will be staying in Cairo on my last Solo until the night of 25 August. I will be flying to GREECE at 8:15am on Friday 26 August and staying with relatives until my departure for AUSTRALIA on Friday 9 September 2016 arriving in Sydney at 4:45pm on Saturday 10 September 2016. This now extends the total duration of the “Ungowa Africa 2016” blog from 273 days to 287 days (13 November 2015 to 25 August 2016 inclusive). The blog will not feature GREECE since this an add-on and not part of the African epic. These new stats are now reflected from this post onwards. This makes Ungowa 43 weeks or 9.5 months long and my record time away from AUSTRALIA at 43 weeks or 10 months. OMG!!!
ENDORSEMENT: For Aksum or Tigray, I thoroughly recommend the following guide, the best of the trip to date. He will organise a tuk-tuk or minivan to take you around and do a great price: Mehari NEGA, Mobile: +251 920 040 855, Email: mehariziaxum@gmail.com
BLOG POST TRAILER:
Welcome to the second and last instalment completing my journey in fabulous ETHIOPIA - now rated as the number one “Food and Culture” country in Africa. I was tempted to rate it overall my second best country but NAMIBIA nosed ahead given how much fun I had there and how naturally beautiful it was. This post features Northern Ethiopia and ends at the border with SUDAN. My northern adventure started with Solo 15 that took me from Addis Ababa to Bahir Dar at the bottom of Lake Tana, the official source of the “Blue Nile River” that flows 1,450km from here to Khartoum, the capital of SUDAN where it joins up with the “White Nile River” to become “The Nile River” all the way to EGYPT.
The White Nile and Nile officially form the basis of the longest river in the world even though 59% of water in The Nile comes from the Blue Nile and Lake Tana! Lake Tana is famous for its 37 Ethiopian monasteries that are located on islands and peninsulas around the lake. The most famous of these is the “Betre Mariam Monastery” named after a Saint of the same name who founded all the monasteries and brought the coffee crop to this area to enable locals to have a cash crop. He revered and loved and I was lucky enough to put myself at the right place and at the right time. Solo 15 saw me leave Addis before the truck to give me two extra days in Bahir Dir and place me in the church of Betre Mariam on the Sunday of his Feast Day, being the anniversary of his death in 1307 (aged 87). Thousands of people turned up to this Liturgy (or Mass) which lasted 4hrs followed by singing and dancing to the sound of drums and symbols in the pouring rain. I stayed 5 nights in Bahir Dar and spent Saturday night in the home of Mulu, a local who was related to the hotel manager that I stayed with in Bahir Dar. I was very lucky to hook up with Nati, the hotel manager who contacted me via email through booking.com and was able to organise my stay and visit to this monastery.
It was the second highlight of my trip to date given how personal and spontaneous and relevant that it was - it brought me very close to the culture and Orthodox Faith of ETHIOPIA in a way not open to tourists. On the day after my arrival in Bahir Dar, Nati had organised a half-day cruise to 6 of the 12 “visitable” islands. I travelled with two other girls from New York and the weather that day was excellent. The Monasteries are small with typically only one church and most with a museum of artefacts. They mostly date back to the 14th Century but some of the artefacts are up to 900yrs old. One of the monasteries is also said to have housed the Ark of the Covenant before it was moved to Aksum. The first monastery we visited, “Debre Mariam” was located at the exact geographical start of the Blue Nile River! The lake itself is milky brown in colour due to the constant entry of silt from the nearby mountains. It is at elevation 1788m and quite warm to swim in.
After visiting 5 monasteries I stayed in the house of “Mulu” just outside the walls of the 5th monastery called “Ura Kidhane Mihret”. Mulu is the mother of Nati’s partner and brother-in-law. Her home was made of dried mud and straw with a thatched roof. Inside it looked just like my dad’s childhood home in a small village in the mountains of Greece. I felt very much at home. Mulu lived with her daughter Nanye and they kept a spotless house. I slept in a bed in the living room as is also commonplace in the village homes of Greece. I also met two 22yr old guys from the village named Tizazu and Amanual - they picked me up at the boat and stayed with me the whole time to translate for me. We even went running and swimming together and boy did I get a run for my money - two thin Ethiopians running alongside me!!! They pushed me in the running but I had them in the lake - they are not used to lap or distance swimming and they struggled.
A storm was coming in during our swim so I had to cut it short due to lightening risk. I would learn later that this happens often to fishermen here! Good call. It was a simple meal at Mulu’s. Bean paste and injera made from the miracle “teff” grain, a wheat shaped cereal that is rich in iron and calcium. Perfect for people without cows or much meat. Meat and dairy in one grain! Also very dark in colour and tasty. I bought some beers from a neighbour who was the official supplier and we enjoyed these whilst watching my films. Mulu especially liked my dad’s last trip to Greece since she could identify with a lot of he images and scenery of my dad’s mountain village. Lulu even had a beer ands never drinks - the whole village found out at church and laughed very hard. The next morning the guys and I rose very early and made it to the Betre Mariam Church for the start of the service at sunrise. The large circular church was already full inside and there were people assembling outside as well. Everyone was clad in white tunics covering their head and often their nose and mouth. I was very lucky to get a place in near the altar next to many monks. One befriended me and spoke some English, answering many of my questions. He even stood me on his seat and encouraged me to take film and photos. Magic.
There are major differences between the church building and the Liturgy or Sunday Mass between the Ethiopian and Greek Orthodox Churches BUT there was also familiarity in many things and I felt part of a larger “brotherhood” of Orthodoxy. Refer to “PS: COMPARING THE ETHIOPIAN AND GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH BUILDING & LITURGY” for a summary of the major differences I observed between the architecture and set out of the building and the structure of the liturgy (or Mass). For the most part I could follow what was going on but obviously did not understand the words or hymns which were more like Muslim wailing than chanting. The Matins and Liturgy combined took 4hrs and about half0way through the liturgy the heavens opened up and it poured without stopping!
I felt bad for the thousands outside. People had come from many surrounding towns and even Addis Ababa just for this day. This was a significant Saint and much loved. Before the rain the “sea of white tunic” looked like a scene out of the Sermon on the mount of a Jesus movie! Such was the adoration. After the service there was singing and dancing outside to the beat of several large drums and hundreds of hand-held symbols. The walk home was a real adventure in the rain and mud.
My blue Asics became brown bogs! I have no idea how so many people managed to keep their tunics white in all that rain and mud. I lost my two buddies in the thick crowd and made it to Mulu’s by myself. It took me 30min to wash my shoes and clothes when I got back to my hotel but it was worth it. The next day I visited the “Blue Nile Falls”. Three distinct falls that look like melted chocolate they are so brown. During the heavier rainy monsoons the river and falls are so dark they look almost black and the Sudanese word for black is also used to mean blue, hence the name.
The three falls span 400m and the largest is 45m in height. Small by comparison. The are located 37km out of town and situated roughly 30km downstream of the mouth at Lake Tana. The day was sunny and warm. It was a half-day trip putting me back in town at 2:30pm so Visited all the major sites of Bahir Dar: the market, a monument and museum and George Cathedral. There was no time to visit the Royal Palace because the Blue Nile driver picked us up 1hr late. The market was nothing special but the monument twas interesting. Dedicated to all who dies and struggled to free ETHIOPIA from the Russian communist-backed Derg party who almost destroyed ETHIOPIA in the 70’s and 80’s. Bahir Dar is also very devout.
Every restaurant does not cook or serve meat on Wednesdays and Fridays - both fasting days for all Orthodox around the world. There are actually fasting and non-fasting menus in every restaurant. It was sad leaving Bahir Dar it had been such an experience for me. The day I rejoiced the truck we journeyed to Lalibela in the Highlands of the north. It was an amazing drive. So many mountains and lush green valleys reminding more of the South American Andes than Africa. We topped out at close to 3200m on our drive. Lalibela is home to many Ethiopian Orthodox Churches hewn out of the basalt mountains in one piece, including the inside. We saw 12 of these remarkable buildings, all built by King Lalibela (1101-1198) over 23yrs using local and domestic volunteers from all over ETHIOPIA totalling between 40,000 and 60,000 over this period. Once completed in 1179, all the churches have been used for worship to this very day. The work is so impressive that it received UNESCO protection in 1978 and many famous people have been here including Bill Clinton. The church architecture and interior is based on the Byzantine cross floor plan and it figures given they were built just after the Schism. That night we had dinner in the most strangest of all places. An architect designed building that looked like a rocket ship against a launch pad ready to rise! An architectural master piece of oval platforms and glass enclosures cantilevered from a central spiral core a bit like a helix of DNA. This thing was awesome and fitted out with the finest materials.
Every part of it had a magnificent view of the open huge valley below and distant mountains. It was completely out of place. The truck then made a very scenic drive to Gonder, capital of Ethiopia from 1559 to 1868. The next day Riza and I hired a tuk-tuk to take us to all the sites which are quite spread out. The Royal Compound is the highlight with a total of 6 castles inside built by a succession of 6 Kings from 1636 to 1755. A guide here is a must. He told us the many tales of intrigue, murder and adultery that characterised the lives of these monarchs much a royal medieval soap opera!!! Gonder is not a very pretty city itself but its sites are great. We saw the summer place of King Fassilas called the “bath house”, a very peaceful place where the Ethiopian Orthodox also hold their annual Epiphany Day cross-throwing in the same tradition as the Greeks and Russians.
The 1698 Church of “Debre Birhan Selassie Church” is especially colourful inside with icons on the walls and hundred of baby-faced cherubs n the ceiling staring down at you! The biggest surprise of all was seeing the bones of Queen Mintwah alongside her monarch son and grandson in a tiny glass coffin at the corner of a tiny two-room museum that looked like a store room inside the “Empress Mintwah Kuskuam Complex” built by the Queen in 1930. No sarcophagus inside the church or a large marble tomb outside - I had to ask if this was allowed by the Church or the law. Compared to the Royal Enclosure the Queen’s Palace was in a bad way and being consumed by mother nature - n roof and crumbling walls with grass inside. Gonder turned out to be a fun visit and interesting. A good pre-cursor for Aksum in tow days. On our way to Aksum I took a 2-day, 1-night trip to the Simien Mountains National Park. Sadly it was covered in cloud and raining for both days and I had a mild case of diarrhoea and sore stomach - something I ate in Gonder. I slept most of the time since it was very cold at 3200m. Fortunately on our way out towards Aksum, the cloud lifted partly and we got a glimpse of the magnificent Simien Mountains with heir characteristic granite pillars and huge green valleys. The drive to Aksum took 7hrs and was equally as spectacular - Mountain peaks of every show with fertile green valleys spread out in front of them.
The Ethiopian north west here is really something else and quite out of place from the African savannah that I were so used to. The drive to Aksum took 8.5hrs in total including 1hr of breaks. It was 7:30pm and dark on our rival and I was greeted by Riza who was already there. We both met with Aklin, the hotel travel guy to organise our tour of Aksum and Tigray. The next day we left at 6:30am in our own 12 seater van to travel to the Churches of the Takatusfi Cluster of Tigray. This is one of six clusters that all contain a total of 135 churches. We visited 3 of the 13 churches in the Takatusfi Cluster. The drive to them was fantastic and part of the adventure. Vast fields of maize followed by steep mountains all terraced with wheat and hence very green - down below narrow gorges with the rush of milky brown rivers given the rainy season.
The churches we visited were very different from each other and the ones we saw in Lalibela. One was a normal stand alone mud wall, wooden roof, building built into the natural cavity of the side of rock mountain, 33m above the ground and accessible only by makeshift wooden ladders made of tree branches. Another is carved out of the top of a mountain and the third is a stand-alone stone wall and wood roof construct on the top of a mountain ridge. Our visit was marred by the very rocky and muddy tracks that edit the churches from he paved main road and the fact that our van was not 4WD and could not pass so we spent too much tome walking which reduced greatly the time we had left to visit two major sites on our way back to Aksum. The first is the Debre Damo Monastery perched on top of a huge flat-topped mountain high above the valley below.
It reminds me of the monasteries of “Meteora” in Northern Greece perched precariously on the tops of huge egg-shaped monoliths. I ascended via a huge set of stairs and the last 20m involves walking yourself up a vertical cliff using a rope! No thanks. The second major stop and last site on the way back to Aksum was the “Cultural Centre” at Yeha nestled amongst a whole line of pity cone shaped monoliths that look like Halong Bay but on land! This place is thought to be the birthplace of Ethiopian civilisation. Back in the first millennium BC there were exchanges of culture between YEMEN and ETHIOPIA which led to the “Yeha Civilisation” which incorporated a mix of black African and Arabian practices and beliefs - this is why ETHIOPIA to this day has many “Arabian overtones” despite its staunchly Christian flavour. Yeha contains the ruins of a temple, palace, cemetery and a small appalling museum. It is defiantly worth the entry fee. In stark contrast I toured Aksum the next day by myself with my guide Mehari who also accompanied Riza two days before.
He was the best guide on the whole trip to date. A 28yr old accounting uni student who was a registered guide and knew his dates and history and several stories like he was born with them! I visited 14 sites from 6am to 1pm because I was leaving for SUDAN that very day on Solo 16. I visited all the major archaeological sites in Aksum including several more churches. Aksum is steeped in antiquity and Orthodoxy. For details on what I saw please refer to Day 263 but here are my highlights. Singing with Abba Abraham in the huge church of St Mary of Zion (opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1965). Seeing the chapel ext door that the Ethiopian Orthodox claim contains the “Ark of the Covenant” - yes the container of the Ten Commandments!!! A singe monk lives inside to guard it and is not allowed to leave the chapel until his death. Food is passed under the door and there is a toilet inside! No one is allowed to set eyes on the Ark except this monk, not even The President. I also enjoyed visiting Abune Pentilion Monastery (St Pentilion) set high on top of a narrow hill with stunning views of the city and surrounding mountains. The Aksum and Northern Ethiopian frenzy of culture and churches ended at 3:15pm when our Ethiopian Flight FT103 took off from Aksum bound for Addis Ababa via Makale and then on to Khartoum SUDAN for the start of Post 33 and Solo 16.
BLOG POST DETAIL:
DAY 253 of 287, Fri 22JUL16, 411km, Solo 15, Room at the “Itegue Taitu Hotel”, Addis Ababa (Elev 2449m) to Room at the "Manuhie Backpackers Lodge”, Bahir Dar (Elev 1786m) ETHIOPIA. Got up at 6am with the rain which did not stop until 10am. Blogged solid until then taking one break to bring back a coffee in my wine cup since the staff do not give out their own cups to guests to use in their rooms. I was determined to upload Post 31 at the Eliana Hotel given how good the WIFI was.
At precisely 12:30pm I was ready to upload and packed my things, dumped them in the truck, checked out and walked 8km/h to the hotel. I needed to be back just before 2pm to cab it to the embassy to pick up my passport with Andi and Grant. The upload was the quickest yet 0 there were easily 100 photos and it was a record. I even got time to call mum and Nick. I made it back at 1:45pm and was ready to take on the next challenge of getting to the airport on time for my 4:30pm takeoff. The taxi ride was quick and I had the same driver that took me from the hotel to the Abyssinian Restaurant - he was delighted to see me - a good ole guy that I had a pleasant conversation with just the bight before. The ride was quick and we queued outside the embassy at 2:10pm. It opened at 2:35pm and by 2:45pm I had that passport in my hot little hands. I had already lined up a taxi and farewell Andi/Grant. The driver screamed his way to the airport via various shortcuts.
Got me there at 3:10pm and by 3:40pm I was sipping coffee in the terminal to some last minute free WIFI. At 4pm I went through the last security check before the gate and just when I thought I was home and hosed a smart arse security guy decides to look at EVERYTHING inside my computer bag. This had never happened before in all my flights in Africa. The bad news is that he found my empty shell from my hunt at El Dorado in NAMIBIA and took it. He wouldn’t even let me check it in. Arsehole. Karma will certainly sort that guy out. I was so upset. I had beaten the odds to get Post 31 up, pickup my passport from an embassy that could have easily delayed me and made my flight. This guy just had to flex his tiny sad-arse muscles. I wrote this right after it happened hence the drama. It didn’t even cross my mind to check it in - I should have put it in the same place as my swiss army knife. In my upset I forgot to take a photo of the shell. It was a good luck charm for me and I explained that to Mr Big but he didn’t want to know.
I might die without my good luck charm but he will always be an arsehole! If that wasn’t bad enough, I got to the gate and discovered we were delayed by 90min. Great. A 45min flight delayed by 90min - what is the point of flying? I really wanted to get to Bahir Dar during daylight so that I could find the hostel and get a chance to shop for food. I also wanted to talk the receptionist to organise my monastery visit whilst the tour offices were still open - out that goes too. The only thing left for me to do was to drink some wine and eat some cheese and olives and even these were checked in! No remorse for the wicked! Our Ethiopian Airways Bombardier DH8-Q400 Flight Number ET140 finally took off at 6pm. The plane was almost full and it was a smooth quick ride. We passed over several high mountains covered in a carpet of green which explains why the bus takes 12hrs to travel just a little over 400km! We landed just on sunset - the sun cast a yellow-orange hue on the low cloud - an amazing site (see photo).
The temperature was a fantastic 25C and dry - the city sits around 1700m. My hostel was only 15km away - there was someone waiting for me at the airport with my name on an A4 sheet of paper - I was not expecting it. A pleasant surprise. My host “Nati” met me at the gate - he had emailed me about the monasteries. Nati, his brother and brother in-law bought the hostel 5mths ago - it is the cleanest best equipped I have seen with a very strong WIFI. After a quick shower, Tani took me to town to buy dinner to bring back to my room. On the way he explained that the monasteries are not equipped for overnight visitors like they are in Greece or Russia. Instead I would stay overnight on Saturday at the house of his brother-in-law’s mother on the Zege Peninsula near the Ura Kidhane Mihret Monastery after cruising the Lake Tana and all the monasteries during the day on Saturday. I would wake up with the family before dawn on Sunday to attend the church service and feast day of Saint Betre Mariam with the monks. Good compromise.
I would then boat back to Bahar and spend the day on my own visiting the city and surrounds. On Monday I would take a full tour of the Blue Nile Waterfalls and surrounds. The truck was a 3min walk from Nati - I would go there Tue morning just before departure. Great. I had a program. Nati had done a great job organising this and the price was right. At the restaurant I noticed for the first time “fasting” and “non-fasting” menus. Like the Orthodox in the rest of the world, Wednesday and Friday are fasting days all the time except the week after Christmas and Easter. No restaurant cooks meat on these days. Another sign for me on how devout these people are. As it was a Friday, I ordered the vegetarian “bayenetu” platter and some fish pieces. That night I really enjoyed the food and my room. The hotel was very cosy and clean with excellent WIFI. I was going to really love this place.
DAY 254 of 287, Sat 23JUL16, 43km, Solo 15, Room at the "Manuhie Backpackers Lodge”, Bahir Dar (Elev 1786m) to Bed at the home of Mulu, Ura Kidhane Mihret, Zege Peninsula, Lake Tana (Elev 1788m, Run4) ETHIOPIA. It was a misty morning but not a misty agenda. The driver arrived right on 8:30am to take me to the boat that would be my Holy vessel to the monasteries of Lake Tana! I packed all my gear since I was staying overnight in a village house just outside a monastery since they are not equipped with beds or facilities for visitors. The port was 5min away and busy. My boat driver Gabriel told me he was waiting for two others so I climbed the steps to a plain local fish restaurant that overlooked the harbour.
Had a coffee and at 9:30am Gabriel whistled to me to come down. I met Becca and Kierstin from New York, both in a masters program at Columbia University in social sciences specialising in conflict management. They were in Kampala UGANDA for a project as part of their studies for a month and now taking a break before returning to the Big Apple. Gabriel was planning to take us to 3 monasteries but I quickly negotiated this to five at the sheer delight of the two New Yorkers sitting next to me. We chatted as we crossed the milky brown Tana which is 3,600 sq km in size and the source of the “Blue Nile” which winds its way 1,450km to Khartoum, the capital of SUDAN where it meets the “White Nile” and becomes “The Nile” all the way to Cairo EGYPT. The mist had lifted to reveal a pale blue sky with plenty of sun and some humidity given the lake. It was still a comfy 25C given the lake’s elevation of 1783m. Decently high! There is a total of 37 monasteries on islands and peninsulas and some banks of Lake Tana. 12 of thee 37 can be visited and we would visit 6 of the 12 today. Not bad. The first monastery of “Debre Mariam” is on the mainland and at the exact start of the Blue Nile. The monastery was built in the 12th Century and is surrounded by the two of Debre (Pop 150). There are 3 monks and 5 priests living here. There is a church of the same name but it has no icons on the walls - just a few framed icons on the ground. The “museum” is actually just a little wooden shack but inside are bibles and hymn books up to 900yrs in age!
The second monastery of “Entos Eyesu” is on an island in the middle of Bahir Dar harbour. Built in the 14th Century it is home to 35 monks and 5 priests. The iconography in the church is very bright and colourful and not in the Byzantine style. Refer to “PS: COMPARING THE ETHIOPIAN AND GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH BUILDING & LITURGY” for a summary of the major differences I observed between the architecture and set out of the building and the structure of the liturgy (or Mass). The third monastery called “Kibran St Gabrael” was also on an island right next to the second monastery but we only visited the museum because the church was closed (built 13th Century). This little green paradise is occupied by an unfeasible 90 monks and 6 priests! Next stop was the famous “Zege Peninsula”. Why famous? Because the person who established all the monasteries on Lake Tana and lived here and established his first monastery at “Betre Mariam”.
That was his name and now he is a Saint. He died here in 1307 at age 87. Everyone loves him. I hit the jackpot. I would be attending his Feast Day tomorrow! The anniversary of is death as is the custom of ALL Orthodox, ALL over the world. I was in Heaven! The fourth monastery we visited on the Zege Penisula was “Azewa Mariam”. Built in the 14th Century with 25 monks and 13 priests. The peninsula has 10,000 locals living on it in several villages. I would be sleeping her tonight in the village of Ura Kidhane Mihret. The icons here were impressive. 360 degrees of wall coins to be exact. All around the inner core of the church. Floor to wall. All featured St George who actually fought the enemies of ETHIOPIA during his stint in the army.
From this monastery it was possible to walk 1.5km log the lake to the monastery of "Ura Kidhane Mihret” where I would be sleeping. So off we went. It was like the enigmatic and mysterious “Road to Emmaus”. Why? Because as we were walking along the muddy track with thick green forest on one side and milky brown Lake Tana on the other, we happened upon an Ethiopian Orthodox Priest dressed in black with two milky white goats in front of him. I interviewed him as we walked - “thanks Kiersten" - great filming! This priest told me the strangest but all-to-familiar Orthodox tales. Saint Betre Mariam was so significant on this Peninsula that no snake will bite you (there are two dangerous species here) and no lightning will strike you (lightening strikes are common on Lake Tana because of the 1700m elevation) if you drink the Holy Water or carry the charcoal ashes from the Saint’s Church.
This is what makes ETHIOPIA so rich! We arrived at Ura Kidhane Mihret but did not go in because renovation work was going on so we stared and shot from the gate. We walked back to the port and stopped half-way to have coffee at a fantastically perched platform above the lake and next to a wharf. Much to our surprise, Gabriel, our boat drive, emerged to take the girls back to Bahir Dar and introduced me to a young guy called “Tizazu” to take me to my residence back at Ura Kidhane Mihret. Great guy. He is 22 and studying to be a Civil Engineer. Get this. H finished High School at the usual 18 and then has to endure 3yrs of “college” until he can start his 6yr Civil Engineering course at Uni. Like USA. What a waste. When I told him that it took me only 4yrs out of high school to become an Aeronautical Engineer, he almost fainted!!! Parting is such sweet sorrow - I farewelled Becca and Kirsten and headed off to my home on the peninsula with Tizazu. Along the way, Tizazu introduced me to his best friend “Amanual” from “Emmanuel”, Hebrew for the Messiah or “God is with us”. A 22yr old with a smile that stretched across the lake. Here is the thing. Ethiopians, girls and guys have smiles that stretch across not only a lake but an ocean!!!
“Mulu”, the mother of Nati’s brother-in-law, Gaudu, was not home so the neighbour greeted me and invited me to his home to store my gear until Mulu came home. His English was good. He told me he did not know when she would return so I told him I would go for a run and swim until she came back. Tizazu and Amanual wanted to run and swim with me! Great! Two skinny Ethiopians. The best in the world for runs. With me. A bloody 50 year old. Time to be embarrassed!!! We set out at 4pm with a darkening sky. The track was bad. Rocky. Uneven. Up and down. But. I gave them a runoff their money or should I say “skinny legs”. I am rough terrain trained. Ate it up and them with me. Amanual was doing fine slightly ahead of me but Tizazu struggled a bit. We run through the main market with laughing and seeing coming from the crowds but my two skinny companions took care of them with some sharp exchanges in the local “Amharack” dialect. The scenery was so uplifting. Deep green files everywhere with milky brown lake on both sides. Farmers coming home. Kids running and screaming. Another world. Women clad in white. Men with their walking sticks. Rich, Beautiful.
We ran past Mulu’s to the wharf some 1km further down. Plonked our bodies into the cool Tana water under a mean grey sky with the rumbles of an approaching storm! Got 500m in before the rain came down. Ran back to Mulu’s and she was home! Moved my gear from the neighbours. Mulu is something else. A short lady in her 70’s with a number one haircut what hair and a beaming smile form ear-to-ear! We connected immediately. She was the mother of two girls and two boys. Her shunned and died 7yrs ago. She showed me my bed in the corner of the large main room. The only one in the house. Living, dining and two beds. Just like Greece. I felt at home the minute I walked into that lovely place. Despite the large room, Mulu had another room, next to the kitchen for herself and her daughter and her niece. In the meantime, the three runners and swimmers dried up and sat down to some Fett Injera with butter. Remember Fett? That wonder grain with huge quantities of iron and calcium. Delicious. At this point I insisted on taking Tizazu on his promise to go to the village to get beer - my gift to the household and the neighbour who had so kindly pre-hosted me before Mulu came home. There was no beer shop. Just the most “perfect” family home I had seen.
A couple with 4 kids in a beautiful decorated home. They had the villages beer. Don't know why or how. Lovely couple with a great command of English. They sat me down and treated me to fresh grilled corn - common for visitors. Delicious. We talked about ETHIOPIA and AUSTRALIA. I loved them. Could have slept here. Their kids were wonderful. What a pity my camera was at the neighbours! I left reluctantly. I just knew then and there that they wanted me to stay. This is the magic that is ETHIOPIA. It is about people and endearing friendships. ETHIOPIA was an easy pick for me as the number one Cultural Capital of Africa!!! Back at Mulu’s we sat down to beers and Chira - a golden mashed bean paste with Fett Injera. The Fett was great - very dark in colour and very tasty. After dinner I put on Ai Caramba and placed my Mac on the family mantelpiece and we laughed and drank beers. Mulu found it hard to follow Ai Caramba and looking around at her house I realised just how similar it was to my dad’s childhood home in Greece so I got the idea of putting on my film of my dad’s last trip to Greece. Lulu responded immediately.
Tizazu helped translate my explanations of what was going in the film and she loved it. Even brought tears to her eyes since her husband had passed away 7yrs ago. She enjoyed it so much that she even had a beer - something that surprised everyone in the household to the point that they clapped. It spread around the village like a wild fire the next day - “Mulu bira”, “Mulu bira” they said. Both young and old found it very amusing. As we watched Greece, rain started to pelt down on the thatched roof but it was not that loud and very soothing - almost like “ white noise". Slept in a bed in the living room. Tizazu and Amanual slept in an adjacent bed and Mulu and her daughter in other room. It was very quiet and cosy. The beds in the living room is just like Greece (villages). I sank into sleep like the rain drops outside soaking into that giant thatched roof….
DAY 255 of 287, Sun 24JUL16, 21km, Solo 15, Rain, FEAST DAY OF ST BETRE MARIAM, Bed at the home of Mulu, Ura Kidhane Mihret, Zege Peninsula, Lake Tana (Elev 1788m) to Room at the "Manuhie Backpackers Lodge”, Bahir Dar (Elev 1786m) ETHIOPIA. Ever since I decided to go to Africa I wanted to do attend an Orthodox Liturgy (Mass) in ETHIOPIA as one of the “must do” things. And today was that day! Tizazu woke me up at 5:30am. It was dark so I washed up outside using my el-cheapo head torch from Harar. It was very cool and damp.
Not cold. I am glad that Mulu had a tap but the rest was like bush camping! At around 6am, I set off with my running companions for the Betre Mariam Church and Monastery about 25min walk away. No running but careful manoeuvring around the pools of muddy water and soft mud on a very uneven and busted up track. The overnight rain had created a mud bath! As we walked in the dark we noticed many other people walking past, wearing white tunics over their clothes which let off a light glow in the light of the moon. All the men, young and old had canes or crafted walking sticks with a handle. How is it that could walk so fast in the mud? I looked down with my head torch and noticed that everyone was wearing either sandals or barefoot. No one had shoes! Oh no! My blue Asic running shoes would be become a brown muddy mess! I should have taken a page out of the local’s book and worn my flip flops or barefoot since you take off your shoes anyway before entering the church.
The muddy path snaked its way through thick green rain forest. Eventually we started to hear the sound of chanting with the first light of the rising sun - it was mystical. I couldn’t believe where I was and what I was doing. As we entered the Monastery gates I noticed that the outside of the church was decorated in red and white ribbons, wrapped around the circular building like a birthday cake! There were already many people clad in white standing in the grounds around the church and the interior was almost full - white tunics everywhere, head covered and mouth in most cases. Man were in one hemisphere and women in the other with separate entries. This is similar in the very traditional Greek and Russian Orthodox churches but the entry is the same and men and women sit on opposite sides of the church. It was 6:30am and the morning matins had just started.
I stood outside for a while to take some photos and soak int he atmosphere then decided to leave the guys and go inside the church to stand with the monks. I found then and positioned myself only 2 metres away from the altar. I was very luck to get that spot. I could easily see what was going on inside the altar and had great views of the people behind me and part-way around the outside circular area. There were monks next to me and behind me with their trademark circular black hats with flat top - exactly the same as Greek or Russian Orthodox.
The order of having matins first and then the mass was the same but the actual services themselves were very different. Refer "PS: COMPARING THE ETHIOPIAN AND GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH BUILDING & LITURGY” for other similarities and differences between Ethiopian and Greek Orthodoxy and the service. I had a small wooden Byzantine Icon of Christ in the breast pocket of my shirt so that I could pull it out and show people that I was Orthodox. I used this technique to get close to the altar. Most people would take the icon from my hands, kiss it and return it to me. I was moved by that gesture. I felt connected somehow and it made me miss my own church very much. I felt “the brotherhood of Orthodoxy” through this one small and expected gesture. The monk next to me wore a yellow tunic and when I showed him my icon he exclaimed, much to my surprise, “ah, Orthodox, are you Greek?” He recognised the icon and spoke some English. I was so lucky. His name was “Abba Haylemarym” and he was part of the Betre Mariam Monastery.
He answered my questions and pointed out some gestures during the service. It was like having a friend and guide next to me! He saw the camera around my neck and encouraged me to film but whispered “no fash” and “no filming when we kneel”. No worries. I took many photos and film and the people around me did not seem to mind. Matins took 90min and the Mass another 2.5hrs - much like the Russians on a major Feast Day - they are always longer than a standard Matins/Mass which is normally 3hrs in total - today it was 4hrs and like the Russians, most people stood. At the start of the Mass, the yellow monk encouraged me to stand on his seat to film the crowd outside and more people inside further around the circular edifice.
It was about 8am and I could not believe my eyes at the sight outside. There was literally a “sea of white”. Not a space left. There must have been a few thousand people. Because everyone was wearing the white tunics over their heads they looked like a scene out of a Jesus movie, namely sermon on the mount! An amazing scene of faith and humility. About half way through the Mass the skies opened up and it poured with rain. I felt so bad for the people outside. When I looked around outside from my new home, standing on the monk’s seat, the sea of white had been replaced by a sea of coloured umbrellas - the monk explained to me that it always rains on the Saint’s Feast Day so people always come well-prepared. Thank goodness it was not cold. I could hear the crying of many young babies and was impressed at the resolve of the mothers to attend. Towards the end of Mass, the service suddenly change tempo and mood with the advent of big drums and small hand-held symbols.
All the monks and most of the lay people brought these hand held symbols and began to rattle them. The whole place filled with the sound of metallic clinking like a thousand crickets in the night! Lay people took turns beating the drums and everyone chanted words to fit the tempo of the drums and symbols. People then started to march back and forth and clap their hands. The monks took turns chanting by passing around a hand-held microphone. AN amazing sight and VERY different from Greek or Russian Orthodoxy where there are no musical instruments, no clapping and certainly no marching/movement. With this episode the Mass appeared to be winding up and the festivities outside starting. I think this transition was marked by a procession around the church, several times, of the altar boys, priests and the Gospel plus an icon of St Betre Mariam - much like the Greeks and Russians. This part was the same. The dancing and singing outside, though, was not the same. It was like the joy of the monks inside infected the crowd outside into a frenzy of merry making. The people outside started to dance and sing, even in the rain. This Saint was very loved. And with good reason. I found out later that he had set up all the monasteries around Lake Tana and even brought in the coffee crop that provided everyone with a living. He was much loved. He died in 1307 aged 87 but was not canonised until some one hundred years after his death. This is usual for the Orthodox who must be certain that the person involved consistently peforms miracles over a long period. Many people had been healed by this Saint by leaving articles of clothing under his huge icon in the altar. Also since his death, no person has ever been bitten by a poisonous snake that lives on the Zege Peninsula even to this day. Fishermen and farmers who carry Holy Water or charcoal from the leftover incense under his icon are also not struck by lightening - this was a common occurrence before the Saint’s death.
These are the main signs of his transformation. I am glad I found out these things AFTER my swim! I was wise to cut it short with the thunderstorm that was approaching yesterday. After the mass I remained in the church and culled my photos since it was still raining outside. Once it lightened up I made a dash for it. A thirty minute dash through absolute mud to make it to Mulu’s. I tried to find Tizazu and Amanual but there were simply too many people, even at noon. Several people helped me out along the way back - showing me alternate paths around the mud. It did not matter. My blue Asics were now brown bogs! My socks soaked in mud and my pants wet - thank goodness I managed to keep the mud off them.
Nanye greeted me with towels and I dried up as much as I could. I dd not change into dry clothes because the hotel was only 90min away in total and it was still raining outside. I would endure the mud and damp until the hotel. Nanye cooked up some scrambled egg on top of fett injera. It hit the spot. Nanye then called her brother who put me in touch with my boat driver. He called me and much to my surprise was already at the wharf where I had my swim the day before. I headed off immediately thanking Nanye and asking her to thank Mulu, Tizazu and Amanual - I was disappointed that I could not than and farewell them in person. The next door neighbour walked me to the wharf and helped carry some of my things - another impressive characteristic of the kind Ethiopian culture. Next to the concrete wharf there is a small covered open area with concrete floor with a lady seated at a portable charcoal fire making coffee. There were several other passengers enjoying the brew and I joined in since we were waiting on a few more people to arrive from the church.
There were many people from Bahir Dar, Gonder and even Addis Ababa who came especially for the Saint’s Feast Day today - the biggest celebration on the Zege Peninsula and Bahir Dar. The boat trip back was direct and took a little over an hour. I slept most of the way because of the early rise and all that damp on me. I caught a tuk-tuk to the hotel and got there around 3pm. It was still lightly raining and I was supposed to visit the city this arvo but no way hosay. All I could think about on my way back was a hot shower and dry clothes. When I walked into the hotel, I opened the door of my room, dumped by jacket, camera and all the contents of my pockets inside, grabbed my big soap, grabbed a bristled broom to brush off all the mud tand walked straight into the shower - clothes and shoes and soaks still on me. It was 30min before I walked out with just a towel around my waist and a handful of washed items. I felt great. Hung everything up in my room and proceeded to blog, cull and sip my much needed wine. What a great feeling to the clean, dry and warm and again. Warm inside and out! The wine, cheese and olives worked their magic on me. Now came the tricky bit. It was 6pm, still raining outside and I was starving. I could not the bothered going outside for food. I somehow mustered up the strength to put on clothes and a damp rain jacket and made it quick. Took a tuk-tuk to my favourite restaurant and back again armed with my favourite non-fasting platter. I was so glad to be back in the warmth and comfort of my room. I gobbled this food down in front of Star Trek like I had never eaten before. All that rain, mud and dump had famished me. As lay down to sleep under the pita-pata of the rain outside I prayed that the day would be sunny tomorrow since the Blue Nile Falls awaited me...
DAY 256 of 287, Mon 25JUL16, 74km, Solo 15, Room at the "Manuhie Backpackers Lodge”, Bahir Dar (Elev 1786m) ETHIOPIA. The Nile driver “Ephraim” was late but the day was perfect! Blue skies, warm and sunny. My prayers were answered. Instead of leaving at 9am we left at 10am which was going to eat into my city tour and did n fact impact it - more on this later. The scenery going out was fabulous. Lush green farmland with mountains and fluffy clouds in the background. Lots of small villages where every house and shop is on the main road. There were even pool tables under covered wooden shacks. Lots of maize and fett. The road was terrible which explains why it took an hour to drive just 37km out to the falls.
There were five other people riding with me. A couple and brother from Addis and a lady and niece from Gonder. All had come for the St Betre Mariam Feast Day. Our driver was playing Ethiopian rap music in the local dialect very strange but catchy. We stopped at a town called “Tis Abbay” close to the falls to pay an entrance fee and pick up “Abel”, our young twenty-something local guide. By the time we got to the falls it was very warm but the place shimmered with light - the contrast of the greens of the hills and with deep blue of the sky was tremendous. The falls would look great. There are three distinct falls over a total width of 400m, the highest being 45m with maximum flow rate of 5,665 cubic metres per second.
Small by comparison to Victoria. The falls are approx 30km downstream of the mouth of the Blue Nile at Lake Tana. It is a 20min walk to the falls but took us longer because of the number of stops and pictures that we took. We passed the 17th Century stone bridge built by the Portuguese over the Blue Nile and tuned a corner to reveal the two hydroelectric plants and the three distinct falls of the Blue Nile. They were obvious. A decent amount of dark brown water gushing over like it was liquid chocolate!!! The older 34 MWatt power station had been built by the Italians back in WWII when they occupied the country briefly. They has also set up a town which the locals took over and to this day they still speak some Italian. They surprised me when they greeted me with “Bonjorno” and farewelled me with “Chow”. There is also a much bigger newer 73 MWatt power station built by the Chinese and former Yugoslavia of all nations back in 2002. This was one walk where you are CONSTANTLY accosted by locals wanting sell you everything from coffee to flutes.
It did become a bit too much. I must have said “No Thankyou” 1,000 times! The walk to the falls is good because it passes opposite all three falls to get a front on view. The path then snakes down to an old suspension bridge built by a private benefactor to enable visitors to get to the falls quicker. There are even farmers and their smaller animals that use this bridge for short cuts. The path ends right in front of the main fall with some spray in your face. Boy was I glad that I wore the sandals that my host Nati gave me - there was pools of water and mud here and in many places along the path here from the car park. My feet were covered in mud but my blue Asics were still blue, drying back at the hotel! I had learned my lesson from the locals. The only downside is that I had to walk slowly given the rocks and slippery mud. I managed to find a spot without spray to take lots of footage.
I finished my footage quickly and decided to walk back ahead to find a good spot for dag dance without delaying the others. It just happened to be in a spot that had a woman making hot coffee. Perfect. I managed to have a cup before the others arrived. Abel took my dag dance and it was off to the car. Unfortunately I stubbed my toe on a rock making a cut in front of my large toe nail - thank goodness I did not remove the toe nail. It bled quite a bit under the layers of mud and looked worse than what it was. It was painful but I reckon I could tie it u an still run on it the next day - I was planning to run today but it was already 1:30pm when we got to the car park and I still had to visit Bahir Dar - there would be no time for both and besides, the stubbed toe would be too mainly today.
It needed one day to heal. Bugger. Why do I keep injuring my legs? By 3pm I was clean and my toe dressed and ready to tour the town. I started with the markets and tucked-tuked my way around because of the distances and the toe. The markets were nothing special. I tried to find fur lined sandals to go with my robe but everything was westernised. There was also more mud in the centre of the markets and I was still in sandals since my Asics were not dry yet. I left the mud and took a tuk-tuk to the famous “Amhara Peoples’ Martyrs Memorial” complete with museum and library.
This big complex is 5km out of town on a slight hill overlooking the city and lake. It was built to commemorate the struggle and sacrifice made by locals, soldiers and politicians (the EPDM party) against the Russian-backed, communist Derg party that almost destroyed the country in the late 20th Century. Victory came in 1991 with he first free elections held in 1995. The centrepiece is a tall 30m column comprising three pillars that represents the struggle to “get back on top”. The column sits on top of the main building with three traces set out below. The terrace below contains a statue of a mother over a fallen son and several statues of each type of person that struggled and died in the resistance. The statutes, terraces and surrounding gardens are quite nice but the museum is sad.
The rooms are unkept and look like a subway station. There are many framed black and white photos on the walls but in no set order. At least they have captions in English but do not really tell a story or inform you with any detail. There are also very old decaying glass cabinets with weapons in them. Not that great. The main ethnic group of the Lake Tana area is in fact the Amhara people but they do stretch further north to Gonder and Lalibela in the highlands. From here I took a share minivan to “Felege Genet St George Cathedral” in the centre of town and next to the boats that take you to the monasteries on the lake. Whilst the grounds of St George are a good size, the church building itself is not that large and not that impressive. It was closed and so was the ancient museum which look like a 1000yr old moss bitten grain storage barn. I would have like to have visited the Royal Palace which is set on a high hill about 20min drive out of town but thanks to Ephraim, the Nile driver being late, the was now not possible since it was 6pm, very cloudy and starting to sprinkle with sunset at 7pm.
I would now go to my final stop - the Taytu Fish Restaurnt to get some fish for tonight. A young tell guy approached me as I asked people for directions and took me there but no fish. It is a floating restaurant but very small and is now just a place for tourists to have a drink and take photos. When I got back to the mainland the young guy was tall waiting for me. I explained without being rude that I did not need directions. h immediately reassured me that he would not ask for money and just wanted some advice on his studies and what he wanted to do - I was surprised by this. He certainly came to the right person.
I asked him “why me”? He simply said that I looked like I knew what I was doing and certain about what I wanted to see in my asking for directions from others. A good observation I guess. He led me back to the fish restaurant that stood above the boats and where I had coffee before the cruise. I knew where it was but I did not have the heart to tell him to piss off. I also wanted to I’ve him the advice he’s ought - if I could! I picked out two whole medium sized fish for frying and ordered two beers. We sat down at a table overlooking the lake. It was ca little brisk but the view was good and the beer refreshingly cold. He told me that he had just finished a two year college course on resources conservation back in 2013 and was unable to find a job. He was now thinking of starting his own business in tourism and asked me what tourists like me liked and disliked about tourist offerings in Africa. I told him that the key was “time”. Most tourists do not have time.
Time to organise and time ti actually site see. When we arrive at a camp facility or hotel we need to know what is on offer with options around timing so we can make things fit and get going immediately. I gave him examples. Lets say two travellers arrive in Bahir Dar at noon but one has to leave the next morning but the other one can stay two nights. Even though Bahir Dar has a fixed number of sites or things to do there should be package options that make the best use of a half day or full day with clear itineraries and prices. Most travellers are time poor or cannot be bothered ding their won research so they need to be able to pick and choose like food from a menu. I also told him that things should be written down to avoid confusion and give the package credibility. Not just word of mouth. He got this. The other thing is not to bombard a tourist with too many options or “it depends”.
I also told him that people following you in the streets and pushing objects in from of your face is definitely the best way to alienate a tourist. If a tourist wants something, they will ask for it. I think he got this too. By this time we were out of beer and the food arrived. I asked them to show it to me and then pack it in front of me so that I knew what I was getting. All too often the sit-down version and the take-away version where either different things or qualities. He also like that. We walked to the tuk-tuk and he wanted to come with me to talk on the way - this is where I had to draw the line. I was running the risk of not being able to shake him and I did not want him to know where I was staying. He was a little upset but got it. Another hot shower (could no get enough of them) and settled down to some blogging before dinner. I had a mountain of olives and cheese to get through and many photos to cull. The fish was good and I had it with more Star Trek and a bottle of Rift Valley Chardonnay to celebrate the end of a successful Solo 15 - I would be re-joining the truck first thing tomorrow morning. I booked the young 18yr old tuk-tuk driver who brought me and the fish home for 7am. Would he turn up?
DAY 257 of 287, Tue 26JUL16, 370km, Room at the "Manuhie Backpackers Lodge”, Bahir Dar (Elev 1786m) to Room at the “Bete Abraham Hotel”, Lalibela (Elev 2404m) ETHIOPIA. He did not turn up. It was 7:05am and I had to look for another driver. I wondered if is was caused by this whole Ethiopian calendar thing. The Ethiopian Orthodox have their own calendar and time clock. They are 7yrs and 7hrs behind. When you ask for the time or they ask you they always differentiate between “European” and “Ethiopian” time. I knew about this so I told the young driver yesterday to pick map 7am EUROPEAN time! Did he actually get it? Right now that was not important. I was going to ask Nati to ring for a tuk-tuk but I did not have the heart to wake him up and it could take ages for a driver to come out. Instead I walked to the main road about 5min away and stuck my hand up. I was out of town so most passing tuk-tuks already had passengers.
Lucky for me someone got out right in front of me and handed a vacant vehicle. I was off. Made it with 10min to spare. The truck was at the back of the Dib Anbessa Hotel, very old and very popular and a short walk from St George, the port and main drag - great location. Everyone was booked into rooms. After greeting everyone again, we were off just after 7:30am bound for Lalibela instead of Gonder - the itinerary had changed! Boy was I lucky.
If I had missed the truck I would bought a public bus to Gonder. The truck would be there two days later! It was a cloudy morning with light rain as we left. The morning drive was very green. Lush green farms everywhere. First flat and then with spectacular valleys and mountains. We peaked at 3,165m with some strange rocky outcrops that resembled the huge boulders of “Meteora” in Northern Greece that appeared in James Bond and contain monasteries on top. How strange. This did not look like Africa. So green, so lush, so high, so cold with mountains and deep valleys everywhere - it looked more like northern England or Ireland or Scotland.
I could not believe my luck - I was on cook group today. The good news is that I missed brekkie and would likely not do dinner if the camping place did not allow cooking, which is often the case. Andi had not been there before. Fingers crossed. Our lunch was just under 3000m with a spectacular view of multiple valleys below. The afternoon drive continued this theme of huge mountain chains covered in green. AT one stage we had a whole Eucalyptus forest besides us. One descent had mountains with green grass mixed with rocks much like the Andes in BOLIVIA in South America. If someone showed me photos of the scenery we saw today and said that we were in ETHIOPIA - I would not believe them! The climb contued to 2400m and we turned a corner and there it was - Lalibela (Pop 16,000), spread outer several igneous volcanic plateaus with a huge central ridge towering over the town like a lion over its pride.
It was 5:30pm and quite foggy. We could see lightening in the destine and eventually the sound of distant thunder - thank goodness there were plenty of rooms to upgrade to and they were cheap. Riza and I dumped our stuff and headed back to the truck to do cook group.
It was a good one because we got plenty of help from Andi and Grant and many group members as the weather was closing in and there was not much to do. After dinner we headed to our rooms to have an early night - everyone was tired from the drive - it was long and very bumpy and these types of drives seem to take a lot out of you even though you are on your arse for most of the time. No trouble falling asleep.
DAY 258 of 287, Wed 27JUL16, 0km, Room at the “Bete Abraham Hotel”, Lalibela (Elev 2404m) ETHIOPIA. Apparently it was thundery and raining most of the night but I did not hear a thing - that is proof of a good sleep. What a great day it was today. We saw a total of 12 churches carved out of the volcanic basalt of the mountain sides of Lalibela at an elevation of 2432m - this is what this “town in the sky” is famous for. These churches remind you of the structures at Petra in Southern JORDAN but are not the same since Petra is only a facade into a cave whereas these structures are whole, stand-alone buildings that you can walk around! Our guide “Mario” turned up at 9am to take us on a walking tour of the churches.
They are separated into two groups: "The North Eastern Group” and “The South Eastern Group”. We walked the North Eastern from 9am to Noon and the South Eastern from 2pm to 5pm and had lunch at a hotel restaurant in between. I have listed the names of all the churches at the top of this post. Before visiting the churches we visited the museum next to the ticket office which is only a singe room with church articles in it, some up to 900yrs old: icons, vestments, chalices, censors, crosses, staffs, hymn books, Gospels. Also displayed are the iron tools used to carve the churches out of the rock.
The museum itself is poorly lit and without Engish labels. Instead you get a guide and in our case he was very poor - difficult to understand and could not understand most of our questions. We had to ask Mario later, who was very knowledgeable. Mario was also very engaging and even entertaining. He would sit us down and take “mystical” photos of images carved not the wall which were not obvious to the naked eye. He had both a factual and comical nature about him that made him a very effective guide - not boring at all. Before I talk about the “churches”, it is important to define “churches” by differentiating “altars” from “buildings”.
The “buildings” are edifices carved out of the mountain as a single piece, including walls, ceilings and all internal pillars, arches and features. The “altars” are rooms in these buildings, hidden by curtains, that only the priest can enter and contain an altar table with the Gospel and Tabernacle on top. Typically each building is one church with one altar but there are also single buildings with two altars in them, hence two churches. I have defined a “church” as an “altar” and not a “building".
The “church” or “house” is dedicated to a particular Saint so the outside wall of the “altar” contains an icon of that Saint and other icons to adorn the outside of the altar. The Greek and Russian Orthodox typically call this an “iconostasis” or “icon screen” but in the case of Lalibela this is just a basalt wall with a central opening for the altar and framed icons are either mounted or lean against this wall. The churches of Lalibela were all built by the same person at the same time. King Lalibela (1101-1198) built them over 23yrs using local and domestic volunteers from all over ETHIOPIA totalling between 40,000 and 60,000 over this period. It was considered a special blessing to work on the churches and many came to Lalibela for this purpose.
Once completed 1179, all the churches have been used for worship to this very day. The work is so impressive that it received UNESCO protection in 1978 and many famous people have been here including Bill Clinton. In 2008, many of the roofs started to leak and crumble due to excessive rain (mostly blamed on global warming) and the Italian Government sponsored a project that erected huge roofs over the buildings. You can see them in the photos - I cal them “petrol station roofs” because that is what I reckon they look like. Many of us felt that they were an eye-sore and spoilt the ancient and almost mystical appearance of the buildings themselves. One of the buildings used a sprayed on polymer of the same colour and texture of the walls and original roof and this is what should have been used for all the others and replenished over time if needed. We saw a total of 6 churches within 5 buildings in the North Eastern Group.
The first one was the most impressive since it was also the largest with a significant interior: Bete Mehane Alem or House of Christ The Redeemer. “Bete” means “house”. It measures: 33m long, 23m wide and 11m tall. That gives an interior space of 8,349 cubic metres - imagine how much rubble was removed. Much of it was used to make bricks for dwellings to house the clergy and caretakers of these buildings. The design of this church is based on the later Byzantine “ark” or “boat” floor plan: a rectangular exterior but inside the walls take up the shape of a cross with a central dome and domes above the four arms of the cross. Many modern-day Greek churches are built in this style including my own parish. We saw two other styles. The classic earlier Byzantine style of external and internal walls built in a cross shape with central dome. In summary, all the buildings I saw were nothing like the “circular” style of the monastery churches of Lake Tana.
They resembled more the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches which I expected to see in Lake Tana. I felt more at home here. It also makes sense that the churches here should resemble the Greek and Russian since they were built shortly after the Schism, before which, there was only one style - this style! Bete Mehare Alem was truly impressive and very solemn inside. Simple red carpet flooring on top of the rock - quite uneven but smooth. Only a few icons surrounding the huge satin altar curtain of red, orange and yellow pattern. Huge pillars holding up a roof with architrave carvings and features. All dark brown in colour with a reddish tinge. Each church has a priest that is specifically allocated to the church to watch over it, pray and bless whoever approaches including myself.
The next church of Bete Meskel (The Cross) was a much smaller building in the courtyard of the first building. To the side was a single building housing the churches (altars) of Bete Maryam (Our Lady) and Bete Denegal (The Virgin). All of these buildings had the same interiors of red carpet (symbolising the blood of Christ) and altar curtains and icons yet each possessed a slightly different feature, be it the shape of the windows, the shape of the internal pillars, the design of the roof architrave or the features on the walls. No two buildings were alike. My favourite interior was Debre Sina-Mikael (Archangel Michael) because next to the altar was a separate room or chapel with the tomb of King Lalibela himself and his Queen. He is buried in the second altar, 2 metres below the floor.
You cannot see anything due to the altar curtain but there are two reliefs of the King and Queen within the chapel that look very medieval. Only men are allowed in the chapel so we had some female hands reach in with their cameras! The last church of Bete Golgotha (Golgotha) was a very small and simple altar incorporated into he exit from the North Eastern complex which comprises a wall with deep crevasses that surround the churches we saw. The crevasses help redirect and drain rainwater to the valley below to prevent erosion of the churches themselves - clever. From here it was a short walk into the village and to a restaurant where we all enjoyed a great sit down lunch of huge portions! I picked my favourite fasting (vegetarian) bayenetu platter followed by a great strong Ethiopian coffee.
At 2pm we were off again to visit another 6 churches and 6 buildings of the South Eastern Group. The first building contained the churches (altars) of Bete Gabriel (Archangel Gabriel) and Bete Raphael (Archangel Raphael). It was also an impressive building in theat it had a huge cavity or waterless moat around it to protect it from intruders.
The old wooden bridge to the entrance was now replaced by a stone bridge and just as well because it was a long way down tot he bottom of the cavity. Inside were special lighting effects as the sun poured in through the windows and Mario demonstrated some awesome photographic effects using peoples cameras. We then passed the “Bethlehem" building which was used as a bakery for the bread used in the Liturgy (Mass). We then walked down into and through a 33m long pitch-black tunnel that linked the first two buildings with Bete Merkorios (St Dimtrios).
We used our hands to find our way through the tunnel and it was quite a novelty. In fact, many of the churches in Lalibela were connected to each other and the outside world by a network of tunnels. In many of the churches we could see wooden boards with huge stones on top to seal these access points so that outsiders would not enter. Bete Merkorios (St Dimtrios) was my favourite in this group because he is a very revealed Saint in the Greek Orthodox Church and my Godson is named after him.
The icon of St Dimetrios was also the biggest and most detailed. Bete Emmanuel (Christ) was very small and simple but Bete Abba Libranos (St Libanos, Rock of Africa) was very unique and impressive and more like the structure of Petra. It is carved into the mountain side with a very ornate facade and a cavity around it. You enter on the side and walk around the back to see the altar which is in the middle and then exit through the front. A unique but strange design not like the others. The last building and church of Bete Giorgis (St George) is the most famous because it features in most books, magazines and documentaries about Lalibela. I think it is because it is located on its own, well away from the other churches and built out of a huge stone in the ground. It is in the shape of a Greek Cross and the roof top is flat and very ornate. It is this shape and the fact that you look at it from above with a cavity around it that makes it very photogenic and recognisable. It is like carving out a church in the top of Uluru!
After observing the church from a high hill and then from the edges of the dugout you then climb down to the bottom of the cavity and entry using a ramp carved into the rocky cavity. The cavity walls are very close to the church so the interior is very dark. It is also a very small interior and as a result has no pillars - just like being inside a tall cross. It is not that ornate or endowed with icons which have largely faded. It was a great way to end my visit since it is my home parish and I sat down to reflect and pray for a speedy but triumphant entry into Cairo. We are also at the cusp of a storm and made it back to the hotel just in time and just after 5pm. Tonight we would all have dinner together at an iconic restaurant punched on its own mountain and surrounded by the mountains and valleys around Lalibela.
After a quick but hot shower and some emails we assembled at the hotel gates and climbed into a minivan which took 15min to take us to a simply breathtaking location and edifice. As we passed through the very simple dwellings and wooden stalls of Lalibela village it was hard to believe that there was a restaurant of international repute at the end of all of this! And yet there it was. It emerged like rocket ship against a launch pad ready to rise! It is hard to describe it and unfortunately it was dark and misty and I had left my cameras at the hotel thinking we were going to something bog standard. This was far from bog standard! An architectural master piece of oval platforms and glass enclosures cantilevered from a central spiral core a bit like a helix of DNA. This thing was awesome and fitted out with the finest materials. Every part of it had a magnificent view of the open huge valley below and distant mountains. It was completely out of place. Even the toilets were amazing. Each cubicle inside a huge egg from the movie Alien with a rock wall and fittings worthy of a 5 star restaurant. I was the first to go and invited everyone upstairs for a must-see experience. All returned to the table with a grin on their faces!
The restaurant is called “Ben Abeba" and was suggested by Keith who had been here before. There were a thousand Trip Advisor awards on the wall and with justice! The restaurant was built by a Scottish woman who married a local guy from Lalibela, hence the name and the menu specialty of “Ethiopian Shepard’s Pie”, which most people ordered. Prices were also cheap despite our location and architectural wonder! Wine was also very reasonable - it is usually expensive in Ethiopian restaurants. I was delighted. The menu had a combination fasting and non-fasting bayenetu and Rift Valley Chardonnay - both had my name on them and I was the only one to order them. I did well. The Shepard’s Pie was tiny and my bayenetu was huge and the best I have eaten to date. A mountain of succulent beef done two ways surrounded by a sea of veggies. Simply loved it. Easily this restaurant, this meal and this dining experience was the best to date. We also had a lot of fun as a group. The ride back seemed a lot longer, probably because most of us were tired from walking all day. It started to sprinkle and get cold so seeing a warm bed was a sight for sore eyes!
DAY 259 of 287, Thu 28JUL16, 420km, Rain, Room at the “Bete Abraham Hotel”, Lalibela (Elev 2404m) to Room at the “Jantekel Hotel”, Gonder (Elev 2113m) ETHIOPIA. We had a long drive ahead of us today so we left Lalibela at 6:30am. I continued sleeping then blogged my way back through our “back-track” to Debark - thank goodness we had seen and shot this magnificent scenery under clear, partly-sunny conditions because our return journey was cloudy, foggy and cold. As least the rain held in the morning. Lunch was early at 11:30am at the same place as on our way to Lalibela. We were at 2,800m and we put on extra clothes and secured the flaps on the trucks sides. It was silly leaving them open all morning - most people had a cold and covered in blankets. Made no sense. The afternoon drive was quite placid. Most people slept or read because the views were clouded over. I worked on my photos and blog until now. In the late arvo it started to rain and looked like it was settling in for the evening.
Every time we passed a village or town we could here the laughter and shrills of the smaller kids - typical calls were “farang, farang (foreigner, foreigner)” or “money money” or “pen pen” but mostly it was “hello hello” or a Arab style yodelling. Every kid waved and smiled as they shouted these words or shrilled or laughed - their faces were genuinely happy to see us! It is an image I had seen and heard a lot of in MOROCCO and most West African countries. It is an image and sound that characterises Africa for me and would never leave my eyes and ears. Given our long drive today I had ample time to research my next Solo 16 journey to Aksum (or Axum) via the Simien Mountains further north in ETHIOPIA and then across through the border to SUDAN and across that country and north to the Egyptian border. I wanted to stay longer in Aksum ETHIOPIA, Khartoum SUDAN and see all of the antiquities of northern SUDAN. I would show Riza and Tim tonight to gauge their interest in joining me. Hopefully our camp in Gonder has a good WIFI to allow me to research flights and accom tonight. Wrong. We arrived at 6pm and the WIFI was no good.
Fortunately a tour agent called Peter turned up at 6:30pm to talk to the group about tour options to the Simien Mountains and Aksum. I booked a two-day, one-night Simien trip with 9 others in the group - two 4WDs with 5 each. We would all end up in Aksum but Riz and I would do our own tour of Aksum and then fly to Khartoum. The whole group stayed in rooms at the Jantekel Hotel. They were terrific. Large single beds and a modern bathroom with hot water and even a fridge and TV! I was in heaven again. There is a full restaurant and bar with balcony views over the city. By the time we completed our arrangements it was 8pm so I decided to have room service - nice. It was very quick and priced well. Decided to sleep early so I could wake up early for a run.
DAY 260 of 287, Fri 29JUL16, 0km, Room at the “Jantekel Hotel”, Gonder (Elev 2113m, Run5) ETHIOPIA. It was a successful run but very huffy and puffy to start with given a long uphill start climbing to 2,200m. Once I was acclimatised to the hight and found a rhythm in my breathing it was an enjoyable run despite the cold and cloud - at least there was no rain. It was a great opportunity to run given Peter was coming at 9:30am to collect payment for our Simien trip and to quote me on a two-day Aksum tour. I had my first ATM drama in trying to withdraw local currency for Peter. There was a machine outside our hotel and another 3 outside the adjacent hotel. Tried four but the guards told me they had run out of cash. Inserted my card in the last one and keyed in the maximum withdrawal equivalent to AUD220. The machine chugged and rattled as it usually does and my card popped out. Grabbed my card and waited for the slot to open and dispense the notes. Slot did not open and a message came up on the screen “This ATM is temporarily out of service”. Now what? The guard came down to check things out. This machine, like the others, were stand-alone (not attached to a bank) to service the hotel clients. I found the hotel manager and told him what had happened. He suggested I go to the branch. It was 9:15am and Peter was expecting payment in 15min - I explained this to the manager and he reacted immediately. The manager told me he would ring the branch and ask them to send a technician to check to see if the transaction had gone through and to access the money manually. I thanked the manager for his excellent reaction and told him to come to my hotel to get me when the technician arrives because I had to go there now and pay Peter in USD.
Thank goodness I always have USD on me for events like this! Andi was collecting payments for Peter and after explaining my ATM incident she gave me the option to pay at 5:30pm. Great. I would hold on to the USD and try to get the local out of the ATM or the branch. As I was preparing to go back to the ATM, the hotel manager showed up and invited me back. Kept his word and amazing that the technician came out so quickly. The technician conformed that my transaction was recorded but the machine was not able to open the money slot. The cash was assembled and sitting there behind the slot. The technician simply grabbed the cash and handed it to me. Unreal. I then asked him if I could withdraw some more and he said YES.
It was a manual transaction with the technician passing me the cash. When I told Andi and Grant what had happened, they laughed - it was like a little man inside the ATM handing you the cash - an amusing image! At, 10am Riza and I travelled with Peter to an Ethiopian Airways branch office so that we could book our flights to Aksum and Khartoum by phone given there appeared to be no internet anywhere - we tried the two other hotels - no luck. The guy at Ethiopian confirmed that the data network for the entire town was down. He quoted USD50 for Aksum and USD660 for Khartoum. Riza agreed to Aksum but both of us freaked out about Khartoum - no way! I then went into action. I asked Peter if I could buy data for his smart phone and try using his voice network to get to the internet. He agreed and we walked next door to buy it and load it. Came back and I dialled up skyscanner.com for flights - it worked!!! The price was also right at USD270. We all went to a coffee shop while I booked the flights. Success.
We were on our way to SUDAN! Now it was time to see Gonder (Pop 500,000), Ethiopia’s third largest city. "The Royal Enclosure” was a very short walk away and we secured a guide. His name was Abebaw. It was the best thing we ever did. Abebaw turned out to be brilliant. With a guide those medieval stones told a fabulous story - almost like a soap opera - more on this soon. Without a guide they would be just a pile of rocks. A young French-Italian photo journalist joined us. "The Royal Enclosure” consists of 6 castles and a number of other buildings built by a succession of 6 Kings from 1636 to 1755. Gonder is reich in history having been the capital of ETHIOPIA from 1559 to 1868. The region around Gonder was also the first place to be settled in ETHIOPIA with the advent of the Solomonic Dynasty (King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba) from 800BC to 841AD.
Here is a list of the castles that we visited, named after the King that built them, with the build year and duration of his reign in parenthesis: 1) Fassil Castle, built 1636 (1636-1667), 2) Yohans I Castle, built 1682 (1667-1682), 3) Adiam-Seghed Iyasus Castle, built 1694 (1682-1716), 4) Adbar-Seghed Dawits Castle, built 1790 (1716-1721), 5) Messih-Seghed Bekafa Castle, built 1725 (1721-1730) and 6) Birhan-Seghet Kuregna Lyasu & Hegie Mintiwab Castle, built 1730 (1730-1755). The largest and best preserved of the castles was the first one with solid flooring and walls. We entered a total of 3 castles with the rest either closed due to poor flooring. The whole site became UNESCO protected in 1978 and UNESCO continues to do some restoration work on all the castles. We also saw a number of other buildings in the complex: the Fassil Archives (King Fassil’s library), the Sauna Bath (went inside and saw the bath and charcoal and plant container used to make the steam), long horse stable, a cage for lions and several houses for cooks. All the dwellings are made with basalt bricks cemented together with crushed and cured limestone.
The crushed limestone was mixed with water and buried in the ground to cure it. Curing makes it stronger. What made the tour so interesting was relationships between the kings and queens and the affairs, intrigue and murders that took place between them - too lengthy to mention here. Abebaw knew his dates and stories like they were part of his own family! What a pity we could not take him with us to other sites. From now on we would travel around by tuk-tuk. We caught one immediately to “Debre Birhan Selassie Church” built in 1698. It was closed because there was a Mass going on inside. It was 1:30pm and we were told to come back after 3pm. After pleading with the gate man, even to the extent of me saying that I was Orthodox and that he was preventing me from worshiping Jesus - it did not work! So off we went with our previous tuk-tuk driver, "Haptame" who decided to stick around and take us to all our sites at no extra cost. Peter had given me the order of sites and the tuk-tuk cost between so I knew what price to negotiate.
The next site was the “Fasilides Bath". It is a mini-castle complete with roof top enclosure standing on pillars in the middle of an empty moat. It was closed and there was a bit of water at the back. The moat was surrounded by a large green park with several very old trees spread throughout and some with roots growing on the surrounding walls - just like in CAMBODIA! Most of the Kings used this place as a summer house taking their swims or baths in the moat, hence the name. Today it is used by the Ethiopian Orthodox to celebrate the Epiphany or the Baptism of Christ and The Holy Spirit on 6-8 January every year.
The whole town turns up to participate. The centrepiece of the service is the Priest throwing a big gold cross into the water filled moat and a bunch of young men diving in to be the first to retrieve it for good luck for the rest of the year - this is also practiced by the rest of Orthodoxy. This was a peaceful place on the outskirts of town and seemed a million miles away from the hustle and bustle of Africa. From here we headed up a hill to the “Empress Mintwah Kuskuam Complex”, which consists of a church, monastery, palace and museum built in 1730 by the Queen of the same name after her first husband died.
The Queen lived here from 1733 to 1769 upon her death at age 85. The explorer who discovered the source of the Blue Nile married one of the Queen’s daughters and also lived here. The palace and surrounding buildings (library, cooks quarters and huge banquet hall) are all crumbling with no roofs, wild grass growing inside and collapsed walls. It is not a UNESCO site and it shows… The curch that is there is the classic round saucer shape of Tana and was rebuilt in 1956 after a fire burnt down the original church. The best surprise of this place and of our entire visit of Gonder was inside the tiny two-room museum. We paid AUD7 to enter and it looked more like a store room than a museum. Inside the first room are church artefacts, some up to 900yrs old. It is the second room that held the surprise of the day. There were icons, a huge bed and what looked like a very low covered cabinet in the corner.
The icons and bed belonged to the Queen. The bed was a “queen-sized” bunk bed - the Queen slept on the bottom and the King on the top. How weird. That was not the surprise. At that point in time I made a gesture to Riza to get out of there and a mental note to ask the museum keeper (who spoke English) to show us the tomb of the Queen. That would not be necessary. The keeper tapped me on the shoulder and gestured towards the covered cabinet. He proceeded to lift the cover and say "look at this”. I jumped back. I expected to see a cabinet with cups and sauces in it.
Instead I gazed upon a small glass lid coffin with three skulls at the top and a pile of bones at the bottom! “Is that what I think it is” I exclaimed in surprise! “Whose bones are these?” I continued. The keeper replied calmly “that is the Queen - the one in the middle”. “What?”, I said in total shock! "And whose bones are on the left and right”, I replied. “The Queen’s son on the right and his son on the left”. I had to check - “were they also Kings?”. “Yes” came the reply. Now I was amazed and said to the keeper “Is this allowed?”. “Does the government and church let you keep the bones of three significant monarchs in a small box in the corner of a small room like this?”. “Sure, OK” came the reply.
By now, Riza was in a fit of laughter at my questions and the bizarre nature of this reveal. I expected to see a big marble or wooden sarcophagus inside the church or a large ornate tomb outside. This poor women was in box under a cover in the corner of a room with some of her possessions leaning against her like a store room!!! It was actually quite comic despite the potential display of disrespect. As we left, Riza was still laughing in the tuk-tuk proclaiming “it was the best museum money I have ever spent!” I think Riza must have laughed all the way back to the Debre Birhan Selassie Church. It was 3:15pm and the mass would be over. We also paid entry to this place and the church was open. Its external architecture was again different - rectangular in shape with a a wrap-around balcony and in excellent condition. Inside was an icon screen at the east end with two entries into the alter.
More reminiscent of Greek and Russian Orthodoxy but still slightly different. There were icons point all over the walls near the front and the distinguishing feature was hundreds of little baby-faced cherubs painted on the ceiling and staring back at you! It was a visually pleasing church. And now for something completely different. Haptame would drive us to the “Dashen Brewery” for a tour and some drinks and maybe even dinner - Peter told us that it had a great beer garden and good food. I had run past it in the morning and the gates were open. As we were getting out of the tuk-tuk at the brewery our driver gestured us to get back in - my heart sank. He announced that the tourist side of the operation was closed for the next three days for some repairs. Bugger. I was looking for a cold beer and a beer garden dinner.
So it was back to the hotel. Still no WIFI so we had a little wine, cheese, olives and blog time before walking to the next door hotel to check the menu - no go. Not enough variety and expensive compared to our hotel. Had a shower and decided to have dinner on the balcony - that was a great idea. It was not that cold and we watched people go by. Had a terrific dinner. I enjoyed a mixed platter with meat and veggies - delicious. I was set for the Simiens. I had an early night again given the early rise tomorrow.
DAY 261 of 287, Sat 30JUL16, 140km, Rain, Room at the “Jantekel Hotel”, Gonder (Elev 2113m) to Dorm Bed at “Sankaber Camp”, Simien Mountains National Park (Elev 3202m) ETHIOPIA. It was cloudy and lightly raining.
Bad sign. Our two Land Rover 4WDs turned up slightly late and by 7am, nine of us left for the Simien Mountains some 2.5hrs away. Sadly the rain did not let up and we ascended into cloud so visibility was down to a few metres. I noticed that the landscape was very green before the clouds rolled in. It did not take long to break the 3000 metre mark.
Our driver Daniel, was very careful in the bad conditions. We made a stop at the rangers office of the Simien Mountains National Park to pay our fees and enter our names. It had taken us 3hrs to get here given the conditions. Another brief stop at a small town to have a hot cup of tea. At this stage last night’s meal must have given me another mild case of diarrhoea and this was my third number 1.5 since waking up! My belly was slightly painful and the bowel movements controllable. We drove another 1.5hrs through the national park to get to the start of the hiking - that location was thick with cloud, poor visibility, raining with some wind. No go. Tim and I decided to stay with the car and drive on to the camp. Everyone else braved the cold and rain and disappeared into the mist… I was not prepared to get cold and wet and risk a cold in the last 3 weeks of my trip just to see white cloud. The driver also told Tim and I that, if by some miracle, the fog lifted we would be able to see the Simiens from the camp.
There was always a 50-50 chance that it would be like this and I had to get to Aksum anyway. It was an expensive transit but I would have only one chance to see the Simiens which are a spectacular display of needle spires. Hopefully the cloud would move on tomorrow morning because there was no sign of it doing anything for the rest of today. The camp was only 20min away and we settled in to our VERY basic concrete dorm hut with tin roof. Inside was 10 beds with blanket, sheet and pillow - I decided not to use my sleeping bag since I had my thermals with me and it was not freezing. Tim and I picked some beds against the only two windows on the right side of the room since I wanted to blog and read my notes. We talked a lot about our African experience, the truck and the plight of Africa, past, present and future. The group arrived around 3pm after a 4hr trek. I do not know how they did it. They were soaking wet outside and shoes and socks were saturated! Half had smiles, half did not. It had rained the whole time and the visibility had not changed. No Simiens. No photos. At least they saw plenty of baboons. I talked a while with Sharon and then everyone rested. I had to sleep. My diarrhoea was the same but my stomach was sore. Had the soup for dinner but could not stomach the main dish - what a pity - it looked good beef ribs, spinach and rice. I went straight to bed. Had to use the sleeping bag since I felt unusually cold. I reckon the bug that I ate last night was now showing its ugly face and I had to defeat it. Sleep was my greatest weapon.
DAY 262 of 287, Sun 31JUL16, 294km, Rain, Dorm Bed at “Sankaber Camp”, Simien Mountains National Park (Elev 3202m) to Room at the “Africa Hotel”, Aksum (Elev 2149m), Aksum ETHIOPIA. It was a very unsettled night but I managed to get the sleep I needed. I ran a fever during the night since I had to throw off half my clothes. I then settled in to just the right temperature. It did;t help that there was a cacophony of coughing and sneezing in the place. I was at risk of catching more than just a stomach bug. Another reason I like to travel alone. I stepped out for a dump at 6am and to check the weather. Same as yesterday. Couldn’t see in front of you nose. I went back to sleep and awoke to the commotion of 10 people having breakfast and getting ready t go for another walk, this time to a nearby waterfall.
As soon as they left at 7:30am it started to rain - another good decision not to go. I packed and had a cuppa tea and lay down until 8:30am when I got on the $WD and travelled down to the pickup point for the others. Daniel and Peter invited me to walk down to the waterfall but I was not in shape to go and fearful of rain and riding wet to Aksum for 7hrs. I also noticed that the falls were very deep in the valley and in fog. The mist lifted a bot and I told Daniel I would take some photos and then sit in the car. When I returned to the car - no Daniel and locked car! I was pissed off. I was now out in the cold and would wait 30-60in for the others to return - what was the point of staying back if I could not sit in the warmth of the car1 I found a bush and crawled into it to get out of the cold wind and just in case it rained. By the timeDaniel came back was half frozen and fearful of getting worse. We set out for Aksum at 10am. Visibility was bad and the road terrible.
No wonder it would take 7hrs! Then the reprieve came. at around 10:30 we turned a corner and Tim yelled out - there they are! The Simien pinnacles and valley! Couldn’t believe It! The fog had lifted to reveal a spectacular panorama! We were atop a ride and to the side of us a huge valley as far as the eye could see with the pointy granite pinnacles that are characteristic of the Simien Mountains on the horizon. To the right a hug mountain with clouds pouring over the top and seeping into the valley below. The whole picture looked like a scene out of Jurassic Park - lush green, craggy. I was very happy to at least have glimpsed it and recorded something of my visit without once getting wet. The odd thing is that only half of the group got out to see it - this is the Simiens! Why get cold and wet and not lay your eyes on them? Odd. Our descent into Debark was awash with lush green mountains. After a nice hot tea in Debark we set out at 12:30pm. The next hour was breathtaking. Jagged distant peaks, huge green mountains and a sharp descent from 2500m to 1300m along a very bad, muddy, rocky road. The scenery just kept coming. Square peaks! Cone peaks. Tooth peaks.
Every shape wrapped in cloud and a backdrop for ti farming villages nestled in the grooves of the mountains. Cattle, goats sheep and children everywhere. They come out of nowhere. Shutting and running towards the road to greet us! I read that the drive between Gonder and Aksum was one of the best in ETHIOPIA and it certainly turned out this way. A must do. Stopped in a Adi Arqay for lunch at 2:30pm! I walked around and met some kids who took me on a mini-tour. It was quite warm. I stopped by the hotel where the others were eating and had a tea. My stomach felt OK. I think the worst was over and I would try and have dinner tonight. Thank goodness the road from here was bitumen - the remaining 170km was done in good time arriving in Aksum at 6:30pm - a total time of 8.5hrs including breaks. Riza met me at the car and we sat down with “Aklilu” from “Abune Yemata Tours” inside our hotel to decide and book our Aksum City and Surrounds tours. Tomorrow we would visit the rock-hewn Churches of Tigray and on Tuesday I would do the full city tour before going to the airport for Khartoum. After a quick shower I headed to the restaurant downstairs - the menu was OK and cheap but the place was empty and most dishes were unavailable since it was already 8pm and the WIFI was not working. I went outside to see if there was a bigger, fancier hotel close by and found the “Sabean” just metres away. Shock horror, I went to the slightly posh restaurant upstairs and who did I find? - Tim! He was not staying there but had sussed out the food and WIFI - both were very good. He had just ordered so I joined him. Riza was unwell and went to bed early. We talked and talked and talked over great food and wine and fairly cheap too. I was buggered that night and slept almost immediately!
DAY 263 of 287, Mon 1AUG16, 376km, Rain, Room at the “Africa Hotel”, Aksum (Elev 2149m), Aksum ETHIOPIA. Up at 5:45am for a 6:30am departure for Tigray Valley. Riza and I had a whole 12 seater Toyota Hiace minivan to ourselves! Bliss! Our driver “Emiru” was very courteous but his English was almost non-existent. We would be getting a local English speaking guide for the churches. There was high cloud with occasional sunshine and a pleasant temperature. The scenery from Aksum to our first stop in Adwa was mainly farmland and very green. We drove along valleys, twisting our way along the valley floor surrounded by hills and mountains. We stopped in a cafe in Adwa selling cakes and coffee - a great boost given our early rise. The drive from here to Adigrat was fantastic - climbed up to 3000m passing volcanic peaks surrounded by lush green farms.
We then dove on the edge of very high escarpment that led to Aigret far below - we then plunged down into the city along a snaky hairpin road. We kept driving until we reached a large open very green valley with a row of basalt ridges on the side. It was the "Takatusfi Valley”, elevation 2490m, within the Tigray province containing the “Takatusfi Cluster” of churches, some hewn out of rock, some stand-alone buildings in rock cavity and some as caves. The Takatusfi Cluster has 13 churches and is one of six clusters covering a grand total of 135 churches. The “Gheralta Cluster” has the best examples and is the most famous and visited but it is much further away and closer to Makale - this is a 2-day, 1-night trip from Aksum. We only had a day. We visited a total of 3 churches in Takatusfi Cluster. We picked up our guide “David” just before the first church.
He was only 17 but looked 14!!! The first red alert. Our first church is called "Petros We Paulos (St Peter & St Paul)”, the furthest down the main paved road to Makale. We turned off on a dirt road and got to the half-way point when we came across a huge pool of mud and water that stopped us dead in our tracks. Our minivan was NOT 4WD. Second red alert. This is the rainy season so why would you run this tour with an ordinary front wheel drive vehicle. The driver refused to go around the wet mud via the adjacent wheat field. It was too far to walk so we turned back to the main bitumen road and drove to the second church back towards where we came. We managed to get to the foot of the ridge that the church was set in. It is called "Petros We Paulos (St Peter & St Paul)” and it is a normal rendered brick building with wooden roof set inside a cavity in the ridge approx 33 above the valley floor which is at 2490m. It takes 10min to get up using carved foot holds in the rock and scary wooden ladder higher up, made of tree wood, that moves and shakes. The view from the small courtyard outside the tiny church is grand.
The priest who looks after the Church met us at the bottom and climbed up with us. He then let us in and David (our guide) did his stuff… Not great stuff. It sounded like a rehearsed diatribe and was very hard to understand - he spoke with a heavy accent, did not pronounce many words correctly and spoke to fast and fused words together. He found it very difficult to understand our accents. The information we got was very simple and lacked depth. I had to prompt him to give us even rudimentary facts like how many priests or monks were associated with he church. Not good. Our first red alert was now ringing. Why would a tour company give us a 17yr old guide that struggled with English? The only reason was that he lived locally and grew up around the churches but the depth of his knowledge was lacking. From our first church we drove along a rocky road directly connecting us with the second called "Mikael Milhaizengi (Archangel Michael)”. This church was actually carved into theta of a huge monolith and highly decorated with many icons on the walls - actually all icons are actually painted on cloth which is stuck to the walls and not on the wall itself since it gets dump and often erodes.
The cloth actually protects from the weather so it is a win-win situation! The very last church of "Medhane Alem Kesho (Church of Healing & Priests)" caused us some angst because it was a 30min walk away along a very rough and muddy track and uphill. We would loose one hour getting here on foot, just because our organiser could not use a 4WD. There was a road and car park stoping just beneath the rock of the church and when we saw it we got angrier still. W could have driven there direct. This church was not attached to any mountain - it is made of stone with thatched roof and build on a plateau that overlooks the other two churches.
Also decorated with icons, this church is famous for its hearing powers. There is a river that runs below it and sick or handicapped gather in its waters and camp in the courtyard praying to be healed. It is also known as the “place of priests” where the clergy gather to discuss the church affairs of the cluster. We did not spend much time here given the 30min walk back and the sight of gathering rain clouds. The temp had dipped which is a sure sign of rain so we headed back. Many children came to see us. Some wasted no time showing us their palms and yelling “money money”. Others simply smiled and said “hello, hello”, genuinely happy to see us. It is sad that kids are taught to beg and many avoid school to do this because they know that tourists will give them money. The other downside to the visit was the relentless pursuit of the three priests that showed us each church for extra money.
This is common in ETHIOPIA but I real put off since we paid an entrance fee to each church and the guide. On a relative basis the fee is high compared with other churches and with other museums and the cost of food and drink. Each entrance fee is the cost of a local dinner. It is a shame that the local council charges so much for entry and some of it does not reach the priest who takes care of the church. As I predicted it started to lightly sprinkle - thank goodness begot to the minivan just in time. We left at 2pm and after an hour it started to pour and then stopped to reveal an incredible panorama of flat topped mountains just like in VENEZUELA! A huge gorge cut its way through these flat topped wonders and the sides were all terraced farmland with the green of a young wheat crop already making them the most desirable objects to photograph.
Combine this with ominous grey clouds and sheets of distant rain falling like misty curtains and the whole sight was like a painting. At around 4pm we pulled up under one of the flat topped mountains with the Debre Damo Monastery on top! The only way up waiver a set of many stairs and then you hoist ourself up on a rope walking up a 20min cliff face to the hands of an awaiting monk at the top. This was a male-pnly monastery so only I went up. I made it to the rope but did not go up since we would not make it to our last site - this was the cost of not using the proper car. If we had a 4WD we would have arrived here an hour earlier and I would have the requisite time to climb the rope and visit the monastery on top. The views of the surrounding valleys and gorges, replete with flat-topped mountains and grey skies was a site to see. This whole area and rock-top monastery reminded me of the monasteries of “Meteora” in northern Greece.
It rained all the way to "Yeha" our final stop at around 6pm. This site is home to the Sabean peoples which settled here in 1000BC and are believed to have started the Ethiopian Civilisation. Thank goodness it stopped before arrival to reveal a curtain of cone shaped mountains that looked exactly like the peaks of Halong Bay in VIETNAM. Another amazing view. The actual site at Yeha was very disappointing for the cost. It was double everything else at AUD11 and there were only 3 things to see: The Temple, Museum and Palace. The temple, built in 1000BC was covered in scaffolding. The museum was one tiny room crammed with stuff just “dumped” there and stacked, one object on top of the other. No captions, no cabinets, no lights. It is the worst “museum” and worst treatment of antiquity that I have ever seen in my life. I was so disappointed that I walked out and refused to play fall price. The guard followed me around not knowing how to deal with me. He finally said “police police”. It was never my intention to not to pay - I just need to make the point. After paying the guard I walked to the palace positioned in between ordinary homes in the village of Jeha. It was being excavated under a huge iron roof. It was substantial in its content but there was no guide available to explain the various rooms and corridors. At 6:30pm it started to sprinkle again and this was good cue for me to end the visit. The ride home was a backtrack of the way we came and we arrived at the hotel around 7pm after 12.5hrs of touring. All in all it was a OK day but it could have been better. We gave that feedback to our guide of tomorrow.
DAY 264 of 287, Tue 2AUG16, 840km, Solo 16, Room at the “Africa Hotel”, Aksum (Elev 2149m), Aksum to Addis Abba Airport & Ethiopian Airways Flight ET342 ETHIOPIA. Solo 16 would start today after my tour the city of Aksum when Riza and I fly out of Aksum. Day 264 in Post 32 covers my tour of the Aksum whereas Day 264 in Post 33 cover the journey to SUDAN. My guide “Mehari” arrived spot on and we made a start at 6am.He is a 24yr old accounting uni student with 1yr left to go. He is a registered guide and his English is excellent. He would turn out to be the best guide I have had on this trip to date - a stark contrast to the “child guide” we got yesterday! A good guide can enhance the whole experience significantly. In my case I had a bad headache this morning given that I drank the last two bottles of my wine last night before dry SUDAN!
Despite my headache, Mehari was so knowledgeable that I often ignored my woes. I saw 14 sites with Mehari in just 5hrs and learnt heaps about the Aksumite Kingdom and even had chance to discuss Orthodoxy with other guides. A very satisfying day. My first site was the “Abune Pentilion Monastery & Church”. The small church sits atop a hill high above Aksum. The view from here is the best of the city and surrounding countryside. The sun was rising amongst huge cumulus clouds casting a yellow glow over the land with grey storm clouds way out on the horizon. I had never seen something so varied and contrasting and terrific in photo and film. This monastery and church was built in the 6th Century King Kaleb, a very important King of the Aksumite Empire. He took the empire to great heights and fought the Italians her and in YEMEN. He promised God to join a monastery f he won in YEMEN.
He did and abdicated his throne and great wealth to his son and joined a monastery! There are 100 monks and 15 priests at this monastery. From here we walked 30min through mud on a trail to the “Twin Tombs of Kaleb and Gabre Meskel”. The tombs were built in the 6th Century by King Kaleb for himself and his son but because he became a monk he was never buried here but in the alter of the church were he served. His son also was buried elsewhere. The tombs are constructed from huge solid blocks of granite mined 10km outside Aksum and laced together under their own gravity like the Incas of PERU! You can walk down and see the room where the sarcophagus was due to be placed. It is a huge shame that so many people suffered mining and pulling the great stones only to see them lie empty. It was a short walk to the “Inscription of Ezana”, the African equivalent of the “Rosetta Stone”. King Ezana was the first King of Ethiopia to accept and formalise Orthodox Christianity in 330AD. He was also victorious against many raiders who tried to bring him down because of his new belief. He communicated these victories and his faith via a stone tablet standing approx 1.5m tall, 0.5 wide and 0.2m thick.
It is written in 3 different languages on each side with the fourth blank: Sabean, Greek and Geeze. Serbian was the language of locals in the area, Greek was like English at that time - the universals language and Geeze is a form of scholastic Sabean - much like New Testament Greek (called “Kini”) versus modern Greek. Mohair calls it the “stone social media”! Our fourth site was the “Swimming Pool of the Queen of Sheba”. She built it in 1000BC with a depth of 9m. It is used today by the Orthodox to celebrate the feast of Epiphany on the 19th of January each year.
The fifth site of the “Northern Stelae Field” is also within walking distance of the pool and stone. It is the site that most people associate with Aksum. A stela is a tall carved stone pillar that represents the status of the person who erected it. The taller and more decorative, the more important the person. It is usually erected after the death of the person like a tombstone. The stelae field here contains 12 objects belonging to King Kaleb and several of his important aides such as his general, sons, doctor etc. The biggest has collapsed on top of “The Mausoleum”, our sixth site. It used to be 33m high and weighed 550 tons. Built in the 4th Century by King Kaleb and features detailed reliefs of windows.
Another stela in the field was taken by the Italian army for Mussolini and later returned after his death. No one knows who the 10 chamber mausoleum was built for. Sitting right under the fallen stela of King Kaleb it is a simple building and looks more like a prison with cells. No bones to artefacts were found here. Site number seven was the “Tomb of the False Door”. This 4-5th Century underground tomb was built by King Rambay for himself but his bones were never found. The entrance is adorned by a huge rectangular stone with a relief of a door on it that obviously doe not open or lead anywhere hence the name. The “Aksum Archaeological Museum” was 8th in line. A well set out place with a good summary of the history of Aksum via paintings and artefacts, almost like a film story board. Clever idea that helps you see it quickly and absorb the key facts. It sits right behind the stelae.
The “St Mary of Zion New Church” was my favourite. Ninth in line but no 1 in experience. It is a huge church built by Emperer Sellasi has one huge dome in the classic Byzantine stye in 1965 - it is as old as me but does not look it - just like me! Ha Ha. The Church was opened by Queen Elizabeth II who happened to be in Africa at the time. Her gift to the church was its large central chandelier. The priest of the church, "Abba Abraham", opened it up just for me. This priest looked very Greek Orthodox so I decided to surprise him with a few Greek Orthodox hymns inside. He smiled and chanted the equivalents back to me in the local Tigrian. Many smiling faces poked in through the door - the acoustics are so good inside you do not need microphones and the people outside clearly heard us. Abba Abraham then showed me the church’s 500yr old illustrated Gospel - it was huge and in very good condition - vibrant colours and huge easy-to-read text. This was a great visit and I asked the priest many questions. Right next door to the new Church is the most famous of all buildings in Aksum and why most visitors come here - “The Chapel of the Ark of the Covenant”. Yes, the chapel that has in it the “container” that once contained the tablet of The Ten Commandments!
Apparently King Menelik I,the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba brought the Ark back from Israel around 900BC after a visit to his father. The Ark is guarded by a singe monk wholeness inside the chapel permanently until he dies. Food is brought to him and there is a toilet inside. The current monk entered the chapel 25yrs ago at age 38. Only the guarding monk can see the Ark. No one else. Not even the President. Apparently the guarding monk will have a dream close to his death alerting him to call an election for a replacement monk - the Patriarch and Bishops then get together to elect a replacement before the current monk dies. Bizarre.
The chapel is heavily guarded and tourists are allowed to photograph it from a minimum distance of 100m. Site number 11 was the “St Mary of Zion Old Church”, the predecessor to the “new Church” I had just visited and built in 1665 by Emperor Fasilides. The Icon Screen is wonderfully adorned. There were two old churches built on the same spot before this one but were destroyed in conflicts. The central “Piazza” of Aksum was my 12th stop. A large cobblestone open area influenced by the Italian occupation with a roundabout in its middle and shops on its edges. Aksum’s sister city is Denver in Colorado USA believe it or not since a bunch of rich visitors from that town helped restore some of the buildings in the city.
“Tigrian” is the local language of the city and sounds very Arabic given its proximity to ERITREA and SUDAN. The “Dungur Palace of the Queen of Sheba” on the outskirts of town was an interesting 13th stop. This place was the residence of the Queen when she visited Aksum and it is not huge. It was built by her in 1000BC and she stayed her over the course of 25yrs. The 14th and final stop was the most wondrous for me - the “Tomb of Bezen”. Who is Bezen you ask? Well, he is one of the kings of ETHIOPIA also known as King Balthazar and one of the “Three Wise Men” or “Magi” who brought gifts to Christ at His Birth. Amazing. He brought the gift of “myrrh” or perfume. As I gazed at the small empty vault across a flooded corridor at the bottom of a steep set of stairs descending down into the side of a hill, I wondered if his body was actually once laid here. No bones were found when it was first discovered in 1954. I sat in contemplation for a while at the sheer weight of this antiquity. It was a terrific way to end my exhaustive tour of Aksum - a truly classical city despite its messy look. I met Riza back at the hotel at around 1pm as planned. By 1:30pm we were on our way to Aksum airport and this marked the official start of Solo 16 since technically we were leaving the group who were due to drive back to the truck in Gonder. Our journey to SUDAN had began.
Our flight on Ethiopian Airways ET103 to Makale on a Bombardier DH8-Q400 left on time. A short 25min hop and we landed on a plateau above the city - it was a spectacular approach under grey clouds and a golden sun. Then the drama started. Makale was a stopover on our way to Addis Ababa to catch our international flight to Khartoum. As the engines powered down and preparations were made to open the door, the air crew asked all those travelling to Addis to remind in their seats so we did. At one stage the crew walked down the aisle and confirmed with all the seated people that they were going to Addis. We said “yes”. Some time later new passengers started to board and just as the flow stopped a ground crew came rushing on board yelling our names. We put up our hands. “Quick quick" he said - “you must come with me”.
He explained that we were on another flight to Addis leaving in an hour. We had not noticed in our itinerary that the Mazale to Addis leg was a different flight number from the Aksum to Makale leg. What was strange is that the plane we had just left was full and no new passengers were allocated to our seats. I mentioned this to the air crew as we walked to the terminal and a fumigates later he suddenly stopped us before we walked into arrivals and said “OK - you can go back”. Boy! Make up our minds. All this happened so fast that when I got back to my seat and we ere taxiing I noticed that I had left my camera in the pocket of the seat in front of me - cold shock and warm relief came upon me in rapid succession - because we sere so rushed to get off with the crew hanging over our heads and actually grabbing our stuff to put in our bags I had left my camera behind. I had all my Aksum photos in it. God had saved me again. I then realised that the ground crew who pulled us off the plane had kept my boarding pass for SUDAN. Shit. I would need to explain everything to people with light English just to get a reprint. I was also worried about security so I informed the cabin crew who were very supportive.
I then settled back to calm down as we flew the 45min to Addis. My bags were checked in all the way to Khartoum and I had checked the baggage label on my bag to this effect. The check in crew at Addis International were very helpful even though we had to walk 20min from the domestic terminal around the construction zone of the new international terminal. No shuttle. Just more mud. How did older travellers or people with kids and luggage manage this? Anyway, after some explanation and a long wait I got my new boarding pass. No problem since we arrived 5pm and our Khartoum flight was at 11:55pm. We then walked through customs having gone through our third security check - no shoes, no belts, all pockets empty! Takes ages.
We were now free. We found a restaurant that had a stack of whole BBQ chickens. This was my place. We sat down at a large booth - I love booths and ordered food. A half chicken was AUD22. The most expensive meal I would eat in ETHIOPIA! No matter. We blogged, ate chicken and sipped beer - our last booze before 8 dry days in SUDAN. The time wintry quickly. Before I knew it, boarding for Khartoum was announced. The Ethiopian Airways Flight ET342 was using a fairly new a B737-800. The plane was 60% full, so the crew let me sit at the exit row for more leg room. Our flight left on time just before midnight. We would sleep part of the night on the plane and part in our hotel in Khartoum since we were to land in Khartoum close to 2am. What happens next is in Post 33.
PS: COMPARING THE ETHIOPIAN AND GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH BUILDING & LITURGY:
The Ethiopian Orthodox and Greek Orthodox Churches are different but sourced from the same origins and share a “feel” that to me is very similar. The old Ethiopian Orthodox Church buildings like the ones in Lalibela are very similar to the old and new Greek Orthodox buildings based on a for plan that looks like a cross with central dome. The modern Ethiopian Orthodox Church building however is VERY different. It is circular and consists of a central core surrounded by two concentric rings of rooms. The core houses the alter which is not visible from the two outer rings. The inner ring is for clergy, monks, chanters and alter boys and the outer ring for lay people. Only the Cathedral in Addis Ababa is completely different and is architected like a Catholic Church, rectangular with a central space and two spaces to the left and right and an open altar - no “iconostasis” or “icon screen” like the Greeks.
In the most common circular design, the outside wall of the inner core is covered in icons - this is very much like the Greeks who paint icons on the walls and ceilings. The iconographical stye is not Byzantine but almost “cartoonish”. Exaggerated eyes and features like animated characters but the “subject” of the icons themselves is IDENTICAL to the Greeks. The key events in Christ’s life like his birth, baptism, miracles, Last Supper, Crucifixion and Resurrection have the identical characters and positions. Even the colours are the same. Only the shapes and expressions of faces differ. The churches in the villages like Lake Tana have mud-straw walls and thatched roofs while brick and corrugated iron dominate the large towns and cities. The Mass itself is also very different. I could pick out the “Small Entrance” but not the “Great Entrance” - maybe there was not one given the crowd. The Epistle and Gospel Readings were also obvious as was the consecration when everyone kneeled. Here are the SAME and DIFFERENT of the Liturgy or mass: (PHOTO BELOW: The “Ben Abeba” (rocket) restaurant in Lalibela - the best one to date).
SAME: censor (incense carrier), priest’s garments, icons, Small Entrance (procession of the Gospel), Alter Boys, Women and Men segregated (Greek villages), Holy Communion from a common chalice (no wafers), circular back hats, The Consecration.
DIFFERENT: Ethiopian chanting sounds more Muslim - no real melody, musical instruments (drum and symbols), dancing, clapping, no “andithiron” or bread the end, altar boys and priests wear metallic hats.
ORIGINS: The Ethiopian Orthodox credit "Gendre Baw" for bringing Orthodoxy to ETHIOPIA. He was a high offical of the then Ethiopian Queen and sent by her to visit Jerusalem in 34AD at which time he met and was baptised by the Apostle Phillip.
He then convinced the Queen to endorse the new Christian faith - this continued in the royal lineage until King Ezana made Orthodox Christianity the official religion of ETHIOPIA in the 4th Century under the management of the Patriarchate of Alexandria which later was under the Coptic Orthodox Church.
PPS: INTERESTING FACT ON AFRICA: Africa has 460 varieties of Acacia Tree.
Did Mehari Nega "lose money" when you haggled with him?
ReplyDeleteHe did a "good pwi" for you?