Blogs from Ethiopia, Africa - page 88

Being Sunday there was not a lot that we could usefully achieve in Adis. However, we moved out of our Nostarminus hotel and set off in search of somewhere just a little more comfortable to spend the next two nights. The first hotel we found was nice, but too far out of the centre of things, so we gave it a miss. There was a guest house we had heard of in a central position but, once we had found it, it turned out to be full of Europeans (Italians?) and they had no room for us. On to the next - same thing. But they did recommend a new guest house just up the main drag. We found this place - it was on the 8th floor of a high rise building! It was a ... read more

To smooth over our social indiscretion of the previous night we popped some local currency into the donation box at the monastery gate as we drove out. We had enjoyed our short stay and I had been tempted to flog the water with my rod and line just to see if those really had been trout rising in the lake. But I did not want to risk further offence since I might have needed a license, so my rod stayed put in the car. We had been told that the road to Adis from now on would be good tarmac. We were confident, therefore, that the 250 or so miles to Adis would be no problem today. At first we continued with the dreaded Chinese workmen and their culverts to Dessie, then Kembolcha, covering 40 miles ... read more

We divided our activities today. Firstly, Gail and Jeremy took Milla with them to visit the group of churches near the Bilbilla area some 42 kms north of Lalibela. These are arguably the most spectacular of all the churches, most of them being older. They spent a long time trying to find the right road to the monastery of Yemrehanna Christos but were rewarded by seeing a unique church within a large cavern some 8,800 ft up the mountain. The church and the priest’s house in this dark cavern were built with alternating layers of wood, and granite faced with white gypsum - the whole taking on the appearance of a layered chocolate cream cake. The interior had wonderful stone carvings and early paintings. They returned early afternoon for a late lunch at our hotel campsite. ... read more

We faced a drive of about 180 miles to reach Lalibela. The first 36 of these were retracing our tracks northwards on superb tarmac which rather lulled us into a false sense of contentment that the journey would be a piece of cake. How wrong we were! As soon as we turned eastwards onto the all weather dirt road it became worse and worse. The first few miles were okay but then the road became extremely rocky, slowing our speed down to something like 20 mph - anything faster and we felt that the poor cars would shake themselves to bits. Then came a long section where work was in progress, seemingly under some Chinese contract judging by the number of Chinamen we saw, and we drove mile after mile on diversions where the dust was ... read more

Fresh bread, tomatoes, and more diesel - the usual start to the day. The road south was beautiful, newly tarred, smooth with hardly any traffic. On more than one occasion we saw great falic-like rocky pinnacles towering beside the road - most spectacular and we wondered if anyone had ever managed to climb them, or had even wanted to! Lake Tana appeared to our right and, a great surprise for the source of the Blue Nile, the water was muddy in appearance. James Bruce, who claims to have discovered the source of the Blue Nile, described it as the “copper lake” - and I can see why. The town of Bahir Dar had a very “colonial” look with wide, tree-lined streets. We found the Ghion Hotel where we knew there was camping facilities and, apart from ... read more