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Published: September 12th 2010
After hanging out for the week in Kampala and spending our birthday weekend in style, (Jeff was Aug 20th and mine was the 22nd) we took off for Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia. We spent 3 nights there orientating ourselves with the city and formulating a plan of attack for Ethiopia. We assumed we would have at least 5 weeks to wander around the country. One of the first places we went was to Addis Ababa University, the site where Haile Sellasie's former palace was located. We were able to go into his former bedroom and even his bathroom. Haile Sellasie was the former emperor of Ethiopia for many years up until 1974. He was admired for many accomplishments, one being fighting off Mussolini and the Italians during the second World War. Thanks to these efforts, Ethiopia is the only country in Africa (except for maybe Libya) that has NEVER been COLONIZED by ANYONE. The Italians occupied it for 5 years, and that was the closest they ever got to being colonized. Haile Sellasie is also known to be the messiah for the Rastafarian religion (Bob Marley being the most famous Rastafari). Before he was crowned emperor and given
Typical Ethiopian Food
Injera is on the bottomthe name Haile Sallasie (which means Power of the Trinity), he was known as Ras Tafari Mekonnen (Ras is a title in Ethiopia which is literally translated to 'head' or chief). This is where Rastafari comes from. We also visited his final resting place where he is buried insideof Holy Trinity Cathedral next to his wife.
While in Addis we also visited the National Museum, which had an excellent paleontological display of bones of primitive humans dating back over 7 million years up until homo sapien remains dating 200,000 years ago. It is also the home of 'Lucy', a 3.5 million year old remain of a primitive human creating a new species of primitive man called A. afarensis discovered in 1974, which allowed paleontologists to conclude that hominids had evolved much earlier than previously thought, and became a candidate for common ancestry of later species and the human chain of evolution. The museum had remains from all known human evolutionary time frames and was completely fascinating.
After seeing everything we wanted to in Addis, we jumped on a bus (with an actual legit bus company with very limited routes) early in the morning and headed up North to
Bahir Dar. We decided to circle through the North first, then come back through Addis and come up with a similar plan for the South. When we got to our hotel in Bahir Dar, there was a local wedding going on. We totally crashed it. We spent the night drinking, dancing, and eating their food. I even signed the bride and grooms wedding picture. They took us back to the brides parents house after the reception for a traditional dinner. It was an experience. The next morning we got up and hired a boat to take us two a few monasteries which were located on various islands on Lake Tana. Lake Tana's water was a dark brown color due to its tin content. We spent the day riding around and checking out the different monasteries, each which were decorated in very unique religious artwork. The most interesting one had a small museum with religious books and scrolls that were hundreds of years old. Only men were allowed at this particular monastery on this particular island.
After spending two nights in Bahir Dar, we jumped on a local minibus with a Brit and rode 3 hours up to Gondar. Once
Priest
He had to let us in the church there we met up with a local named Gold who our Brit friend met on couchsurfing who found us a hotel. We then went to the Royal Enclosure, which was an impressive structure of many castles and a wall surrounding the whole site. Part of it was ruined during WWII when the Brits bombed it as the Italians used it as a military base. After that we went to Fasildas' Bath which was built in the 1600s. Its an old stone bath that is filled with water every January for a month for locals to use. After spending a few nights in Gondar, we jumped on another minibus and headed up to Debark to set up a Trek in the Simian Mountains. Halfway to Debark, our bus broke down. After waiting around an hour, we hitched a ride in a truck with an IT guy from Addis that was heading up to Debark to do preventive maintenance on the computers at a bank chain he worked for. They dropped us off at the park bureau and we put together a team for our Trek.
We ended up hiring a guide, a scout with a machine gun to protect us
from Bandits (yes, Bandits!), a cook, and two guys with two mules to carry our supplies. We ended up hiking for 5 days and 4 nights. The Simian Mountains were quite a site. They were formed by erosion. They were very very green (as is all of the country side that I've seen so far in Ethiopia). During the hike, we came across many Ethiopian Highland Gelada Baboons, and well as a few endangered Walia ibex (found only in the Simian Mountains) and the rare Ethiopian Wolf (One night I was yelling at one to stay away from our tent). We also came upon some Americans who were studying the Gelada Baboons. They were there for 3 months taking turns on a 6 year project. These Baboons were very unique and completely different to the other Baboons I have come across in Africa. I found the Simians to be a very surreal place. It was very relaxing and an almost spiritual. I have never seen scenery quite like it.
After our 5 day trek, we spent the night in Debark and got up early the next morning to catch a bus to Shire (pronounced she-ray) and then make a
connection to Axum (also spelled Aksum) our next destination. The road to Shire was supposed to take about 7 hours. The road, especially the first part of the trip, was some of the craziest that I have ever seen. We were driving along sheer cliffs with no guard rails back and forth down from the highlands. Apparently there are a lot of accidents on this road. I usually don't get worried driving along cliffs, but I found myself thinking in my head about how I was going to jump out of the bus if we happened to fall. Not even half way into the drive, we broke down, twice. Eventually we made it to a small village and they could not go any further. We got off the bus and hitched a ride in a beer truck. The beer truck was equipped to handle the poor road conditions. I think the break down was a blessing in disguise because we got to Shire a lot faster than we would have on the bus. We left Debark about 10am and got to Shire at around 7pm. One guy on our broken down bus had taken a local minibus. We found out
later that he didn't get to Shire until 1030pm. Welcome to Backpacking Ethiopia. It was too late for us to catch a ride to Axum so we spent the night in Shire and caught a bus the next day.
Axum is an ancient holy city dating back to around 300BC. It is the home of Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity, which is the religion of most Ethiopians. Orthodox Christians here fast (don't eat meat) Wednesdays and Fridays of every week, which leaves a lot of food options to vegetarians who travel here. A main food eaten with almost every meal is injera which is made of barley and has the texture of a flat, rubbery pancake. There were a lot of ancient tombs (one of which was that of Balthazar who was Ethiopian and one of the 3 wise men that was present at the birth of Jesus Christ) as well as many stelae's which are large, erect towers. The largest one, which was created in the 3rd century by King Remhai, lies shattered on the ground as the base was too small to support it. Axum is also supposedly the home to the Ark of the Covenant, which is supposed
to contain the 10 commandments given to Moses on Mt. Sinai. Apparently, the Ark was taken from Israel by Menelik, a former emperor of Ethiopia, and forefather of Haile Sellasie. I saw the building that the Ark was in. I don't know if it is really there, but I do know that you can't get anywhere near that building. I got yelled at once trying to approach it. One guy that was with us got too close and suddenly a couple of guys with machine guns appeared out of nowhere and made sure he got away from the building. Supposedly there is only one person alive today who has seen the Ark, and there have also only been 2 westerners that have ever been allowed to see it, the last being in the 1700's. I told my guide I wanted to see it, and he told me to come back at night and bring 10,000 USD to bribe the guards.
After looking around, and raiding a few ancient tombs, we went to the Queen of Sheba's former palace. I have found that much of Ethiopia's history is based on legend, which can make learning about the sites you are
looking at kind of confusing. According to legend, this land was once ruled by a serpent. They used to sacrifice virgins to appease the serpent. One day, St.George (there is a beer here named after him) defeated this serpent, and saved a woman's life. He had a baby with this woman, and the baby became the Queen of Sheba. The Queen of Sheba ended up having a baby with King Solomon, who was Menelik (the guy who stole the Ark, former ruler of Ethiopia, and ancestor of Haile Sellasie). When looking at these sites, stories like this one are the ones that I am getting from the tour guides. People here believe these legends as fact. Even in the monasteries that I go to, I see some artwork of St. George defeating the serpent.
After spending two nights in Axum, we hired a private taxi for two days to take us around the rock-hewn churches of Tigrai. There were hundreds of them, so we obviously picked a handful to look at. There were two that we saw that stood out the most. The first was on top of a circular mesa, with a sheer cliff on all sides. To
get up, we had to climb a rope, and were put in a 'harness' which was actually a rope made of goat skin that they would tie around your waste. A monk was at the top of the cliff and would belay you up. (This site was also no girls allowed) On the top, besides the church, was an entire town made of stone. That night we stayed at the Gheralta Lodge, which was run by an Italian, very luxurious, and had by far the best shower in Africa (I sometimes miss hot showers with good water pressure) The second church, that we saw the following day and was by far my favorite, was called Abuna Yemata Guh. The church itself is a cave that was carved into the side of a huge rock pillar with thousand foot drops on all sides. To even get to it, you have to climb up a sheer cliff using only handgrips and footholds. After that, you come across a small hollowed out cave with a small chair and a great view. Next to that in the cliff is another cave with human remains resting in it. After that, you go up one more
cliff to the pillar, and have to walk along a ledge that is about 4-5 feet wide. If you are afraid of heights, whatever you do, don't look down. From there there is a little encampment on the right hand side with a locked door in it that you need to get a monk to open up for you. Inside is a small cave with circular domes beautify decorated in the traditional Ethiopian religious artwork that I have been looking at for the past few weeks. Inside there are a few texts that are hundreds of years old. It was probably the most amazing thing that I have ever seen. I sat down in that little church and stared at the walls for quite some time. I should have been an archaeologist.
When we were done with the tour of the churches, we got dropped off in the town of Mekele, a town with the population of about 1 million. We have spent the last couple of days relaxing and figuring out how we are going to get to Lalibela, our next destination famous for its rock-hewn churches, and probably the top tourist destination in Ethiopia. After that, we
plan to go back to Addis, renew our visa's (they are only good for 30 days) and then loop through the south of the country before taking off on a plane to Cairo to meet up with my dad and brother.
So far I have found Ethiopia to be absolutely mesmerizing. From their rich history and legends, to their extremely green, lush, mountainous landscape, to their interesting, friendly people with their good nature and interesting rituals and great coffee (coffee here is even better than in Colombia, and is rumored to have originated here), Ethiopia has it all. It's raw, its real, and it's a place that I will never forget.
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You didn't actually EAT Eddie?