Just one more day in Bahir Dar (we hope)

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Our man with a car from the Toyota garage arrived on time at 0800, what he arrived in was a Toyota Hilux that had done nearly 700,000KM and looked like it was falling apart. It quickly became clear this car was not able to drive us for 2 hours to Gondar but rather could drive us 30KM to the natural highlight of Ethiopia which is Blue Nile Falls.

We had a small argument over our destination but it seemed we must visit the falls and not the town of Gondar. Everyone in Ethiopia seems to say yes but then does what they want, we just had to go with it! The road to the falls turned out to be one of the worst we have seen and at 30km away it was a real testament to this old car that it made it.

Once there we were expecting a trickle as the guidebooks had said in the dry season which we are in the flow is not great, but recent rains had helped and the falls were good but not spectacular. Apparently 40 years ago they build a canal near it to feed a hydroelectric and so 85% of the water is now diverted away from the falls reducing their glory.

Nevertheless we had a good 1 hour walk around the falls and saw them from all angles before heading back to town for lunch.

In the late afternoon we headed out to a view point at the top of a hill behind Bahir Dar where a secretive palace of the late Haile Selassie. When we got close men with guns politely but insistently told us no photos. We’re not sure why, the palace certainly wasn’t lived in and was in a poor state. Anyway we stopped at a local stand for some tea and coffee. I can describe the tea as the sweetest I’ve ever drunk and James described the coffee as the strongest he had ever done.

As we travelled back it was clear that Sunday is the day to get married and the roads were closed for long possessions of cars tooting their horns, people dancing in the street and beer being drunk.

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