Gonder to Gashena

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The Abyssinian Abyss!

Wow! Sorry it’s been so long - I haven’t been avoiding the blog - I just simply haven’t had any internet access for almost a fortnight!

Anyhow, I will try to give a quick overview of my trip since I left Bahir Dar on October 26th…

Well first I headed to Gonder for a day. And a day well spent it was too! I watched Liverpool beat Chelsea in Gonder Cinema. Oh yes!

It is difficult for one to exaggerate the popularity of the English Premier League out here in Ethiopia. Every young man, and most young women, appear to own one fake shirt or another, and can rattle off a surprising about of details and stats about most of the teams in the top flight. I’d say Arsenal are the favorites out here, followed by Man Ure and Chelski. Needless to say I’ve been doing my missionary bit and trying to convert the masses to a higher calling (LFC). People here often struggle to understand why I dislike United and Chelsea so much, and it has often been interesting to explain that Liverpool is a city as well as a team, and that, for example, Birmingham vs Aston Villa is a derby game because they come from the same city. In fact, most people here have four favourite teams (ie. ‘the big four’) only placed in different orders, so it is quite normal to bump into a fellah in a Chelsea shirt who will tell you just how much he loves Manchester United.

You can certainly watch more British footy on satellite TV here than you can in England, on channels emanating from South Africa and the Middle East. Most bars, restaurants and cinemas in all the main cities will show at least 3 games on a Saturday and a couple on a Sunday. There is something very strange about hundreds of impoverished Ethiopians watching and adoring these pampered millionaires, whose astronomical salaries appear even more ludicrous from here.

What I found even more peculiar, in this day and age when most ‘average Brits’ struggle to pay the prices asked to follow football, and the days when working class dads and lads scraped a few bob together to go to the ground every week seem so far away, was that the Ethiopians have kind of taken over where we left off! On a Saturday morning, the shoeshine boys are doing double-speed, the grafters are nabbing anybody they can to give a quick tour of the town before the first game kicks off at 12.45 GMT. Basically every bloke and kid in town is trying to get a bit of cash to get to the cinema or the bar for the afternoon. The cinema was rammed two hours before kickoff, charging 3 Birr (about 15p) entry. Once the seats and standing room were chocka, kids scrambled up onto the ledges of the walls to get a look. There was cheering and a bit of clapping. One of the biggest cheers of the day came when the camera panned onto the traveling Kop who were pogo-ing to the Torres song!

From Gonder I headed up to Debark, to start a four-day trek in the Simien Mounatins, and I have to say it provided some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen. I had hoped to find a group to share costs with, but in the end decided to hire a tent and cooking gear and go it alone! Well, not quite alone. It is compulsory to hire an armed Scout, and I also paid for a mule to carry the majority of my gear (and a mule man to guide it of course). I imagine the Simiens are probably the most touristy part of Ethiopia, and I came across a number of tour groups which had been organized from Europe. However, for long stretches of the trek it was just me and my armed scout (the muleman went ahead to the camps) - he with no English, and I with no Amharic. The banter wasn’t exactly flying, but we managed to have a laugh.

The view from Imet Gogo on day three was breathtaking - you could basically look down upon a vast valley, which seemingly stretched forever! Within the valley there jutted up mountains - some with sharp peaks, and others with flat tops, dotted with little villages miles from any tracks or roads.

We saw plenty of Gelada Baboons and some huge birds of prey. We were also accompanied on our walk my many other colourful birds, and were often surrounded my exotic plants. We passed through a number of small, traditional villages with mud and stick huts topped with thatched roofs. There were always lots of locals out plowing their fields, herding their animals, and carrying back-breaking bundles of crops and wood. The sheer numbers of children out working in the countryside was striking - herding goats, carrying wood, or sitting huddled in their gabis (local shawls) watching over the crops, stone in hand lest any meddlesome baboon might steal their family’s hard-earned sustenance.

The nights were as painfully cold as the days were glorious, and I returned weather-beaten, sunburnt and chapped, but it was a fantastic experience, and I returned to Gonder cream-crackered but happy.

Back in Gonder, I visited the fantastic seventeenth-century castle, which betrayed a range of architectural influences and had a bit of a Moorish feel about it which reminded a little of my trip to Southern Spain. The only other castles I had seen previously in Africa had been European-built, so it was nice to be able to feel a bit of the mystery and intrigue of the African medieval court…

Next, I popped back to Bahir Dar to relax a couple of days. This time, instead of boogieing with some Czechs, I spent my days scoffing bowls of beautiful Assa Dulet (a very spicy fish and berbere stew) with my namesake Ben, from Paris. We also had a beer in what is currently the town’s most popular café - ‘Obama Bar’. Oh yes, Ethiopia was celebrating! There were even fireworks, and the kids flogging Obama Tshirts can probably retire at age 16 after doing such a roaring trade on election night…!

From Bahir Dar I caught a bus to Lalibela. At least it was supposed to travel to Lalibela. It was an atrocious journey, with the fare-colector doing his best to rip-off as many people as possible on short village-to-village journeys. So we actually only reached a tiny little town (village?) at a junction called Gashena. It was already dark, and we were ushered to the town’s only ‘hotel’…

Ah, Gashena. Gashena mi amor… What a weird little place. Hotel aside (and we’ll get on to that shortly), it actually turned out to be quite a cool little experience!

Synne, Maria and Sigmund were three Norwegians who shared my predicament, and we were soon sitting in what appeared to be a large front room where a few locals were chowing down. We basically asked for a pile of whatever there was, and were soon tucking into tibs (chopped lamb or goat fried up with onion, butter and chillis), shiro (a tasty sauce made from chickpeas and popular on Wednesdays and Fridays here when they fast), and scrambled eggs. All atop a bloody huge injera of course! The room was thick with the smoke of incense from a coffee ceremony being prepared for us, which made it hard to see by only candlelight. Assuming we had arrived in the midst of one of Ethiopia’s frequent power cuts, we asked when the light might come back on. “Three Months” came the deadpan reply. Apparantly the power plant was in construction.

Having been on a torturous bus journey for 13 hours, we went for a stroll around the absolutely dead town (it was 9.00pm on a Saturday). The only place with an open door, turned out to be a Tej Beat or basically a local bar which sells home made Tej - like a mead made with honey. It’s pretty good, though has the Reef-effect - you couldn’t drink more than a few for fear of what I might do to you r blood sugar levels… As we sipped the local potion, a few women started kneading the delicious bread which we would return for at breakfast the next day. And with that we returned to our glorious little suites.

With torches on, we could see just how filthy these hovels were. The floors, I exaggerate not, were as dirty as any stable I have ever seen. Fair dos, I thought,. What’s a dirty floor anyway. If it were clean our mucky feet’ only dirty it again! And then I looked at the sheets. And then I smelt them.

Don’t ask me why I smelt them, and I sure as hell won’t be doing any voluntary sheet-sniffing again in any hurry, but the pong I detected revealed that these little bad boys had, perhaps, not been washed for several months. If ever. And I couldn’t help but think of the filthiest, smelliest people I had encountered on local buses here. And I’ve encountered a few.

Now, I don’t like to play the fussy faranji, but I had to ask for fresh ones. The woman in the ‘restaurant’ wasn’t happy to be disturbed from her grub, but I thought she’d understand my preoccupation when I showed her the sheets - I thought that sight would easily cross the language barrier. What most certainly did breakdown any cultural misunderstanding, was the look she shot at me when I pulled back the covers; a look that said “What’s your problem mate?!” She literally didn’t see what I was taking issue with! She proceeded to brush the actual lumps of mud off, and then looked at me again. This time, the Amharic stare said “There!”. I couldn’t let it lie, and tried to suggest that the other rooms might have cleaner sheets. My heart sank, when her little sidekick turned up with a different slightly damp mattress. They stripped my bed, changed the mattress and put the filthy covers back on. Er, Thankyou.

I won’t even begin to describe the toilet as I saw it in full daylight the following morning, nor the filth which was strewn around the patio just outside the rooms (lets just say you would think that the used condoms might have been binned at some point). I guess they have no competition in town to beat…

The freshly baked bread was unbelievable.

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Comments

[Jenna]

Travels
Hey Ben! Good to hear about your travels... Ethiopia sounds great, though that last hotel is truly nighmarish! If I wind up in Ethiopia myself, I'll have to ask you for some advice. Your British slang is great! I had to google a few words, though Haha Take care. Have a wonderful time in your adventurous explorations!