Bahir Dar

by Frieda

We went rom Gondar to Bahir Dar by minibus. It took about 4 hours and cost us 100 Birr (65 Birr local price without luggage.

The road is apparently dangerous at night but we travelled during the day and reachd Bahir Dar before nightfall. We tried the first Hotel we saw when we got off the minibus trying to avoid being "guided" by someone. The hotel had a reasonable price (200 Birr) and the rooms were perfectly fine for us. Clean and with a hot and working shower. It even had a tv.

After we checked in we strolled a little bit around town and found a local place where we could get shekelau tibs. This dish is medium sized pices of cow or goat meat served in a sizzling pot with glowing coals underneath. So the meat stays hot while you eat.

The next day we wanted to go to lake Tana. We took a boat tour to see some of the monasteries located on islands in the lake and its shores. As everywhere a ”guide“ found us in our hotel offering exactely what we where looking for. He offered a reasanoble price so we decided to take his offer (200 Birr per person). We went with him to the lake but arriving there he told us that unfortunatly the boat was not full becaue he could not find other foreigners to take the tour with us. Just one person and therefore it should be 200 Birr more for the two of us. We were not willing to pay but preferred to wait for more tourists. But we had not enough money on us so we agreed on paying the difference in the evening. In the end the boat was rather full with Ethiopians but only one other farangi was on board.

The boat took us over the lake to a close peninsula for about 1 hour. The water of the lake had a muddy brown coulour which is typical for lakes and rivers in Ethiopia durig the rainy season. On the peninsula were three monasteries. The way up to the first one was cluttered with stalls of souvenirs for tourists. They had scarves, religious pictures, lunchboxes made of goat fur and some necklaces. Instead of having a look at the first monastery we decided to head for the second one further inside the peninsula. But even though we followed the marked path we couldn't find it. But it was a nice walk in a jungle-like landscape. On our way we saw several different kinds of monkeys and beautiful birds. When we came back to our boat everyone was allready waiting there for us. Apparently they had just visitetd the first monastery and went directly back to the boat afterwards.

We left the peninsula and the boat rode to a small island close by. Here women where not allowed to the monestary so I waited by the boat. Our boat driver gave us some fruit he picked from a tree i had never seen before. It was small like a walnut, had a lilac skin, white flesh a big stone in the middle and tasted  very sour.

From the island we crossed the lake to its right side where the blue nile flows out of the lake. This took us about half an hour. In this spot there are hippos and really we could see the head of a hippo emerging from the water serveral times relatively close to our boat. The head was huge and i was surprised how long the hippo could stay under water without breathing. After that we headed for our starting Point on the city's lakeshore.

In the evening our guide came and we were willing to pay him as we had agreed on before but after shortly hesitating he gave us 100 Birr back because the boat was full in the end anyways. Even though we propably payed too much we had a nice day on the lake. My personal highlight was the hippo's head :)