Thursday, 1 December 2016
Blue Nile Falls
By Frieda
Around 30km from Bahir Dar
is a village called Tis Abay. Close to this villlage are the Blue Nile
Falls. They used to be huge waterfalls but a electricity company started to use
them to produce energy and dam its waters. Therefore there is only a small
percentage of the waterfall left but this is still impressive and worth going
there.
We took a local bus from Bahir Dar which cost us 15 Birr per
person and it took about 2 hours because the road is in a very bad conditon.
Arriving in the village we decided to take a guide for once. The entrance fee
for the falls was 50Birr per person. After we shortly visited the market we took
a short hike over an old portuguese bridge a little bit up a hill to the
waterfalls. Up here you could see three nice falls but they were rather brown
than blue J.
Form there you could imagine how huge the waterfall must have been once. Here
we rested a bit and watched the watermasses being pushed over the cliffs and
then falling into the depths.
We went down to the bigest fall where we got completely wet
after a few seconds. From there we hiked over a suspension bridge and crossed
the river by boat on our way back. We looked a little bit for crocodiles but
could not find any. Back in the village Daniel wanted to try some local beer so
our guide took us to a place where they served it. The people there where very
happy to see us and proud to let us taste this part of their culture. What we
got served reminded me not the slightest of beer. It had a muddy colour and some
kernels flowing in it. The taste was sour and reminded me a little bit of coffe
or something else roasted or burnt. I did not like it and drank nothing more
than a tiny sip but i really liked the atmosphere in the place.
Thus we also killed the time we would have waited for the
bus. When it came we slowly bumped back to Bahir Dar.
Lalibela
By Frieda
Lalibela is a very-far-away-from-everything town up in the
mountains. That there is a town is due to ancient King Lalibela whose dynasty
built around 10 rock churches that were not built out of rock but carved into
it. These churches are conected with a system of tunnels and trenches. We
wanted to see the churches, however the entrance fee is around 50 Dollar per
person. Since the tickets are valid for up to five days some people take
leftover tickets from other tourists. We gave our tickets to an Argentinian
couple.
On the first day we found the most amazing restaurant I have
ever been to: Ben Abeba. The most amazing thing about this place is not the
food (even though it is very good! Especially the western food options) but
rather the arichitecture of the place and most importantly the view. It is a
half open half closed building made of several terraces and balconies sitting
on a rather high hill surrounded by the most amazing landscapes. You can see
360 degree around you into valleys that strech far around and border into high
rows of moutains in the distance. We liked that place so much that we came here
for three meals J propably
also because of the very nice staff and charming Scottish lady who is the
owner. Only on the last evening in Lalibela we went to the “seven olives” fo
dinner which was propably the best Ethiopian food we ever had.
On the second day we met Yosef and Bobby, an Israeli and an
American who cruised around Ethiopia by bike. It was really nice to hang out
with them and since they did not want to pay the horrendous entrance fee we got
ourselves some drinks and climbed a mountain from where the churches were
visible from above. On our last day we visited the churches. They were really
impresive! Not a single stone was used to built these churches but they are
carved deep into the ground and look just amazing. But they are even more
impressive from the outside. Getting lost in the labyrinth of tunnels and
diving out to see one of these impressive buildings was the part I enjoyed the
most.
A bus ride
by Daniel
The cramp in my right leg became unbearable. But apart from
massaging it – first gently, then with ever more force smashing my fist on the
hardened detracted muscle – there was nothing I could do about it. Moving my
hip 5 cm to the left brought some relief although my neighbour was obviously
not pleased with it. Still he only gave a mumbled grunt and further said
nothing.
It had been almost three hours since we embarked the minibus
leaving the dusty bus station of Gonder. After a hard round of bargaining we
had managed to find a seat in the run-down Toyota. It was still almost double
the regular fare but we had been promised the “good” seats in the back row. In
font of us sat a father with his ill daughter. He was maybe in his forties but
the hard work as a farmer made him appear much older, his face was wrinkled and
his strong hands held an old and gnarled stick. His daughter, maybe in her
early twenties, just shrank into her seat with drops of fevery sweat rolling
down her forehead, all the while staring at that strange couple sitting behind
her. A feverish odor filled the bus so I opened the window.
But, really, when we started rolling out of that dusty
compound we had our own seat, not having to share them with another passenger
or two. The driver had kept his promise.
Two miles out of town that changed. The driver and his
assistant, who always stood next to the window leaning out and shouting the
destination at anybody we passed, wold cram ever more people into the already
overcrowded minibus. With space already at a minimum for my long faranji legs I
had to share my seat first with a rather petite village girl who accompanied us
just until the next village and then with a wretched but brightly smiling
sheperd. He was utterly delighted sitting next to this big bearded foreigner
and he tried to strike up a conversation pointing at my arm and touching my straight
and seemingly soft hair, all the while giving all sorts of funny giggles and
complimenting me in Amharic. I kind of liked this fellow and his curiosity
flattered me but from the first minute his distinct smell of countless days of
hard-work sweat and one month old goat milk put my nostrils and my endurance to
an impeccable test. When another passenger wanted to open the window the father
of that sick girl protested. Then my thigh started to cramp.
It was a relief when after roughly two hours of nose and leg
pain we briefly stopped and the sheperd guy went off. I took the opportunity to
get off as well stretching my legs and desperately gasping for some fresh air
although the driver’s assistant impatiently waved at me to get back into the
bus. The sheperd was then replaced with a huge Ethiopian man in his fifties (I
started wondering how he could fit next to me being roughly as tall and a lot
broader) but who looked cleanly shaved and wore a stylish leather jacket and
polished leather shoes. After having sat next to that sheperd for a never
ending two hours, he felt like a relief. A nice scent of vanilla and coconut
shampoo mixed with a flowery note from his aftershave filled my nostrils and
now it was me who felt the urge of touching his skin and smelling his hair. He
turned out to be working as a geologist for the government with a good command
of English and we chatted away the last half hour on our trip to Bahir Dar,
carefully avoiding any reference to politics...
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