Ethiopia Trip: The Road between Bahir Dar and Gondar

I'm adding in a post to show what the roads are like and what you'll see in the countryside. As I've said before, Ethiopia is gorgeous, with so many mountains and twisty roads and viewpoints. This block of road is on the flatter side but you still find a lot of giant potholes in the paved roads. You also have to drive around all sorts of animals (cows, sheep, goats, donkeys, the occasional horse, chicken, later on we started passing camels), people and vehicles (horse/ox drawn carts, tuk tuks, cars, buses, trucks), both in the countryside and in the villages and small towns you drive through. We were told that if a driver hits an animal they have to pay the owner the value. So a cow is apparently something like 4000 birr (about US $135).

It's amazing how medieval the technology most farmers still use is. We passed numerous farmers using old style ploughs and in the later stages of the trips people were using sickles to harvest grains.

We made a quick pitstop to buy grilled corn from one of the women selling it at the side of the road. We'd be miles from any house and yet a group of women would be sitting at the side of the road with their braziers. The corn itself was on the hard, starchy, side. It also tasted more like popcorn than fresh corn.

The only big stop on our route was to Awra Amba, a utopian village dedicated to gender equality. Ethiopia has rigid divisions between what’s considered women’s work and men’s work. For example, women spin thread but men weave cloth. This village believes that everyone should work according to their abilities. Their founder, Zumra Nuru was incarcerated for insanity by his family when he started talking about his ideas. He's quite a visionary. Some of the village's slogans are included in the photo below. They're really worth reading and sharing. I'm not sure I agree with their idea of making people outcasts if they break rules though.

They had a school for the kids with a lot of English textbooks. I really liked their old folk's home (pictured below), which gave each person a small room for privacy but as part of a common room where they can meet inside for company while their family members are working. Exteriors are all done in the traditional style.

Their workshop was fairly large with a few looms and a clever recycling of a bicycle tire for a spinning wheel. They survive by selling their cloth.

It was an interesting village to learn about and I'm glad my tour stopped there.

Ethiopia Trip: Bahir Dar

It takes 11 hours to drive between Addis Ababa and Bahir Dar so most people opt to fly there. We didn't, and while the roads were rough at times and we had to use 'nature's bathroom' the views more than made up for any discomfort. This is a viewpoint near Debre Libanos church.

We didn't really explore much of Bahir Dar, using it more as a staging point for seeing the Blue Nile Falls (an hour and a half drive away) and Lake Tana.

Our first excursion was to the falls. In addition to our city guide, you must also hire a local guide for the falls (this was common at several sites as a way of employing local people). While you can pick up any random person vying for the job it is worth getting an official guide, as they have better English skills and usually have a firm grasp of the history and interesting facts of the sites they're showing.

The falls require walking up the opposing hill (which at this altitude is a bit more of a workout). We were there just after the rainy season ended so they were very impressive. In the middle of the dry season the water is diverted to the hydro electric plant and the falls basically stop flowing. After the falls is a suspension bridge across the gorge, followed by a short walk and a ferry ride across the Blue Nile back to the car park.

We saw these yellow and orange flowers everywhere and our guide explained that they were called meskel flowers. Meskel is the celebration of finding the True Cross by Empress Helena and comes just after the Ethiopian new year in September, which is the only time of the year these daisies bloom. They are endemic to Ethiopia.

Back in the city we wandered around the market a bit, seeing the variety of spices, grains, vegetable and more for sale. There were crates full of live chickens, piles and piles of red onions, aisles for clothing, plastic shoes, and more. It's quite a sight.

The next day we took a boat ride on Lake Tana, saw some hippos and weaver birds and giant pelicans. We also saw members of the Weyto tribe (an ethnically different group that supports itself through fishing) out in their papyrus canoes called tankwa.

We visited the Azwa Maryam monastery on the Zage Peninsula. Founded in the 1310s by Abuna Yohannes it's a circular church with a thatched roof and modern paintings adorning the inside.

I love all the paintings of demons and the Last Judgement. With the Jesuit influence of the 16th C Ethiopian art adapted some Western designs, but so much remains original (including some Bible stories not included elsewhere, like Christ turning clay birds real as a child). While the cross is an important symbol, the crucifix - the implement of Christ's death - wasn't really portrayed until the Jesuits came. The cross is still seen more as a healing implement, like Moses's staff raised to heal the people of Israel in the desert. As with Catholic art, there is a lot of symbolism. Figures seen straight on with two eyes are generally good, while if they're seen from the side, with one eye, it means they're evil. 

Ethiopia Trip: Addis Ababa

I recently returned home from touring the Northern provinces of Ethiopia. I'll be blogging some of the places I went. If you have questions or want more information on something, comment and I'll try to add it in.

My sister and I flew in with Ethiopian Airlines, which handed out little care packages on the plane. I've never seen this done outside of first class so I was pretty happy to get my socks, toothbrush + paste, and eye mask. Even if they were all a shade of yellow I'm not keen on.

The view from the window as we came in for our landing was pretty awesome. I love seeing countries from above.


We booked our tour through Awaze Tours, a local company that handled everything for us, providing a driver, local guides, admission, even food was included. Tips and souvenirs were extra, of course.  They picked us up promptly from the airport and dropped us off at the Friendship International Hotel to refresh after our flight. You have to go through security to enter the hotel (and a lot of buildings - the National Museum, local malls). Some places have x-ray machines and metal detectors, others just give you a pat down from security or armed army personnel.

The bathroom had nice amenities. It also had a bathtub and shower that drained through a hole in the middle of the floor. It wasn't until our second hotel that we were sure this wasn't an error (not all of our hotels did this, but enough of them did to make it note worthy). Some places give you bathroom slippers for this reason. They also have TINY rolls of toile paper and only give you one a night. I was warned of this (and the fact that toilet paper in public restrooms was limited) and so brought some with me.

Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia, means "new flower" and was chosen for its beauty, hot springs and agreeable climate. We went to the Entoto Hills lookout where we got to see the city as a whole.

As with any big city traffic is a mess. They've got western style malls here (though I didn't see any elsewhere, though we also didn't really explore other downtown areas). I saw a grocery store with a sign saying dog meat was available. I'm still not sure if that meant it was meat from a dog for humans to eat or meat for dogs to eat. Most places were went later only had small kiosk style grocers - or local markets where most food items were plentiful.

We went to the Ethnographic museum our first day, which has a lot of cultural artefacts and information. Our last day we visited the National Museum and paid our respects to Lucy's bones. They've actually found older bones since hers were discovered, but she's the one everyone knows.

Shout-Out: Salvaged by Madeleine Roux

Rosalyn Devar is on the run from her famous family, the bioengineering job she's come to hate, and her messed-up life. She's run all the way to outer space, where she's taken a position as a "space janitor," cleaning up ill-fated research expeditions. But no matter how far she goes, Rosalyn can't escape herself. After too many mistakes on the job, she's given one last chance: take care of salvaging the Brigantine, a research vessel that has gone dark, with all crew aboard thought dead.

But the Brigantine's crew are very much alive--if not entirely human. Now Rosalyn is trapped on board, alone with a crew infected by a mysterious parasitic alien. The captain, Edison Aries, seems to still maintain some control over himself and the crew, but he won't be able to keep fighting much longer. Rosalyn and Edison must find a way to stop the parasite's onslaught...or it may take over the entire human race.

Movie Review: The Devil’s Backbone (El Espinazo del Diablo)

Directed by Guillermo del Toro, 2001
IMDb listing

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256009/
Pros: atmospheric, slow paced, creepy

Cons: little explanation of surrounding events

After Carlos’s father is killed in the Spanish civil war he’s dropped off at a boy’s orphanage where a child recently died. Carlos starts seeing a ghost as he learns more about the Republican sympathizers who run the place and the volatile caretaker the kids are afraid of.

This is a great atmospheric horror story. It’s slow paced, giving you time to get to know the principle characters. Carlos is a great protagonist, curious and sweet, bullied a bit by one of the older boys.

The ghost effects are subdued but very creepy. They’re kept to a minimum so you never get used to seeing it. There are no jump scares and minimal gore.

There’s very little explanation of what’s happening outside the orphanage. They mention a war but you really have to piece things together to know what war (if you didn’t read it on the case). I’d have liked a bit more information.

On the whole this is a good, creepy film.

Shout-Out: The Passengers by John Marrs

You’re riding in your self-driving car when suddenly the doors lock, the route changes and you have lost all control. Then, a mysterious voice tells you, “You are going to die.”

Just as self-driving cars become the trusted, safer norm, eight people find themselves in this terrifying situation, including a faded TV star, a pregnant young woman, an abused wife fleeing her husband, an illegal immigrant, a husband and wife, and a suicidal man.

From cameras hidden in their cars, their panic is broadcast to millions of people around the world. But the public will show their true colors when they are asked, "Which of these people should we save?...And who should we kill first?"

Book Review: Hidden Treasures of Ethiopia by Maria-Jose Friedlander and Bob Friedlander

Pros: beautiful photographs, incredibly detailed descriptions of all of the paintings, good background information

Cons: not enough photographs

This is a photographic travelogue of a series of remote churches in Ethiopia. The first three chapters are background information: The Architecture of the Churches, Ethiopian Christianity and Saints, and The Jesuit Interlude. These help you understand the context and material discussed in the following three chapters: The Churches of Tigray (detailing eleven churches), The Gondarine Churches (three churches) and The Churches near Lalibela (three churches). As appendices the book has a chronology of Ethiopian royalty and the Ethiopian calendar (which differs significantly from the Gregorian calendar the Western world uses).

When I bought it I wasn’t sure what churches were covered, so I was disappointed that some of the ones I was looking for (like the main Lalibela complex) did not appear here.

Ethiopian Christianity is practiced differently than Christianity elsewhere in the world, having closer contact with Judaism before being effectively cut off from other Christian nations for centuries. This allowed it to remain largely unchanged until the present day, despite efforts by Jesuits to convert them to Catholicism and Muslim invasions. I greatly enjoyed the first chapters of the book, which taught me a lot of useful terms as well as stories of local saints I was unfamiliar with.

For the churches, if there’s significant paintings, the authors put in numbered diagrams with explanations of what image is where for each wall, then more detailed information - including Biblical quotations and more descriptions of saints lives - in order to understand the stories being presented. There’s a wealth of information here that’s sadly lessened by the fact that there are so few pictures. Quite often I would read a description and want to see the painting only to find it wasn’t included in the handful of images each church received.

The pictures that are included are gorgeous and cover a wide range of religious subjects (so you’re not getting only Virgin and Child pictures from each church). I was very happy to discover that for a few churches the authors included images and descriptions of a few of that churches’ treasures, publishing photos of a few manuscript photos, one fan, some metal processional crosses, etc.

On the whole it feels like this book is designed to be used in situ, with each chapter explaining how to get to the church in question. Alas, most readers will never have the chance to visit these edifices, though if you can find a book with more photos of the interiors, this book would be indispensable for identifying the subjects in question.