Bahir Dar & The Source of the Nile

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We took a bus down to Bahir Dar after a couple of days in Gonder. This should have been a relatively straightforward 3 hour bus journey. But we quickly learned that straightforward and bus journeys don't belong in the same sentence in Ethiopia. Despite our bus having 'Lufthanza' emblazoned on the front, it was anything but reliable or efficeint and after about 45 minutes we were broken down. After about a half hour or so of maintenance work, there was still no restarting 'Lufthanza'. A second bus pulled up and more maintenance work continued. We were assured that the guy from the second bus was an expert mechanic and would get the bus started.

After about an hour we decided to cut our losses and decided to get on a minibus going by, despite having to pay again. It was evening time by the time we reached Bahir Dar, but we found the Ghion Hotel easily enough. This was set right on Lake Tana, had an outside bar/restaurant and even a hot shower!

The next day we had some breakfast and went to find a bus to a village called Tis Abay, beside the source of the Blue Nile. Despite being only around 35 km from Bahir Dar, this journey took about an hour on an extremely bumpy road. It was market day in the village so it was very busy and we had our very own troop of children wanting to be our guides, sell us souvenirs and get pens off us.

There is now a hydro-electric plant built at the source, which makes it less of an appeal to tourists. Before the river used to fall over 45m high rock faces and were known as the Blue Nile Falls. Now there is only one part of the river, which can be said to be a waterfall, but I found it pretty amazing, even if it is not what it was. The area is still an attractive one to visit and we jumped in for a swim. There was something pretty cool about going for a dip in the source of one part of the river I had been following since Cairo and saw split in Khartoum.

Later, we got back to Bahir Dar and went for a walk around a bit of the city and Lake Tana. There are plenty of places to stop for a drink and get some food, many were quite busy. They were mostly busy with Ethiopian tourists and it was the first time I noticed the difference between the wealthier Ethiopians who could afford to spend time by Lake Tana having a drink and the less fortunate ones who struggled to keep fed and clothed. We bought our tickets for the MV Tananich, the ferry we were taking the next day.

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