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Published: June 21st 2014
Lake Tana
Washing and bathing and swimmingAfter a day of walking around Addis second-guessing my options as to how I'd get to Bahir Dar, I finally found an Ethiopian Airlines office that would honor my discount without a round-trip ticket from and back to Canada. This meant that the flight to Bahir Dar would be 60 dollars instead of 150.
After an hour delay at the airport and a somewhat stormy flight, I arrived in Bahir Dar at about 8PM. It was still much warmer outside than in Addis, and I was surprised to see that the streets were lined with palm trees. My guidebook (Bradt Travel Guide) didn't seem to recommend anywhere they had listed, but some Peace Corps volunteers recommended staying in this hotel:
NGG Lounge While it's a large institutional-looking building, it's well constructed and the rooms and clean and comfortable. I paid 200 birr (10 dollars) for a single room with a toilet, hot shower, locker, and television the first night, and 240 to share a room with my friend Hannah (a Peace Corps volunteer who has lived here for a year and a half, and basically the reason for my visit) once she arrived -
man and herd
When I took a photo of his herd, this man started waving his arms. I thought he wanted me to stop, but then he motioned that he wanted to be in the photo. same amenities, with two beds. The food in the restaurant was fine, and it was just a few blocks from the center of town.
It's a busy, bustling, relatively modern town, with far more hotels than needed, though it was the low season. I saw only a couple of foreigners during my time here.
Abraham There is a nice path that runs along the lake's edge, but you're pretty much guaranteed to be bothered by touts and scammers here. Most encouraged me to take a boat trip to the monasteries on the lake, but even with a group of other travelers, it was expensive - 350 birr/person. Instead, I walked east along the shore, only to find myself being followed by Abraham, a 16-year-old local. I made it clear that I wouldn't give him any money and didn't need any services, but he insisted he just wanted to talk and show me where a monument and a palace are. I had read about these and couldn't find them, so eventually I agreed to follow him for 50 birr. It ended up being a three-hour hike, first to a monument that looks like a giant tuning fork, and
then to a defunct palace at the top of a nearby hill.
Pity Money This can be really hard to navigate in a place like Ethiopia since most people live in abject poverty. A few scammers along the way tried to get me to pay extra - one to take me to a shortcut, and one to allow me to go to the viewpoint. I get that they don't have any other prospects for making money but it isn't the way to get more tourists to visit the area. I adamantly told them I would only go with Abraham and that I'd turn around if they wouldn't let me though, and they all walked away. When there were pauses in our conversation Abraham brought up his shoddy flip-flops and his poor health to squeeze me for more money. I obviously can't blame the kid but there are a lot of reasons to avoid falling victim to pity: it wouldn't do anything significant to help his situation, it demonstrates that it's effective and would encourage more of it, it would fit the 'white savior' stereotype, and there are organizations that you can give to who would make much more
efficient use of resources. Near the end of the walk he took it up a notch with an offer to take me to see his home and his orphaned three-year-old brother, but I wasn't going to enter a confined space and I've heard that once you're in the squalid hellhole of their house it's much harder not to give money. In fact, apparently some 'guides' make contracts with very poor families in town who pretend to be family members. But Abe was good company and it was interesting to talk to someone who had never heard of a fork (in my explanation of a tuning fork) or McDonald's. In the end, I gave him double what we'd agreed to (100 birr - only a few dollars, but several times what a teacher makes in a day), so maybe his complaints did get to me, but I felt it was more than worth the experiences I had on the day hike.
The Meetup Hannah's arrival from Mekele was a flashback to the 90s since we had to meet up without phones. There aren't a lot of people in town who look like her, though, so it wasn't tough. We
lentils
Lentils drying the sun still weren't too keen on an overpriced boat trip to see monasteries that are apparently better in other parts of the country, so we just lounged around on the lake's edge, like the locals. A few overzealous bureaucrats watched over the area and tried to get me to pay 10 birr to take a photo. I managed to sneak a couple of photos of the lake, though.
We never made it to Blue Nile Falls (which are mostly dry due to a new hydroelectric plant) or to the monasteries on the lake, but Bahir Dar was still worth the trip.
See more photos below.
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