Day 3 & 4: Bahir Dar & Lake Tana

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Today, I traveled further to Bahir Dar and therefore directly visit the Blue Nile Waterfalls in Bahir Dar. Simply named it, there are three top things to do in Bahir dar: The Blue Nile Waterfalls inclusive walking the trails, Lake Tana and the city of Bahir Dar itself (especially the markets). Therefore, Bahir Dar should be on every traveler list traveling north to Ethiopia. It is possible to drive in one day to Addis Ababa, but you can take your time and travel in a minimum of two days up to Bahir Dar. The distance is 320 km to Addis Ababa.



At the start of the third day, it was time to leave our hotel from Debre Markus quite early at 7.30 am. Before leaving, a traditional Breakfast was served with injera, hot sauces and vegetables. The reason to leave that early was that there would be enough time to visit the Blue Nile Waterfalls and taking lunch at Lake Tana, before heading to the Blue Nile Waterfalls. The Blue Nile Waterfalls are 30 km outside the city and due the bad road (especially after rain has fallen), this can take up to even more than one hour. And you can get guaranteed the “African massage”. Bahir Dar, attitude of 1840 meters, is the capital of the Amhara region. Not only the city is known for the Blue Nile Waterfalls, but on the south east side you can find the spring of the Blue Nile Waterfalls: Lake Tana. To control the water flowing outside Lake Tana into the NIle river, a dam was build. Close to the Weir, you can walk over the river at a quite new bridge. Lake Tana, African highest lake, is quite big and contains 37 islands separated from the main land. All these islands do contain people. However, most of them are monks from the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, including small churches, chapels and monasteries. The Lake is 3000 km2, but in rain season the Lake can grow even up to 3500 km2. At the normal size, it is 84 km long and 66 km broad. It should have an average dept of around 15 meters. Bahir Dar, the city itself is quite big and still growing according to statics. Espeically at the west side, a lot of people build their houses and enlarged the city. From over 55.000 people in 1984 to 96.000 in 1994 to 180.000 in 2007, the city is still growing. The University of Bahir Dar contained 4400 students in 2006. It is open for visit, especially the sight of palm trees on both sides. Anoter viewpoint of Bahir Dar is one of the palaces of the old Emperor Haile Selassie. I did not visit this palace. You should not skip the market(s) in Bahir Dar. The city has every day a big (major) market, but once in the week the market is growing larger. Food trading is the most important on the market. For tourist it is safe to walk around and spend some hours. Another Market, which a little bit rare for tourist in the north but known in the south, are cattle markets. There is one (major) cattle market in Bahir Dar, also famous to visit. At this market, cattle can be traded or sold. Therefore, the local farmers take the animals they want to sell or trade from outside the city into the city. Before opening- and closing times, those cattle’s and the farmers are walking in/outside the city. Just over the road. An amazing view. In Bahir Dar, I visited three attractions: The Blue Nile Waterfalls, Lake Tana and the markets of Bahir Dar.



At 7.30 am I left Debre Markus, travelling up north to Bahir Dar. As from the road you can see that the landscape as the life is changing. Small changes, but the major changes is the more primitive way of life. The roads are still from good quality, shared by different transport mostly by Trucks, and of course the walking transport. Including the – increasing – cattle’s. You do not only more cattle’s, the number of the animals are increasing as well. Other walking transport, especially between small towns, is the transport of “Teff”. Injera is made from Teff, and Teff is the only whole grain growing in this area. The Teff is processed, and the first step is by cirkeling and pressing the Teff by man and cows (as written a little bit later), before it can be bound into packets. The packets will be carried on the back of the womans, carried back home, or in some cases to a small fabric. The packet can weight over 15 kg, or even more. Sadly, the way of transporting the Teff is not the most healthy way, due that the woman’s are have to lean forward and walk like this to carry the Teff home. We drove inside a small town for a coffee stop. A fabric, for processing and grinding the Teff was inside the small town. All the people here are working together to receive the processed Teff for the Injera. From the pressing at the fields between the man-cow interactions, the woman’s are carrying the Teff to the fabric, where other people are processing and gridding it further to Teff Flour, which is used for the injera, and shared equally. This method, as described here and we saw, is primitive but in this area quite lux. There are people, living outside the towns, which have to do this all by their own, without a fabric. I had a watch inside the Fabric, however the people did not want to be photographed and it was quite hard to make pictures. Outside the fabric, I had more success, where I could photograph more people. After the coffee, we drove outside the town, and there we saw the man-cow interaction for the first step of processing the Teff into flour for Injera. In this interaction, the cows are walking clockwise circles on top of the Teff. They are pressing the injera. The man’s are refreshing the Teff, mixing the Teff, and take the Teff out which is ready for the next step. The woman will bind it together, and carry it back home. In this case, three man and several cows are performing this first step. The man are walking behind the cows by ordering to walk on top of the Teff for pressing it. Another reason to walk behind the cows is by the fact that cows will try to eat the Teff. Cows do love Teff as well and will therefore always try to eat Teff. In this case the mound is bound, so cows almost cannot eat the Teff that easy. That is also one of the reasons why the cattle never can be left alone on open fields and meadows – otherwise they will eat all of the Teff. How the Fluor of the Teff will been used for the injera, will be discussed in the next blogspot about Gondar & Simien Mountains, where I met two woman’s cooking the injera outside of their houses.



Just before lunch at Lake Tana, we drove to the hotel “Tana Hotel” to drop our bags. For lunch the tour leader reserved a restaurant at Lake Tana. Not only this restaurant, but many restaurants (and hotels) are popular for the fresh fish dishes which you can order here. The fish is cached in the morning and sold to the restaurants directly after the boat is coming back to the sore. Even on the market, you are able to buy fresh fish (dead or alive). From this restaurant, we had a good look and a nice impression of the lake for the first time. It does look peacefully and calm. The lakes carries 37 islands, but none are visible with the naked eye from the sore. In the lake, you can find larger African animals. For example hippo’s and crocodiles. The best change to spot them is in the morning with a guided tour. At sunrise you might be lucky from the sure to see several hippo’s, but those changes are small.



After lunch, the Blue Nile Waterfalls could be visited. There are multiple options for visiting with larger and smaller hikes, even including a small visit to a local school. The road to the start point of the trail is 30 km. Due the bad road, this 30 km can take up over an hour. The road is an good example of the African Massage as the bus is wiggling even at slow speed. A seat belt is required, otherwise the changes of bang your head to the chair before you is quite large. This road starts almost in the middle of Bahir Dar, where you leave the main road and goes on a sandy road into a slum. A lot of local, bad houses are close by this road. Slowly, this slum turns into nature, but everywhere you see local houses with local people in this area. They live close by the road, but most of them live close by the Blue Nile River. The land here is very fertile, therefore the area is great to for the cattle and the local people, which are living in the highlands and the meadows in this area. The start point of the trail is by the local school. From here, you have multiple options to continue the way to the top of the waterfall and return to back to the start point. In short, there are two ways to go to the top, and the way back: the short and the long way. It is possible to do both: therefore the short should be carried on the way to the top. The long road is a walking trail, maximum of one hour, which might be a little bit technical. However, this trail was called “technical”, it was one of the easy “technical” trails I did in Ethiopia. In this trail, you need to descend and climb at single tracks, which leads you at viewpoints at front of the waterfalls. To reach the top, you have to cross the bridge and make one climb to reach. If you do not want to walk or you aren’t fit enough for this walk, the small trail is an option. Which is maximum of an half hour. This part is easier, where the trails and the walking paths are not that steep descending and climbing, quite broad and not technical. Crossing the river will be by a small boat. The walk is maximum a half hour and is an good option if you are not fit, or you doubting if you can do the long trail. If this small trail is quite easy for you, you can also do the long one. Including at the small trail, is the visit of maximum 15 minutes to the local school. Because, I would like to visit the school, I decide to do the small trail first and do the larger at the end. It is not my first time I visit a school in Africa. In total, this would be my third experience with a school, and sadly it would en don the last place. The other schools I visit was in Soweto (Johannesburg, South Africa) and Malealea (Lesotho). This school just had one classroom. To separate the younger from the older children, each group of children goes half day to school. The older children are going in the morning, the younger in the afternoon. This gives the children the opportunity to help their families and society in the field with cattle’s farming, and baby sitting on smaller children. Some of the older children does have their own (small) cattle and are responsible for these animals. After school, they walk with their cattle into the nature. When entering the school room, we could answer the children some questions. They spoke quite good English! It did not take that long and I was a little bit disappointed that the children did not had a lot of interest in us. Probably a lot of tourist are coming to visit them every day, I would probably would do the same when I was a kid.



With a guide, I continue to the small trail. With a small boat, we crossed the Nile. The boat could not carry more than 10 people, and therefore it had to cross the river two times. The river here is to strong, deep and broad to cross by feet. The rest can be done easy by feet, with just one technical part. A small, undeep stream had to been crossed, which you can cross by walking over stones. And do not fall into it (note to myself, as usual my feet decided to go for a swim and my walking shoes were desperate for a mud bad). Arriving, not only to clean my shoes full of mud, I enjoyed of the landscape. You can come quite close at the edge of it, and in some parts you can stand in a small stream which is flowing from the edge in 2-3 meters. This you only can do in the dry season and not all streams are safe so stand close at the edge. The Nile is the longest – or the second longest – river in the world, this due discussions about the true length of the Nile (5499 or 6695 km) and the true length of the Amazon River in South America. Most people know the Nile for the famous temples in Egypt. The Nile is one of the most important sources of life in North-East Africa, but it’s flowing through multiple countries. The Nile itself consist out of two streams: The White and the Blue Nile. The Blue Nile is the shortest of those two (ca. 1500 km), originating from Lake Tana/Bahir Dar. After making a small turn to the east, the Blue Nile is heading West, flowing into South Sudan and flowing up north to Sudan. In Khartoum (Sudan), the two Niles becomes reunited and flows up to Egypt as one Nile. The White Nile (3700 km) is originating from the Victoria Lake at the border of Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. It is flowing up north into Uganda, South Sudan and Sudan. Lake Tana lays at a high attitude, but steeply goes down. At the place of the waterfalls, the earth is going extreme down, almost straight rocks. The water drops here and forms the Blue Nile Waterfalls. The water is brown, it carries a lot of mud and sand on the way from Lake Tana and it keeps carry it with even into South Sudan. In the dry season there are around 45 waterfalls. In the rain season it just becomes one block of water falling down. Due the heavy sound of the waterfalls it is peacefully and quiet over here. The nature is beautiful. If you walk the long trail, you might encounter children coming from school and playing in the nature. Sometimes, you will see the local people walking with their cattle. The way back, I did the long trail. First, you have to descend to walk to the bridge, where you are able to cross the river safety. With a steep turn, you walk over single tracks at a higher attitude, therefore, you have a great sight of the waterfalls from the front at even a higher point than the waterfalls itself. You hear the waterfall and the river flowing through the canyon. On this track, you have to descend and climb several times, but especially the beginning and the end does contain the most descend/climbing. This long trail is the easiest of the “technical” trails in Ethiopia I did. The end of the trail is by the school which you started. At the time you are back, the school is out. You probably would find out on the trail back, as many children are running from school back to their homes. They are running, playing and jumping over the single tracks, climbing and descending in such speed I cannot understand how they are able to do this even on naked foot and bad quality shoes like flip-flops. You might get tired if you see them. If you are tired from the hard day or the trail and you would like to take a nap in the bus, I have bad news. You have to take the same way back as you went here. Which means you have to drive those 30 km back on the bad road. But at least you get a guaranteed African massage.



Back in the hotel, I was very lucky to have a room with sight on the Lake. It was already dark, but at least in the morning, you have a good sight at the lake. I took a simple diner of soup in the hotel. The next day, would be another busy day. Not only the half day excursion to Lake Tana and visiting of two islands, including a small hippo safari, the other half day excursion was an excursion of the market in Bahir Dar. The market is quite hectic, and I lost the group. Together, with two other woman’s, we discovered Bahir Dar, ending at the cattle’s market.



Breakfast was early. The boat would leave early, so we have a great opportunity to see hippo’s. It is not guaranteed you see those aggressive, large animals, but changes are big to spot them here. The Blue Nile River, especially in this area is to wild for hippo’s to settle. The river mounts in Lake Tana and then flowing to the Blue Nile Waterfalls is a great place for the hippo’s to settle. Large populations can been found. In the morning, they are still close to the shore. In the evening and the night, they come on land. Luckily, the captain of our boat, knows the special area’s where the populations are spending the day in the water. Soon, we saw hippo’s. Their ears and eyes are luring from the water to us. Sometimes they come a little bit higher, to dive away quite soon. I was not able to photograph them with their open mounts. Their teeth are quite large, but every time I missed. We kept quite some space in between them. Hippo’s are the most aggressive African animals. Gaining speed up to 40 km/h on land, they walk at evening and night on the shore. During the day, they bath in to the water, where they also can be quite dangerous when you come close. With a weight of 3000 kg, hippo’s can easily throw a boat on sides. They do not eat flesh, but they can kill people easily with their large, sharp and long teeth. Not only hippo’s are too been seen, crocodiles are here too. We were lucky to see one, but I could not photograph this crocodile. Crocodiles are quite difficult to spot at Lake Tana and other (small) lakes in the north of Ethiopia. In the South it is easier. Ethiopia is not a country for spotting animals, but your changes of seeing some wild life is bigger in the south. Birds are the most easy to been spot, also at Lake Tana. A large fish eagle was sitting on top of a three, watching over the Lake in hope to catch some fish. Not only the eagle was looking for fish, local human fishers are early on the lake to catch fresh fish and sell them for lunch time to restaurants and hotels. Local woman are washing their clothes on the side of the river. Sometimes, carrying small children with them. Local people wash their selves in the lake, even children. This is not without any risk, even when the local people are trying to avoid the places where mostly hippo’s and crocodiles are located, it happens sadly quite often that – especially smaller children – are attacked by crocodiles.



Most people visit Lake Tana for visiting at least one of the 33 small islands. At all Islands, you find at least one small church, and /or monasteries and chapels. All these islands are inhibited by priests, monks and nuns. Arriving at the first island, you need to climb a small hill to reach the first church. The trail itself is technical, caused by the many mud due the rain. The path is covered by stones, making some parts slippery and technical for climbing and especially descending. At the route, you might spot wildlife like birds and monkey’s, the nature here is great. Besides the path, you find many souvenir shops. We had a warm welcome by the priest of the church, explaining us about the paintings of the church. Most churches might look sober from the inside without any decoration. Therefore, these wall paintings are a good decoration to make the church “alive”. Those paintings are not painted directly on the wall, but on cottons, which are glued to the wall. The paint is made out of flowers, plants and herbs. Blue is a very difficult color to make and the harvest is low. This is the reason that blue is not much used, only when necessary. Almost all churches in Ethiopia are build at the same way, by mixing three major ingredients. Slate, with a little bit of straw is mixed with mud. This texture was first build, than dried in the sun. This mixture became very hard and strong and it still least today in a very good condition. But, due the texture of the church itself, it is almost not possible to paint bright colors. Therefore, the paintings were made on cotton. The priest was proud to present us “The Book of Celement”, of the 9^th century. This book was still in a great condition and probably one of the oldest books I saw ever in my life.



The second island is also known for the Saint Anthonius Island. At the island, only womans (nuns) are allowed to live, however just one male is also allowed. He is the priest of the church and woman’s cannot become a priest. In History, this island was also quite popular by the old Kings. They used the island for a short breaks and holiday’s. Steam bath’s were build for the old kings, it does contain the same building styles as the churches. There is no decoration, therefore it looks a little bit sober. Because it is build quite close to the shore, you are able to spot here some small animals. But also crocodiles enjoy this place for relaxing. Sun bathing is a hobby for them. Our guide was able to spot one quite large crocodile laying quite close at the side of the shore. The crocodile noticed that he was been found, felt himself probably disturbed and escaped in the water. After visiting the baths, it was time to visit the church. The art in this church is looking more fresh and younger. The colors are more popping up. It is more inspired by a modern art and you see a quite twist into the traditional art. We only had a small visit on this island. On the way back to the main land, we spotted two other crocodiles. After a quick lunch by a restaurant, where I took soup, the guide leaded us to the market of Bahir Dar.



The market of Bahir Dar is big, busy and hectic. I lost the track of the guide soon with two other woman’s of the group. They would take more time for photography and visit the cattle market at Bahir Dar. Before we finally reached this market, we walked over the big market, containing out of two parts. The first part is the “supermarket” part. You can buy here all supplies for life; vegetables, fruits, herbs, fish and flesh, clothing, appliances and small electric devices and some toy’s for the children. Men are working on the market, they supply the storage. The small “streets”, are supplied by some small trucks, cars, tuktuk’s, horse and carrier (mostly donkey’s). I do not understand how it is able to drive a small truck in between these “streets”. In some cases, there is not even 30 centimeters on both sides between the truck and people sit on the ground. Some, mostly woman’s, are sitting on the ground to sell some local products, where other woman’s do have stalls. Everywhere there are children, playing and running around, where the woman’s are trying to sell their products or to buy products at the market. Animals, not only for carriage, are walking around as well. The second part of the market is “the wholesale”. Big tents are filled with garlic and onions, which you can buy here in large amounts. Also here, children are playing around, but there is more space here. It is not crowded and almost no tourist are visiting this section. The local people, and the children, were surprised that we visit them as well. Honestly, I liked the contact with this people even more than on the first part. Children were following us, playing and having fun. And we did have fun with them as well. But not all children are so friendly. There are some children who try to “stalk” you, for money or candy, and can follow you up to hours and kilometers. A small group of boys, around 4 and especially one young boy was became a little bit aggressive. They do have an age around 12. They did not only followed us, they pulled our arms, blocked the way and start shouting. They did not want to become photographed, but they wanted attention in the way of money, candy and/or soap. In the mean time, we tried to find the cattle market, and the boys did not helped us. We tried to search the way, and the local people we met did not speak that much English to help us out. We end up in a small slum, where we took a cola in a small, local pub. In fact, we hoped to lose the boys, but they waited as well. In the pub, they helped us to find the way to the cattle, and when we left, the boys were still following us. When we finally found the market, it almost was closed. Cattle was on the way back home, where large groups of – mostly sheep’s and goats – were walking on the road back home. Some cattle’s took over the complete road, that cars and trucks were not able to pass them. This cattle market is a nice market, but a lot of shepherds do not agree if you photograph their animals or their cattle’s. Most of them were quite surprised what we’re doing on the market; we did not want to buy an animal, so why we got there? Why we want make photo’s of the animals? It might be that the shepherd were afraid that, by making pictures, we would have negative attention of other buyers. At this moment, we still were stalked by those boys. A lot of adults did noticed this and corrected these boys, sometimes by whipping them with a lace. The boys ran away, but they found another path to end up with us again, some minutes later. They kept following us, until they found something other interesting and finally left us alone. We stopped at a restaurant to took dine and returned by tuktuk back at the hotel. There, we found out that the hotel went black. They did had a electricity and water malfunction; leading that parts of the hotel – including many rooms of our group, the kitchen and the reception, did not had electricity and water. Therefore, the rest of the group could not choice their dinner, but soup was prepared for them. The hotel did had rooms left with electricity and water, and therefore the people which were effected got already a new room. My room was also effected, and therefore I was moved when I arrived. The hotel and the crew showed a great hospitality.





I enjoyed the days at the region of Bahir Dar and Lake Tana. We should leave this area tomorrow, to go north to Gondar. Gondar is a beautiful city with different ruins of the Portuguese, but also the famous “Debre Salassi Church”. From Gondar, you can start an excursion to the Simien Mountains National Park. In this park, you might spot some endangered animals which only have populations in these mountains. Did I saw anyone of those animals? Keep reading!

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Photos

From Teff to Injera.
Outside of a small town, local farmers are pressing the Teff, with an human- cow interaction.

From Teff to Injera
The hunam-cow interaction. The cows are walking in circkels, pressing the Teff. The teff is continued mix and refreshed, where the pressing Teff is taken out. Woman do carry those Teff for grinding. In a small town, I saw a small grinding fabric.

From Teff to Injera
A close-up of Teff.

Blue Nile Waterfalls
The Blue Nile feeds the Bahir Dar region. It is not feeding only the humans, by the river, the waterfalls and Lake Tana you can spot different kind of beautiful birds.

Blue Nile Waterfalls
During the trail, you can walk around the waterfall and photograph the waterfalls from different angles.

Blue Nile Waterfalls
In the dry season, you can stand on top of some waterfalls. Please be careful and listen to your guide.

Blue Nile Waterfalls
If you walk the long trail, you cross a bridge to end up on the other side of the waterfalls.

Blue Nile Waterfalls
In the rain season, there is just one big waterfall; a huge amount of water is dropping every second. In the dry season, multiple waterfalls are forming. The best way to see this is from the side of the valley.

Lake Tana
This local fisherman is fishing. The fish he catch, will been sold to restaurants and hotels; but also for his family.

Lake Tana
Not only humans are fishing on fish. This sea eagle is hunting on fish as well.

Lake Tana
This woman is gathering water. Woman's do wash their clothes in the Lake and children are playing in the Lake. This is not without risk; large and many crocodiles do live in the Lake.

Lake Tana
The Blue Nile in the Bahir Dar region is to wild for hippo's to live in. However, Lake Tana does have the perfect environment for hippo's. Multiple, large populations of hippo's can been found on certain places of the Lake. Hippo's are almost guaranteed on the Lake Tana tour.

Islands of Lake Tana
Lake Tana does contain 33 Islands. I visited two of them. On each island there is at least one church, monastery or chapel.

Islands of Lake Tana
The local priest of the church.

Islands of Lake Tana
"The book of Celement", 9th century.

Islands of Lake Tana
The Island, known as Saint Anthonious, is an island only with nuns. There is just one man; the priest of the monastery.

Islands of Lake Tana
The art in the monastery looks modern and younger.

Livestock Market of Bahir Dar
Who needs a truck if you have a donkey and carriage?

Livestock market of Bahir Dar.
A small boy on the market.

Livestock Market of Bahir Dar.
Everywhere you look, you can buy vegetables.

Livestock Market of Bahir Dar.
This woman has a facial tattoo. In the north, it is a sign of beauty for woman's to have facial tattoo's.

The Cattle Market of Bahir Dar
If you cannot find the Cattle Market, you just follow the animals.

The Cattle Market of Bahir Dar
Why do you need a footpath if you have a cattle which can walk on the road?

The Cattle Market of Bahir Dar
All these sheep are for sale. Probably the sheep don't know it; it seems like they are relaxing in the sun.

The Cattle Market of Bahir Dar
From a young age, boys do learn how to raise their own cattle, and how to sell them on the market.

The Cattle Market of Bahir Dar
This man is walking with his cows.

The Cattle Market of Bahir Dar
Goat?

From Teff to Injera.
In this fabric the Teff is grinded to flour. The flour is used for the Injera.

Islands of Lake Tana
To reach the first church, you had to walk a trail of around 15 minutes. During ascending of the trail, I spotted this monkey.

Livestock Market of Bahir Dar.
The Market of Bahir Dar is huge. Everywhere you can buy livestock, especially vegetables.

The Cattle Market of Bahir Dar
The animals are walking free around.