Ethiopia - 100% Unique

Lalibela priest

Ethiopia has been nothing like what we thought.  All of our preconceptions about Ethiopia and the images we are shown through the media have only served to confuse what the country is actually like.  In addition to Ethiopia been completely unlike our media-influenced expectations, the country is quite unlike anywhere we have ever travelled and anywhere else in Africa!  

Traditional houses in Lalibela

For starters, it was cold again in Ethiopia and suspiciously overcast.  In just a little over an hour we had left behind the dry warm Northern Kenyan desert and re-entered rather fertile land.  

We were immediately impressed with Ethiopia, which was no doubt helped a little by a massive caffeine and sugar injection at the border town of Moyale.  To our coffee diet which comprises very little but one instant coffee in the morning, the Ethiopian espresso shot (which comprises about a tablespoon of sugar) we had in the border town for the equivalent of about NZ$0.40 was certainly welcomed.  

No drought here - this flood set us back an hour or so

It wasn't long after leaving the border town that it started raining.  And it hasn't stopped raining much since then.  We are travelling through Ethiopia during their rainy season, and the rains are tropical.  The drought that we had heard about is apparently limited to the eastern side of Ethiopia (which borders Somalia) rather than the lands that we had been travelling through.  

The people are also very different from other Africans we have encountered so far.  They look different - although it is hard to describe exactly how this is so.  They also dress very smartly, often in leather shoes, long sleeve shirts and jackets (we felt positively bummish in Addis Ababa walking around in flip flops and dusty dirty clothes compared with the very smartly dressed locals).  

Lake Tana Monastery

Traditional Coffee Ceremony

In the south of the country, which on reflection must seldom get any tourist attention, the people seemed thrilled to see us pass by.  In fact, a simple wave or a smile from the truck would transform the people outside into a state where they were positively beaming!  Whenever the truck stopped for a short-break, nearby children would run towards the vehicle (so that within 5 minutes the truck was almost surrounded).  One person on the truck made the comparison to a zombie movie, where zombies relentlessly pursue the surviving humans, running and trampling over one another.  Although perhaps a little exaggerated, the comparison has an eerily amusing accuracy!!

The smart urban dress-style is reminiscent of Italy and no doubt owes at least a part of its influence to the short Italian colonisation of Ethiopia (circa late 1930's).  We may have the Italian colonisation to partially thank for the coffee as well, and we can certainly thank it for its influence on the food options.  

Food, which is exceptionally well priced here (a meal is seldom more than NZ$3 or $4, and often between NZ$1-2), ranges from italian (pasta, pizza and meatballs) to the quite unique and tasty Ethiopian (which revolves around a sour spongy pancake like carb known as injera).  Injera has often prompted comparisons to carpet underlay in its appearance, reviews on its taste (when eaten on its own) are mixed, but when combined with a lamb or beef curry can be quite exquisite and very edible.  

The capital, Addis Ababa, is perhaps one of the most developed and outwardly affluent cities we have travelled through.  Stark contrast to the Ethiopian poverty we had perhaps been expecting.  Not to present the wrong impression, parts of Ethiopia are poor, and many people do eek out a mere subsistence existence.  No doubt there are also some very poor areas within Addis, but those parts that we did see all pointed towards a modern cosmopolitan city - an abundance of multi-storey buildings, and a massive diversity of restaurants, coffee and clothing shops.

From Addis Ababa we continued north to Bahir Dar.  A journey across  Lake Tana to a couple of monasteries in the morning and a trip to the Blue Nile Falls in the afternoon occupied the day.  Christianity is a massive part of Ethiopian life.  There are a number of churches and monasteries to see through Ethiopia which are quite unlike anything ever! 

Excavated from one piece of rock - amazing!

Church of St George - the Lalibela postcard church

Church of St George

Built out of the rock face

Green and fertile land

The Marble church is behind the wall and a waterfall in a large cave

From the back of the cave, marble church in the middle

Ethiopian priest holding up an ancient bible (printed on Goatskin)

On that point, from Bahir Dar a group of us made a diversion to Lalibela.  The guide books say that Lalibela is something that can't be missed in any visit to Ethiopia.  Perhaps still suffering from European church fatigue, I wasn't too sure exactly how impressive 10 or so churches that were some 800 years old would be.  How wrong I was.  Nothing in my history of church viewing has ever come close to the impressiveness of the churches of Lalibela.  It was possibly the highlight of all of Africa so far and absolutely cannot be missed (well at least up there with the Serengeti Leopard - the photo of which sits as our computer's desktop wallpaper).  

I had known that the churches had been dug from the rock.  But it isn't until you see the churches that you can actually appreciate what had been done.  Imagine a massive lava flow which had cooled down.  Then imagine standing on the cooled rock and digging a church out from underneath you, a church which would be more than 50 metres long and 30 metres wide and almost 20 metres down!  It wasn't that the hole was dug and a church then assembled on top, but the churches were actually carved from that same piece of rock that you had once stood on.  The following day was a journey to a marble church which had been constructed some 80 years prior to the Lalibela churches.  Again, I was positively amazed to find a church that had been built inside a cave near Ethiopia's highest point.  Photos can hardly do it justice, but we were all thrilled to have made the journey over 40km of very very bumpy roads to come and visit this marble church.  

From Lalibela we headed to Axum.  This sounds easy enough.  Not so.  This was our first internal flight in Africa.  It turns out that overlanding, at least in our opinion, is the easiest (and possibly quickest) way to see Africa.  In summary, we took off from Lalibela early morning, flew up to Axum, aborted the landing, returned to Bahir Dar where we had to wait for 4 hours before taking off again for Axum, we had just about landed when the pilot once again aborted and started flying us (back) towards Lalibela.  Once again we had nearly landed when the pilot again pulled up and turned us in the direction of Addis Ababa (a long way south from where we needed to be).  Twenty minutes of circling above the thunder and lightening storm over Addis and we eventually landed at 8.30pm, 12 hours after our departure on what was meant to be a 30 minute flight...  However, a stay in a 4 star hotel courtesy of Ethiopian Airlines smoothed over frustrations and was very much welcomed by all of us.  It would be untrue to say the next day went smoothly, but we did end up in Axum by midday, much to our collective relief.  

Axum once headed up the mighty Axumite empire.  An empire that was on footing with the most powerful in its time (about 1500 years ago).  Axum offers roman-like excavation sites of old temples and palaces.  Axum is perhaps best known for its stelae (obelisks).  Massive 25 metre plus bits of carved rock which are really nothing but gravestones for the Axumite elite.    

Axum obelisks and entrance to underground tombs

Jen at the Queen of Sheba's palace ruins

This UNESCO heritage site is estimated to have more than 70% yet to be unearthed and, unlike probably anywhere else in the world of similar significance, allows tourists to wander almost unimpeded around the sites.  Axum also is rumoured to house the Ark of the Covenant, the box said to contain the tablet of the ten comandments carried down to Axum from Mt Sinai by the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.  We cannot verify this as noone is allowed to actually see the ark, in fact we are not even allowed to look at the fence surrounding the building said to contain the ark.  We also went to visit the ruins of the Queen of Sheba’s palace a little way down the road.  

Excavated tombs in Axum

Axum stalae

We are now in Gondar, North Ethiopia, and tomorrow head for Sudan.  It is a little surreal to think that by tomorrow afternoon it may be as warm as 40 or 50 degrees celcius with no sign of rain!  Ethiopia comes highly recommended with archaeological sites that are on par with the best in the world.  Not without its occasional frustrations, the country is on the whole tourist friendly and excellent value for money.  We would strongly recommend that any African itinerary consider Ethiopia.