From Bahir Dar to Lalibela

(6 am bus to Weldiya, get off at Geshena (5h), change into the bus or anything else to Lalibela (6h), altogether around 250 Birr)

By Frieda

To get from Bahir Dar to Lalibela we had to start very early in the morning. It is a very long way and we hoped to be able to do it in one day. The evening before we met a “nice” guy who was promising us a good connection going directly to Lalibela. Even though we knew better we trusted him after a while. We were chatting with him for a little time and he managed to compliment us in a way that we thought it was worth giving him a chance of convincing us that being suspicious was not necessary. For example he was very interested in Daniels political views and impressed by his knowledge of the political situation (even though he scammed us i still think he was impressed). When he told us that we had to pay in advance we told him that we never do that but as i said before we wanted to give it a chance and paid 100Birr in advance (he wanted the full price of 500Birr) knowing of the possibility to just lose the money. The next morning, surprisingly, someone actually came to pick us up but instead of bringing us to a direct private transport he took us to the local bus we wolud have taken anyway. So the 100Birr were lost as expected and with them my hope of people being nice for the sake of itself if they also want to sell you something.

I like travelling by local bus. In one bus fit around 70 people crammed into small rows of seats. Even though you have very little space I consider it rather comfortable and I can sleep there pretty well. For Daniel with his long legs it is a bit less nice but he is never complaining. The bad thing about the local bus is that it is very slow. The roads are often bad. Either dirtroads or asphalted roads with huge holes in them. On the plus side you see a lot of Ethiopia’s beautyful countryside, villages and small towns if you travel slowly by bus. And for my experience sooner or mostly later you get where you want to go.

On this trip we arrived around noon in a small village where we had to change buses. But before we could get to the bus to Lalibela a truck driver offered us a ride for 100Birr. We accepted because we liked the idea of trying out another vehicle for a change. So we sat in the truck’s cabin for the next five hours. But after 20 minutes the truck stopped to load some more stuff which could not fit into another truck waiting by the roadside. Daniel helped to load and then we drove for hours on a very very bad road (it was in such a bad condition that I was happy we did not take the local bus) through a scenic lndscape up and down through hilly sorroundings. During dusk we finally arrived up in the mountain city Lalibela.