Blogs from Amhara Region, Ethiopia, Africa

We were up at 5.30 a.m. to get to the bus station in time to get on the road early enough so that we might get to Lalibela that day. We managed to get a bus to Alamata, changed to one going to Woldia, which broke down twice along the way. From there, we got a bus to Gashena. It would be more accurate to describe Gashena as a crossroads rather than a town, but it is 65 km south of Lalibela and must be passed through to access it. We got to Gashena some time in the middle of the afternoon and fancied our chances of reaching Lalibela that day. It wasn't to be and we couldn't find any transport going there, so we had to get rooms in the only hotel around. The height ... read more

We fortified ourselves for the first day of our TESFA trek by having a huge lunch of Ethiopian food at a local restaurant. It was my idea of a perfect meal: a huge piece of injera with many little types of food arranged around it, such as pickled vegetables, spicy goat meat, shredded beets and lentil sauce. I thought of it as Ethiopian tapas and once I’d discovered it, I ordered it every chance I could get! The TESFA arrangement with the local villages in the Ethiopian highlands around Lalibella was unique as far as our travel experience went. The local villages would build a group of tukuls, or huts, at a scenic place within a certain distance of their village. Trekkers would spend the night at these huts, being hosted by a different village each ... read more

We arrived inLalibella, Ethiopia, at about 10 in the morning after an early-morning flight fromNairobitoAddis Ababa, a flight from Addis to the Lalibella airport, and a half-hour drive in an overcrowded minicab. To continue the bad luck we’d had booking last-minute accommodation on this trip (memories of arriving inDurban,South Africaat the same time as the International Conference on Climate Change), we unknowingly planned to arrive in Lalibella right in the middle of one of the biggest religious festivals of the year. It is called Tim Kat and is a celebration of the Epiphany, which of course would be of great significance to this predominantly Orthodox Christian area of the country. We were lucky enough to find a room at a reasonable price, as we’d heard that some hotels were charging up to 200 USD for a ... read more

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 ... read more

"Hello, Money!": The children of Ethiopia are both a source of joy and of consternation in this place. We both enjoy their smiles and their constant waving, but also find their pestering wearing. Children come up to you, say "hello" and then reach their hands out, or ask first "give me pen?", to which you reply, "No, I don't have one". They don't miss a beat "give me money." In Lalibela where kids are least likely to hassle you owing to policies of the town, kids simply waved and said "hello, money." One young girl, who was maybe four cam running up to us with the most intense look on her face and yelled "give me money!" We had discovered Ethiopia's answer to Will Ferrell's Pearl (I tried putting a link in, but it screwed up ... read more